An American Turning Point: The Civil War in Virginia - Life on the Virginia Home Front

Life on the Virginia Home Front

"Poor Virginia! … Her women and children are starving and outraged; her servants have run away or been stolen; her fields have been desolated; her towns have been depopulated…. The horrors of war are not all to be found in the battle-field."
— Union Capt. Charles Francis Adams, Jr.

This online resource is an expanded version of the program that is featured in the gallery exhibition. Additional locations and text have been added. Select a region of interest to you, and go to "Learn more about this region." You will find descriptions and photographs of fifteen locations within the four zones of wartime Virginia. Also presented is a sampling of the many rich written accounts that survive about life on the Civil War home front in Virginia. But we’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg. If you want read more, you can start with the bibliography of published sources.

Federal Military Occupation
No-Man's-Land
Confederate Frontier
Confederate Interior

Federal Military Occupation

In the wake of the invasion of Virginia by Union troops in 1861 and 1862, federal garrisons were established in Alexandria, in two towns on the Eastern Shore, in Norfolk and the surrounding region, and in a scattering of towns in the far western counties. Unionists found sanction there, but life was difficult for those secessionists who remained.
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No-Man's-Land

Surrounding the Union garrisons and stretching to the Confederate frontier was a no-man's-land. Many counties in what is now West Virginia, and large parts of northern Virginia and the Tidewater made up this zone. Union occupiers controlled this territory whenever they chose to; in some regions they regularly patrolled it.

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The Confederate Frontier

Placement of the Confederate frontier was determined by decisions in Richmond as to how much territory it could hope to defend. Inevitably, the frontier shifted with the movement of the large armies, but for much of the war it extended the length of the Shenandoah Valley and from Winchester southeast to Fredericksburg and east through parts of the Tidewater.
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The Confederate Interior

The integrity of this region was guaranteed by the path of railroads running through it, west and south, that linked the capital of the Confederacy to the states it served; those transportation routes had to be maintained. Residents in the interior, though largely shielded from the upheaval of Union invasion, were confronted with severe hardships that altered their lives.
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