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The historically valuable Egger family property in York County was home to enslaved persons whose actions — as Confederate forced laborers and observers who gave essential information later to Union troops — provided an impetus as a forerunner to the Emancipation Proclamation, a University of Alabama historian believes.
Efforts are underway to save the 250 acres from development and retain the natural, undisturbed woodlands and meadows that were a portion of the Civil War battlefield of the May 5, 1862, Battle of Williamsburg.
Virginia’s Department of Historic Resources recently awarded the American Battlefield Trust a grant of $150,000 in the initial effort to leverage private matching donations to preserve this important part of the Peninsula Campaign of 1862.
Unlike many battle sites that commemorate victories or defeats, the Egger acreage contained an enslaved community that was an asset to both Union and Confederate armies, according to Dr. Glenn David Brasher of the University of Alabama’s history department in a recent email statement.
“As impressed laborers, they constructed many of the fortifications helping the Confederacy to defend itself, but they also provided valuable aid to advancing U.S. troops.”
Brasher contends that the two events — in a single location — “provided considerable support for those who were arguing in the northern press and in the halls of Congress for the necessity of freeing the enslaved.” President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation came eight months later.
“Enslaved persons on the Saunders farm (now Egger land) provided the U.S. army with details about an abandoned redoubt — that they themselves may have helped construct — leading soldiers on an obscure path through the woods to the (fortification).”
Brasher and local historian Drew Gruber stressed that the effort of the enslaved turned the tide of the battle.
“To my knowledge, there is no other preserved tract of land anywhere allowing for this kind of site-specific interpretation of this aspect of emancipation,” said Brasher.
“I implore you to preserve this land as an invaluable and genuinely unique resource for understanding and telling this largely unknown story” of enslaved African Americans in their quest “to win their own liberation,” Brasher added.
The property lies northwest of Interstate 64 near the Humelsine Parkway and adjacent to 65 acres acquired by the American Battlefield Trust in March 2015 from the Anheuser-Busch Foundation.
Mary Koik, director of communications, said the Battlefield Trust has been interested in the Egger property for some time.
“We’ve definitely had a broader vision of what we wanted to do in Williamsburg,” she said, talking about the two plots. "It sometimes takes a long time for the stars to align.
“Every preservation project we pursue is important and we’re very interested in this incredibly historic property,” Koik explained. Staff lawyers routinely negotiate purchase prices and other issues.
“We truly look forward to announcing an active fund raising project (for the Egger property) down the line.”
The land would be one of the largest battlefield tracts that has become available to the trust in recent years, she added.
On Nov. 3 Gruber walked over a portion of the Battlefield Trust’s land, but did not go on the Egger property “because the family does not want people around it.” He pointed out elements of the Williamsburg battle that pitted more than 40,000 Union troop against nearly 32,000 Confederates. Accounts vary, but it is believed that nearly 4,000 soldiers died during the day-long conflict.
Gruber characterized the encounter as being fraught by relentless rain. Pointing to the Egger land he said, “that is where the Union troops pushed the left flank of the Confederate’s position. About a half dozen slaves went to the Union headquarters and told them the earthworks near Jones Mill Pond had been abandoned.”
Today, the land is full of trees and brush, but at that time the site had farms with “patchwork buildings popping out of rolling fields of wheat and other crops,” Gruber explained.
Federal Brig. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock was directed to verify the African Americans' claims.
Point down a narrow pathway, still visible on the upper bank of the pond, Gruber said, “this is where Hancock marched.” The Colonial Parkway, owned by the National Park Service, currently runs over the pond’s dam where Hancock crossed, discovering on the other side the abandoned redoubt.
Suddenly Hancock realized the Confederates had pulled back and he had now turned their flank. He set up artillery in barns, farmhouses and slave quarters," Gruber outlined, “and began shelling Fort Magruder,” the large redoubt in the center of the line, where most of the earlier day’s action had transpired.
Realizing the threat to the left, Confederates moved to counterattack with troops from the 24th Virginia infantry and the 5th North Carolina infantry leading a ferocious encounter. In it, Confederate Brig. Gen. Jubal Early was wounded.
The results were inconclusive, but at the end of the day, Confederates were able to resume their withdrawal toward Richmond after abandoning their earlier entrenchments at Yorktown.
Significant colonial history has dominated the Williamsburg area through the years since it was capital of the Virginia colony.
Williamsburg historian and research specialist Carson O. Hudson explained in a recent interview that the Egger land was occupied in the 17th century and called “Fouace’s Quarter” after its owner, the Rev. Stephen Fouace, rector of nearby York Parish and later clerk of records for the colony. He also was one of the original trustees and an early rector of the College of William & Mary.
The land had been under cultivation from the 17th century, Hudson explained, with slaves producing tobacco, wheat, corn, dairy products and cider on the property.
“It is very possible that remains of slave quarters still exist in the ground, since it is archaeologically pristine,” he added.
It also is possible that graves of the enslaved are there along with dead Union and Confederate soldiers, who probably were buried where they fell.
Hudson declared: “This parcel of land contains an impressive amount of Virginia’s social, ethnic and military history. It was traversed by Native Americans, toiled upon by enslaved persons, fought over by military forces, and the grave site of many. … (That) makes it as sacred a piece of ground as any National Battlefield Park or cemetery.”
