Dunlop Station

Dunlop Station on the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad stood on the southern boundary of David Dunlop's Ellerslie estate. During the siege of Petersburg, from June 1864 to April 1865, a military rail spur completed in March 1865 extended southwest from here to a Confederate quartermaster depot at Ettrick, making the site an important railroad junction and allowing trains to avoid Federal shelling of the main line to Petersburg, two miles south. Passenger trains stopped here so occupants could walk to Petersburg on the safer Richmond Turnpike several hundred yards west, though some travelers still walked along the tracks. On June 30, 1864, Confederate President Jefferson Davis disembarked here before proceeding to Gen. Robert E. Lee's headquarters at Violet Bank, two miles south. On April 2, 1865, after the Battle of Five Forks, Confederates moved ammunition here while preparing to evacuate Petersburg, then destroyed the stockpile along with surplus food and clothing. A Confederate soldier recalled that "the great sheds and long trains of cars" burned in the dark night, lit by the distant glow of fires in Richmond. Despite warnings from Confederate officers, civilian refugees from Petersburg climbed into the burning cars to scavenge for food and clothing. As one soldier wrote, "As we left, the cars of ammunition began to explode, and we could see women and children blow about in every direction. ... The air was filled with burning cartridges like shooting stars." Even amid the evacuation crisis, Lee allowed his adjutant, Col. Walter Taylor, to board the last ambulance train to Richmond here so he could marry his long-time sweetheart, Bettie Saunders, and Taylor rejoined Lee before the surrender at Appomattox Court House.

Colonial Heights, Virginia · United States