On the night of April 18, 1861, as Virginia had just seceded from the United States and Virginia militiamen advanced on the armory, vastly outnumbered U.S. soldiers, unable to defend it, set fire to the Carpenter shop and grinding mill, Stocking shop, and the two arsenals, and the resulting blaze consumed most of the 15,000 rifles stored there, leaving the buildings a "perfect heap of ruins." After the Federals retreated, the Virginia Militia stripped the armory of its valuable machinery, and although an armory worker lamented that "Our armory is burnt and we have no money and no nothing else," the armory never operated again. Civil War-era artifacts excavated here also reveal heavy use of the site by U.S. soldiers throughout the war, including an eagle breast plate, bullets, uniform insignia, a U.S. buckle, and a bugle mouthpiece.
