Warwick Court House
Camp in the Wilderness
“The office was full of books and papers. Some very old ones that had been written long before the Revolution by King George’s officers. A guard was over them but I was lucky and got a handful of deeds …. I have one written 1669 …. Shortly after I got mine a stop was put to taking any more.” - Eliza Hunt Rhodes, 2nd Rhode Island.
The building directly in front of you is the 1810 structure known as Warwick Court House. To your right is Warwick County’s Confederate Monument. The monument was erected on May 27, 1909, exactly 48 years after local volunteers had mustered into the Confederate army as the Warwick Beauregards (Co. H, 32nd Virginia Volunteer Infantry).
Warwick County’s seat had been used as a Confederate supply depot until April 5, 1862, when it was occupied by Federal troops. The Union soldiers looted the court house and clerk’s office upon their arrival.
Brig. Gen. Erasmus D. Keyes, USA, established his IV Corps headquarters at Warwick Court House during the Warwick River – Yorktown Siege phase of the Peninsula Campaign, A camp for one of Professor T.S. Lowe’s balloons, the Constitution, was established at Warwick Court House on April 10, 1862. George Armstrong Custer enjoyed the dubious honor of making several ascents in this balloon to observe the nearby Confederate defenses between Lee’s Mill and Dam No. 1.
Another form of interest for the troops was the deployment of “coffee mill guns” (Ager Guns) at Warwick Court House. Several of these weapons were assigned to the 56th New York Volunteers. Priv. Patrick Lyons of the 2nd Rhode Island witnessed an Ager gun go to the front from Warwick Court House and commented that “this kind of gun is capable of being fired very rapidly which gives it the name of the Corn Sheller and is very destructive against a body of infantry.”
Marker is on Old Courthouse Way, on the left when traveling north.
Courtesy hmdb.org
