Ellwood Manor is the
Georgian-style
Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I, George II, Geor ...
home completed by William Jones, formerly in
Spotsylvania County, Virginia
Spotsylvania County is a county in the U.S. state of Virginia. As of the July 2021 estimate, the population was 143,676. Its county seat is Spotsylvania Courthouse.
History
At the time of European encounter, the inhabitants of the area that bec ...
but now in
Orange County, Virginia
Orange County is a county located in the Central Piedmont region of the Commonwealth of Virginia. At the 2020 census, the population was 36,254. Its county seat is Orange. Orange County includes Montpelier, the estate of James Madison, the ...
. For more than a century, it was the center of a large, thriving
plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
not far from the Chancellorsville crossroads on the
Plank Road
A plank road is a road composed of wooden planks or puncheon logs. Plank roads were commonly found in the Canadian province of Ontario as well as the Northeast and Midwest of the United States in the first half of the 19th century. They were oft ...
between
Fredericksburg and
Orange, Virginia
Orange is a town and the county seat of Orange County, Virginia, Orange County, Virginia. The population was 4,721 at the 2010 United States census, 2010 census, representing a 14.5% increase since the 2000 United States census, 2000 census. Orang ...
which is now
Virginia State Route 3
Virginia State Route 3 is a primary state highway in the U.S. state of Virginia that extends from the town of Culpeper south and eastwardly to Gloucester in Virginia's Middle Peninsula region. For many years, a portion was named "Historyland Hi ...
. Not long before the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
, J. Horace Lacy married William Jones' younger daughter and (after litigation) inherited both Ellwood (managed by his brother Beverly Tucker Lacy) and
Chatham Manor
Chatham Manor is a Georgian-style mansion home completed in 1771 by farmer and statesman William Fitzhugh, after about three years of construction, on the Rappahannock River in Stafford County, Virginia, opposite Fredericksburg. It was for mor ...
(in
Stafford County on the other side of Fredericksburg).
During the American Civil War, both Lacy brothers became Confederate officers, and caretakers managed the property when it was not being used by the armies fighting nearby. Confederate forces used Ellwood as a headquarters and then hospital after the
Battle of Chancellorsville
The Battle of Chancellorsville, April 30 – May 6, 1863, was a major battle of the American Civil War (1861–1865), and the principal engagement of the Chancellorsville campaign.
Chancellorsville is known as Lee's "perfect battle" because h ...
in 1863. Chaplain Beverly Tucker Lacy buried General
Stonewall Jackson's arm (amputated after a friendly fire incident which ultimately led to the general's death) in the Jones/Lacy family cemetery at Ellwood. Before the
Battle of the Wilderness
The Battle of the Wilderness was fought on May 5–7, 1864, during the American Civil War. It was the first battle of Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant's 1864 Virginia Overland Campaign against General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Arm ...
the following year (which proved a costly draw for Confederate forces), Union general
Gouverneur K. Warren
Gouverneur Kemble Warren (January 8, 1830 – August 8, 1882) was an American civil engineer and Union Army general during the American Civil War. He is best remembered for arranging the last-minute defense of Little Round Top during the Battle ...
used Ellwood as his headquarters. It later served as a Union hospital during the ultimately successful drive to Richmond. In subsequent years, Ellwood returned to its prior farming use. By modern times, the house became the only structure surviving from the latter battle, and was ultimately donated to the government in 1977 and became part of the same
Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park
Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park is a unit of the National Park Service in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and elsewhere in Spotsylvania County, commemorating four major battles in the American Civil War: Fredericksburg, Chancel ...
as Chatham Manor.
Antebellum and slavery
![Ellwood Manor, VA (2008)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Ellwood_Manor%2C_VA_%282008%29.jpg)
In colonial times, the land was given as a grant to Governor Alexander Spottswood, who did not develop it, but gave his name to the county in which most of the property stood. During the American Revolutionary War, Churchill Jones rose to the rank of Major in the Southern Legion, under the command of "Light-Horse Harry" Lee. After the war, Churchill joined his brother William Jones who had moved to the area known as the Wilderness and begun a farm. Circa 1790, William Jones began building a house which he called Ellwood (as was the surrounding plantation). In 1781 Ellwood hosted troops of the Marquis de Lafayette as he waited for reinforcements from General
Anthony Wayne
Anthony Wayne (January 1, 1745 – December 15, 1796) was an American soldier, officer, statesman, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He adopted a military career at the outset of the American Revolutionary War, where his mil ...
on their way to what became the final campaign at Yorktown. Churchill built Woodville nearby, but in 1806 he acquired
Chatham Manor
Chatham Manor is a Georgian-style mansion home completed in 1771 by farmer and statesman William Fitzhugh, after about three years of construction, on the Rappahannock River in Stafford County, Virginia, opposite Fredericksburg. It was for mor ...
just north of Fredericksburg. According to tradition, "Light-Horse Harry" Lee wrote his wartime memoirs at Ellwood. In 1825, the Marquis de Lafayette visited Ellwood on his triumphal return visit to the United States.
