The Wolff's Tale: Pamplin Historical Park

After our time in Maryland we drove down to Richmond where we stayed with Amy's parents for the rest of the week. While there we had the opportunity to visit a local historical park that was running a deal on admission tickets. Pamplin Historical Park is a privately held park that preserves some earthworks from the Battle of Richmond and has an extensive museum of the Civil War as well.

What began in 1991 as an effort to preserve a threatened Civil War battlefield near Petersburg, Virginia, has evolved into one of America’s finest history and heritage travel destinations.

Pamplin Historical Park & The National Museum of the Civil War Soldier is a 424-acre historical campus that features world-class museums, antebellum homes, a National Historic Landmark Civil War battlefield, a slave life exhibit, educational programs, and special events. It has been called “the new crown jewel of Civil War sites in America” by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James M. McPherson of Princeton University.
--from Pamplin Park website

When you arrive at the parking lot you can see an informative map of the entire park. As you can see here the area is quite large. You can also view the map online.

We first walked up to the museum entrance so that we could purchase our admission tickets.

Inside the lobby is a large map of the United States during the Civil War.

No photography was allowed inside the exhibit galleries so I only have a photograph of the hallway outside the galleries, but the exhibits were well done from what I remember. And we were all given audio tours that we were able to use at various points during the tour to hear more information. The kids really enjoyed listening to the audio.

Once we left the exhibits we headed towards the outside exhibit area.

Once we got to the end of the first segment of the path we had a choice about which way to go.

We first turned to the right to see Tudor Hall. This house was apparently the home occupied by the ancestors of the Pamplins that bought the land for the park.

Inside the basement of the house was an exhibit about the house and its history.

Some scale models even showed what the area would have looked like during the war.

One portion of the exhibit also told the history of the years after the war and what happened during the restoration that started in 1995.

Upstairs the various rooms of the house showed what they looked like when Confederate troops occupied the farm during the fighting. According to the signage none of the objects displayed are original to the house. The furniture are period but the uniforms and accessories are reproductions.

The sitting room.

The carpet on the stairs was secured so that you weren't likely to trip on it.

The bed was probably made in Virginia in the early 1800s, though the canopy and rails are modern.

This represents an office used by a Lieutenant Caldwell.

This was the officers' sleeping quarters.

Once back outside we looked at the barn and tool shed.

The tool shed included many different woodworking tools.
"Unlike Americans today, the inhabitants of Tudor Hall lived in a world of wood. The tools in this room shaped the plantation landscape and ensured its continued operation."
--from exhibit signage

The kitchen and servants hall was also furnished and was "typical of slave quarters built on Virginia plantations during the 1840s and 1850s. Each side provided space for one slave family, with a room downstairs for living and working and a loft for sleeping. The right side served as the plantation kitchen."

There was also a tobacco barn.

They even had tobacco hanging inside.

Going back to the path we crossed over to the other side towards the field quarters. The first building contained a detailed exhibit and video about slavery.

The video was told from the perspective of six different individuals, some representing characters opposed to slavery and some in favor. I think it did a good job of explaining the various perspectives. While a certain character (as an accurate reflection of people of the time) painted slavery as a benevolent institution the exhibits did not present such a distorted perspective as fact. All in all it was a good discussion of this challenging issue. I think the signage explains the video well in a panel that appears directly above the image I've included below:
Slavery in America: viewpoints of the 1850s
During the 1850s, Americans expressed a wide range of feelings about the existence of slavery in the fifteen states where it was legal, and the future of slavery in the territories waiting to become states. Slavery was a complex economic and social system. Some Americans fiercely defended it. Others bitterly opposed it. Many had mixed emotions.

The six characters in this film are fictional, but their viewpoints on slavery are historically accurate. What they have to say is representative of what real people like them felt and said, although there were exceptions to each perspective you will hear.

The one thing they share in common is that their opinions--and their vocabulary--were products of THEIR era, not ours, and may be shocking, or even offensive to us. But, if you judge what they have to say in the context of the 1850s, not by the standards of the twenty-first century, you will gain a greater insight into an issue that helped rip our country apart six generations ago, and whose legacy continues to challenge modern America.
--from exhibit signage

The area also included a garden.

After leaving the field quarters we headed towards the military portion of the outside exhibits.

The first exhibit we came to was a large reproduction of Civil War area earthen fortifications. I'm quite accustomed to seeing what earthworks look like today, covered in neatly manicured grass in National Park sites, so it was very instructive to see what they might have looked like then the turned up earth was still fresh. Most of the dirt for the earthen parapet on the left would have come out of the ditch in front of it.

Fences and other obstacles made of wood would have served to hamper the advance of enemy soldiers.

These logs formed the revetment that held the dirt in place as it was mounded up from the ditch being excavated. The artillery also had wooden platforms to prevent the heavy guns from sinking into the dirt.

Once past the fortification exhibit we came to the battlefield center.

Beyond this building were the Confederate winter quarters huts that had been constructed to show how the soldiers wintered near the actual fortifications.