During most of the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, Charles City County lay between the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia protecting Richmond and the Union Army of the Potomac occupying the Lower Peninsula, and Charles City Courthouse passed in and out of the hands of both armies more than once. When Union forces evacuated Harrison’s Landing in August 1862, more than 60,000 men marched past Charles City Courthouse on their way to Williamsburg, and souvenir seekers rummaged through old records in the clerk’s office, carrying some off and destroying others. Charles City Courthouse fell into Union hands again in June 1864 when Gen. Grant moved 115,000 men across the county and the James River in a lightning-swift assault on Petersburg. By the time of this occupation, the tavern and other buildings had been burned. Early on the morning of Sunday, December 13, 1863, G.W. Jones and eighty-nine other members of the 24th Virginia Cavalry were captured there in a surprise attack, and one of the captives turned out to be a woman whom Union soldiers said fought as well as the men.