Efforts are underway to save the 250 acres from development and retain the natural, undisturbed woodlands and meadows that were a portion of the Civil War battlefield of the May 5, 1862, Battle of Williamsburg.
Virginia’s Department of Historic Resources recently awarded the American Battlefield Trust a grant of $150,000 in the initial effort to leverage private matching donations to preserve this important part of the Peninsula Campaign of 1862.
Unlike many battle sites that commemorate victories or defeats, the Egger acreage contained an enslaved community that was an asset to both Union and Confederate armies, according to Dr. Glenn David Brasher of the University of Alabama’s history department in a recent email statement.
“As impressed laborers, they constructed many of the fortifications helping the Confederacy to defend itself, but they also provided valuable aid to advancing U.S. troops.”
Brasher contends that the two events — in a single location — “provided considerable support for those who were arguing in the northern press and in the halls of Congress for the necessity of freeing the enslaved.” President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation came eight months later.
“Enslaved persons on the Saunders farm (now Egger land) provided the U.S. army with details about an abandoned redoubt — that they themselves may have helped construct — leading soldiers on an obscure path through the woods to the (fortification).”
Brasher and local historian Drew Gruber stressed that the effort of the enslaved turned the tide of the battle.
“To my knowledge, there is no other preserved tract of land anywhere allowing for this kind of site-specific interpretation of this aspect of emancipation,” said Brasher.
“I implore you to preserve this land as an invaluable and genuinely unique resource for understanding and telling this largely unknown story” of enslaved African Americans in their quest “to win their own liberation,” Brasher added.
The property lies northwest of Interstate 64 near the Humelsine Parkway and adjacent to 65 acres acquired by the American Battlefield Trust in March 2015 from the Anheuser-Busch Foundation.
Mary Koik, director of communications, said the Battlefield Trust has been interested in the Egger property for some time.
“We’ve definitely had a broader vision of what we wanted to do in Williamsburg,” she said, talking about the two plots. "It sometimes takes a long time for the stars to align.
“Every preservation project we pursue is important and we’re very interested in this incredibly historic property,” Koik explained. Staff lawyers routinely negotiate purchase prices and other issues.
“We truly look forward to announcing an active fund raising project (for the Egger property) down the line.”
The land would be one of the largest battlefield tracts that has become available to the trust in recent years, she added.
On Nov. 3 Gruber walked over a portion of the Battlefield Trust’s land, but did not go on the Egger property “because the family does not want people around it.” He pointed out elements of the Williamsburg battle that pitted more than 40,000 Union troop against nearly 32,000 Confederates. Accounts vary, but it is believed that nearly 4,000 soldiers died during the day-long conflict.
Gruber characterized the encounter as being fraught by relentless rain. Pointing to the Egger land he said, “that is where the Union troops pushed the left flank of the Confederate’s position. About a half dozen slaves went to the Union headquarters and told them the earthworks near Jones Mill Pond had been abandoned.”
Today, the land is full of trees and brush, but at that time the site had farms with “patchwork buildings popping out of rolling fields of wheat and other crops,” Gruber explained.
Federal Brig. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock was directed to verify the African Americans' claims.
Point down a narrow pathway, still visible on the upper bank of the pond, Gruber said, “this is where Hancock marched.” The Colonial Parkway, owned by the National Park Service, currently runs over the pond’s dam where Hancock crossed, discovering on the other side the abandoned redoubt.
Suddenly Hancock realized the Confederates had pulled back and he had now turned their flank. He set up artillery in barns, farmhouses and slave quarters," Gruber outlined, “and began shelling Fort Magruder,” the large redoubt in the center of the line, where most of the earlier day’s action had transpired.
Realizing the threat to the left, Confederates moved to counterattack with troops from the 24th Virginia infantry and the 5th North Carolina infantry leading a ferocious encounter. In it, Confederate Brig. Gen. Jubal Early was wounded.
The results were inconclusive, but at the end of the day, Confederates were able to resume their withdrawal toward Richmond after abandoning their earlier entrenchments at Yorktown.
Significant colonial history has dominated the Williamsburg area through the years since it was capital of the Virginia colony.
Williamsburg historian and research specialist Carson O. Hudson explained in a recent interview that the Egger land was occupied in the 17th century and called “Fouace’s Quarter” after its owner, the Rev. Stephen Fouace, rector of nearby York Parish and later clerk of records for the colony. He also was one of the original trustees and an early rector of the College of William & Mary.
The land had been under cultivation from the 17th century, Hudson explained, with slaves producing tobacco, wheat, corn, dairy products and cider on the property.
“It is very possible that remains of slave quarters still exist in the ground, since it is archaeologically pristine,” he added.
It also is possible that graves of the enslaved are there along with dead Union and Confederate soldiers, who probably were buried where they fell.
Hudson declared: “This parcel of land contains an impressive amount of Virginia’s social, ethnic and military history. It was traversed by Native Americans, toiled upon by enslaved persons, fought over by military forces, and the grave site of many. … (That) makes it as sacred a piece of ground as any National Battlefield Park or cemetery.”
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