Years after the Williamsburg barracks were burned, former Continental Army soldier Spencer Davis, of Virginia, recalled seeing the glow from the blaze in the distance.
This month, archaeologists with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation revealed that they had discovered the site where the barracks once stood and that a new building project planned for the area had adjusted its footprint to preserve the spot for archaeology.
“It worked out best for everybody,” said Andrew O. Trivette, chair of the Historic Triangle Recreational Facilities Authority, which plans to build a large indoor sports facility adjacent to the site. The authority agreed to move the project 300 feet out of the way.
“Any time that you disturb the earth in the city of Williamsburg, there’s always the possibility that you’re going to stumble into an archaeological site or something that you didn’t expect,” he said in an interview Wednesday.
Last year, as planning for the project was underway, archaeologists began checking old records to see if any buried artifacts might be impacted by the work. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation owns the land and is leasing it to the project.
“We realized there are a lot of maps and documentation that suggest there is a barracks that was constructed in 1776 somewhere in this area,” Jack Gary, the head of archaeology at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, said in an interview.
The facility is drawn on several maps made by cartographers with the French army, which was aiding American forces in the fight against the British for independence.
“Not all that much is known about it, other than it was used to house troops and it was burned in 1781 by the English on their way to Yorktown,” he said.
Years later, in a pension application, Spencer recounted what happened at the barracks where some of the soldiers were staying.
“We were driven off by a party of British under Tarleton, who came on us in the night & beat up our quarters,” he remembered. “There was some little fighting & two of my acquaintances … [were] killed. The Americans retreated about nine miles that night, & saw the light from the conflagration of the Barracks.”
Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton, a British cavalry commander, had been raiding the countryside and destroying anything of use to the Americans. The historical record of his potential involvement in the burning is not clear. But he had a reputation for ruthlessness and was accused after one battle of killing Americans as they surrendered, according to the National Park Service.
The construction of the barracks had been ordered by Virginia in August 1776. “The declaration is barely signed, and Virginia is ready,” Gary said. “It’s off and running.”
Ashley McCuistion, a lead archaeologist with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, said in an interview that they were among the first military installations built under the new American state.
“These barracks were the first continental barracks in Virginia,” she said. “This all happens immediately after independence is declared and we start forming this American government.”
The complex was ordered to be built on land that had been used by the British royal governor.
“Virginia had seized the governor’s palace and had seized all the royal governor’s land, and now they were turning it over to be used by the military,” Gary said.
The barracks was to be large enough to hold 2,000 troops and 100 horses. “But I would be surprised if it ever held 2,000 troops,” he said. “It’s used off and on.”
In October 1777, a parade in honor of the American victory at Saratoga that month began at the barracks.
“The officers will see that the men shall be clean, shaved, their hats cocked, their arms and accouterments in good order,” a commander decreed, according to a report in the Virginia Gazette. “A gill of rum will be issued to every soldier in evidence of the governor’s hearty congratulation with them on this occasion.”
On Oct. 19, 1781, a few months after the barracks burned, the British army under Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis would be trapped at Yorktown and surrender to a combined American and French force under George Washington, essentially ending the war.
Gary said he had not previously done any archaeological work in the area around the site. “The proposed development of the sports complex spurred us on,” he said. He and his team began digging small test pits to see what turned up.
“We started finding tons and tons of brick,” he said. “Then we hit an intact chimney base. … Then we hit another one. … Boom, we hit another one. So we’ve found at least three individual chimney bases.”
He said only the fireplaces and chimneys were probably made of brick. The rest of the structures were probably wood.
He said he believes the barracks were made up of several independent buildings, rather than one large structure. “It’s almost like cabins,” he said.
The excavation also found lead shot, the stems of several clay smoking pipes, small gun parts, a horseshoe, a 250-year-old Virginia half penny, a buckle and a piece of gunflint.
One piece of shot had a tooth mark on it where someone had gnawed it for pleasure, not an uncommon colonial practice, Gary said. “Soldiers would chew on the shot,” he said. “It’s soft, kind of sweet tasting.”
“It all pointed to, ‘Okay, this is it,’” he said. “This is the barracks.”
He said he and his team told the sports project authority: “You can’t put your building here.”
“Working together, we figured a way to essentially push the footprint of the building 300 feet off of the site,” he said. “So the site is now preserved.”
Plans are to return to the spot in two years — after the sports complex is completed — “and do a full intensive excavation,” he said.
“We’ve really just scratched the surface,” he said. “There’s so much more out there.”
