The Forgotten Stories of Civil War Williamsburg

Thanks to generous donations during Give Local 757 in 2021, the Williamsburg Battlefield Association has been able to create a short-video series to tell the forgotten stories of Civil War Williamsburg. Each year thousands of visitors come to Colonial Williamsburg to see the recreated 18th-century town where George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other Founding Fathers walked, spoke, thought, and wrote. All the while, they are unaware that the same town also experienced a Civil War battle, raids, spies, and a prolonged Federal occupation. There are as many stories of Williamsburg during the 1860s as the 1760s. What happened in Williamsburg in the 1860s was a microcosm of what was happening across the nation. Williamsburg experienced patriotism and sacrifice, bravery and cowardice, love and hate, slavery and emancipation. These stories also have a place in defining our nation, and it’s time they were told. Click on the thumbnails below to hear them.