Photo of Ruins of West Advance Building, Governor’s Palace.
D.H. Anderson, photographer, Dovell Collection

AV-2009.15

This post-war photo of Williamsburg documents the destruction to property that occurred during the town’s occupation by Union troops. At the start of the Civil War, the East and West Advance Buildings were all that remained of the once stately Governor’s Palace, which burned in 1781. Union troops eventually pillaged both buildings for their materials, as bricks were in demand for constructing fortifications. Williamsburg resident Cynthia Beverley Tucker Coleman noted in a letter that although Union Colonel Morrison promised to preserve them, “…in less than two hours his emissaries were at work and soon there was ‘not one stone left upon another.’”

The building was used as a residence by the 1850's and in 1862 Cynthia Coleman's mother-in-law and sister-in-law were living in the house. They evacuated immediately after the Battle of Williamsburg, but Cynthia Tucker Coleman remained with her mother to protect the Tucker House. In June 1862, Cynthia Coleman wrote to her sister-in-law to tell her "that their house and lot were nearly destroyed, the furniture ruined and every thing that had been left locked was broken open".

Civil War