Established in 1786, Lynchburg was a thriving commercial center known for its tobacco and manufacturing industries when the Civil War began after the bombardment of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, in April 1861. Lynchburg’s Fair Grounds and Camp Davis immediately began receiving troops for training from all over the South. During the war, the city’s foundries and factories produced munitions, mills ground flour for rations, and railway trains and canal boats transported men and supplies to the front. Citizens made uniforms and musket cartridges and cared for the thousands of sick and wounded soldiers in Lynchburg’s thirty-two military hospitals. Lynchburg escaped destruction when Gen. Jubal A. Early’s Confederate forces repelled Union Gen. David Hunter’s attack in June 1864. After Richmond fell on April 3, 1865, Lynchburg served briefly as the state capital until Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox ended the fighting in Virginia.
