This post, which is also open for comments, covers the tour offered in New Kent County (link to this year’s guidebook). There are three properties of interest here: the New Kent Ordinary; a home in Slatersville; and finally, the property I am most interested in the Cumberland Estate the site of Cumberland Landing a camp site for McClellan’s Army of the Potomac during the Peninsula Campaign where multiple Civil War era photographs were taken.

The New Kent Ordinary– From the brochure- The tavern and dining room are located in the English basement. The brick floored room is 50 feet long with fireplaces at each end. A veranda, located over the tavern entrance, and three roof dormers were added later. It was a stop on the Richmond-Williamsburg stage route. The Ordinary played a part in the Revolutionary and Civil wars, generals and messengers were housed there and dined on sturgeon and shad. General George B. McClellan used the building as a communications headquarters during the Civil War. Both Confederate and Union soldiers camped at the Ordinary, it was also used as a hospital. Above the tavern are formal living and dining rooms, along with five beds and baths.

Cumberland Estate and the Civil War.

From the National Register of Historic Places application– Mr. Toler, the owner, was a Secessionist. He firmly believed that foreign intervention would end the war. It was upon this man’s extensive plantation that the Federal army encamped whilst at Cumberland. Upon the approach of the Union troops, Mr. Toler’s negroes [sic], with the exception of a few women and children, all disappeared. They were doubtless among the commissary gangs at the White House. The Toler house was much decayed, and was a poor representative of Virginia mansions (Cook 1862:168). Cook details that when the Confederate Army evacuated Yorktown, a portion retreated up the York and Pamunkey Rivers and continued to give the Union troops battle at West Point and Williamsburg (Cook 1862:86). Once General McClellan found that the Confederates meant to gain the Chickahominy River and then intended to continue to Richmond, he began to move the entire army swiftly up the roads of the Peninsula and settled camp at Cumberland. However, the baggage train took longer to get to the camp due to misguided directions leading it instead towards the Confederate lines. Once there, Cook describes that “by ascending the hill to the southeast [of the dwelling], observers had a complete view of the largest encampment ever to form upon the continent” (Cook 1862:88). In a book of photographs of the Civil War compiled by Alexander Gardner with “many of the most graphic and memorable Civil War images that have come down to us” are several images of the “Camp at Cumberland Landing, on the Pamunkey” (Gardner 1865). These photographs were taken by James F. Gibson and include not only scenes of the encampment and the soldiers occupying it, but also a number of enslaved people situated in front of one of their quarters (Figure 4).

One image, in particular, shows division after division of soldiers being inspected at Cumberland with white tents in the foreground. Another photo taken by Gibson shows groupings of white tents situated in front of the main dwelling of Cumberland (Figure 5).

At Cumberland Landing, one of the most magnificent spectacles ever seen in the army was presented, when the combined forces, massed upon the bank of the river, converted to the barren fields, as if by magic, into an immense city of tents. From the hill above Toller’s [sic] house the scene was truly grand. Division after division, closely compacted, they stretched away, until, in the distance, the white tents were mere specks against the dark frame of woods. On one side the slow Pamunkey, like a mirror, reflected the immense fleet of transports, with their convoy of gunboats. Winding among the tents, long strings of animals were continually passing to drink of its brackish waters. Along the shore piers formed of barges, side by side, were thronged by commissaries and their assistants, while strong arms rapidly discharged the cargoes of meat and bread into the waiting wagons. Prominent in the picture was the camp of General McClellan’s headquarters, which had just narrowly escaped capture, through taking a wrong direction. Our picture, interesting as it is, gives but a small portion of the gorgeous whole. The prominent object is a mud-bespattered forge, the knapsacks and blankets of the farriers carelessly thrown on the ground beneath. In the middle-ground are some mules picketed around the wagons, hard-working, much-abused creatures, and so humorous in their antics that they were often termed the comedians of the army. Farther on, a guard, their muskets stacked and knapsacks laying around. Past these, a cook sitting on a mess chest, close to the ashes of his fire, near which are the camp-kettles and a pile of firewood. On the edge of the wood the Fifth New York Volunteers, Warren’s Zouaves, have encamped, and in front of them a regiment of infantry are drawn up in column of companies. As these are formed in open order, it is most likely that they are on inspection drill. Such pictures carry one into the very life of camp, and are particularly interesting now that that life has almost passed away (Gardner 1865).

A personal narrative written by Francis Colburn Adams, a published author, details his early war experiences with the 1st New York Cavalry (the “Lincoln Cavalry”) in his book The Story of a Trooper: With Much Interest Concerning the Campaign on the Peninsula (Adams 1865). Adams described how the troops set up camp from the crossroads to “Toller’s farm” at Cumberland Landing and spread south and west. Henry Toler, as described by Adams, was an “errant rebel” who wanted to take Virginia out of the Union and sent his enslaved laborers to work on Confederate fortifications at Yorktown and Williamsburg. However, Adams states that Toler wanted his property protected; and therefore was warned to treat the enslaved workers who remained at Cumberland properly and obey the new order of authority that ruled on his plantation while the Federal Army were encamped there (Adams 1865:446). In the same narrative, Adams described Susan Toler in a different light. He claimed she exhibited more courage and independence of spirit and when rebuked for her cruel actions towards the enslaved African Americans at the property, she responded that, “this was her plantation, and these slaves on it were her private property, and she would not have her authority interfered with” (Adams 1865:448). Susan Toler continued with demands of protection not only of her house, gardens, and cabins, but to preserve her enslaved workforce by demanding the soldiers “to keep what slaves there were left from running away.” She also levied threats of a heavy bill of damages for destroying her private property. No evidence of the Tolers’ claim of damages from the Civil War were found during a search through records, but Adams stated that the plantation had a variety of livestock and vegetables to sell to the troops including turkeys, pigs, chickens, ham, eggs, and bacon.

Additional Civil War era photographs taken at Cumberland Landing by James Gibson

People

The house was extensively remodeled in the 1930s with the creation of the brick wings and the new front porch. The red dot marks the approximate location where the above picture was shot looking toward the entry way.

The camp

The next two images were taken from the same location at slightly different times.

The next four images appear to be sequential left to right and show soldiers on a hill.

The soldiers on a hill images were shot from near the location shown in the picture below (perhaps a little further back and to the right) from the estate website on the hill in back of the home. The pond is a post war structure.

Slatersville- 13580 Stage Road

The skirmish/action at Slatersville is described at this link.