In 1828, after William Jones lost his first wife, the septuagenarian married his former wife's grandniece, 16 year old Lucinda Gordon. They ultimately had a daughter, who was many decades younger than Jones' other surviving daughter, Hannah, who had successively married and survived Williamson and
John Coalter before William died (aged 95) in 1845. He gave Lucinda Ellwood on the condition that she not remarry. However, Lucinda gave Ellwood to their daughter within 2 years so she could remarry, and Betty married J. Horace Lacy. Upon Hannah's death in 1857, Lacy and Hannah's sons from her first marriage contested the provisions in her will freeing more than 90 slaves at Chatham.
In the 1860 census Horace Lacy had owned upwards of 249
slaves
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
as well as about 49,000 acres of land (including roughly 6000 at Chatham), with the vast majority used at Ellwood, depending on the season. Most worked as field hands or house servants, but Lacy also employed skilled tradesmen such as
miller
A miller is a person who operates a Gristmill, mill, a machine to grind a grain (for example corn or wheat) to make flour. Mill (grinding), Milling is among the oldest of human occupations. "Miller", "Milne" and other variants are common surname ...
s,
carpenter
Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, Shipbuilding, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. ...
s, and
blacksmith
A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...
s. Little physical evidence remains to show where slaves lived.
National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...
historians and others continue research, seeking to locate the former slave quarters.
The Civil War
![Ellwood_Family_Cemetery](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Ellwood_Family_Cemetery.jpg)
Before the American Civil War, the educated Lacy brothers from Mississippi (J. Horace Lacy and Beverly Tucker Lacy, possible descendants of Darby Lacy who had tutored in
Prince Edward County, Virginia
Prince Edward County is located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 21,849. Its county seat is Farmville.
History
Formation and county seats
Prince Edward County was formed in the Virginia Colony in ...
before moving to Mississippi) acquired both Virginia properties. An outspoken proponent of slavery, J. Horace Lacy joined the Confederate Army and rose to the rank of major (with service mostly administrative); his brother Beverly Tucker Lacy (a Presbyterian minister) became the chaplain for General
Stonewall Jackson
Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson (January 21, 1824 – May 10, 1863) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, considered one of the best-known Confederate commanders, after Robert E. Lee. He played a prominent role in nearl ...
, whose
amputated arm was buried at Ellwood Plantation. The Lacys left Ellwood in the care of two live-in caretakers, whose Confederate sympathies caused their arrest in 1863, and jailing for some time in Washington, D.C.
Ellwood's strategic site briefly served as Confederate headquarters, and later as the headquarters for Union generals
Gouverneur K. Warren
Gouverneur Kemble Warren (January 8, 1830 – August 8, 1882) was an American civil engineer and Union Army general during the American Civil War. He is best remembered for arranging the last-minute defense of Little Round Top during the Battle ...
and
Ambrose Burnside
Ambrose Everett Burnside (May 23, 1824 – September 13, 1881) was an American army officer and politician who became a senior Union general in the Civil War and three times Governor of Rhode Island, as well as being a successful inventor ...
, as well as major Union hospital during battles for control of the strategic route to the Confederate capital.
Postwar years
By the time the Civil War ended in 1865, both Ellwood and Chatham were desolate and severely damaged. Ellwood was essentially abandoned for eight years, but graves still dotted the grounds. In subsequent years, the Union Burial Corps removed many soldiers' remains from the site. In 1872, the Lacys sold Chatham to pay taxes, but kept Ellwood, where they would live for the next 35 years. Betty Lacy helped found the Ladies Memorial Association of Fredericksburg, establishing the Confederate Cemetery, and her husband traveled and made speeches to raise money. In 1903, a monument was erected to mark the location of
Stonewall Jackson's arm, which has long been the only marked grave in the family cemetery.
Modern era
After Betty Lacy died in 1907, Indiana University law professor Hugh Evander Willis acquired the Ellwood property. It remained in his family until it was donated to the National Park Service in 1971. The NPS accepted the donation in 1977.
Today, the house and surrounding grounds are open to the public with limited hours.
Since 1998, the Friends of Wilderness Battlefield (a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, formed to support the preservation of the historic building and its grounds, has provided additional support for the historic site. Permanent exhibits were added in 2010. The house is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the summer weekends and holidays, and May through October.
See also
*
Battle of Chancellorsville
The Battle of Chancellorsville, April 30 – May 6, 1863, was a major battle of the American Civil War (1861–1865), and the principal engagement of the Chancellorsville campaign.
Chancellorsville is known as Lee's "perfect battle" because h ...
*
Historic houses in Virginia
Many historic houses in Virginia are notable sites. The U.S. state of Virginia was home to many of America's Founding Fathers, four of the first five U.S. presidents, as well as many important figures of the Confederacy. As one of the earliest l ...
References
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Landmarks in Virginia
Historic house museums in Virginia
Virginia in the American Civil War
Plantations in Virginia
American Civil War museums in Virginia
Georgian architecture in Virginia
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia
Houses in Orange County, Virginia
Historic district contributing properties in Virginia
Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park
National Register of Historic Places in Orange County, Virginia