Virginia History

This interview with Mr. & Mrs. Gordon Hilldrup was conducted on April 2, 2000, by Christine Walsh. This interview is a project of the Spotsylvania Preservation Foundation.

This interview with Eugene Buck Brumley was conducted on July 31, 2000, by Christine Walsh. This interview is a project of the Spotsylvania Preservation Foundation.

This interview with Agnes Whitlock was conducted on September 24, 2000, by Christine Walsh. This interview is a project of the Spotsylvania Preservation Foundation.

This interview with Hallie Rowley Sale was conducted on August 11, 2003, by Christine Walsh. This interview is a project of the Spotsylvania Preservation Foundation.

One hundred and forty-seven years ago, lines of blue advanced on a hillside near the outskirts of Fredericksburg. Those heights were manned by gray-uniformed soldiers, powerfully well-armed and rather surprised that the Union commander should send wave after wave of troops into their maelstrom of cannon and rifle fire. What followed was a slaughter about which Confederate General Robert E. Lee said, "It is well that war is so terrible...we should grow too fond of it."

In 1873, a steamboat loaded with passengers, livestock and produce caught fire and sank on the Potomac River near Aquia Creek. Traveling from Washington, the overloaded vessel carried three times more people than allowed by its license, and the engulfing flames and churning waters claimed 76 passengers, most of them women and children. A new book, Disaster on the Potomac: The Last Run of the Steamboat Wawaset, by Alvin Oickle, gives the details of that terrible day.

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Stafford County was the southernmost part of the Union occupation of Virginia for much of the Civil War and as such it drew all sorts of characters to its farmlands and creeksides. General Daniel Sickles--described by his contemporaries and historians as a scoundrel, murderer, rapscallion, rogue, and adulterer--took charge of the 2nd Brigade of Hooker's Division, Army of the Potomac. He enjoyed scouting the enemy by hot air balloon and held extravagant parties for his officers while in Stafford.

The Pilgrims get the fame for their feast in New England, but two years prior on December 4, 1619, thirty-eight Virginians at Berkeley Hundred celebrated “a day of thanksgiving’ to God as required by their charter: