Markers of History

A word of expla­na­tion about the blog over the next cou­ple of days.

This post will be the only one today, and it will be fol­lowed tomor­row with a spe­cial history-related (but not historical-marker-related) post. On Thursday, I’ll resume look­ing at mark­ers I found on a recent trip to Portsmouth, VA in a mega-post about Fort Nelson Park, which con­tains roughly a dozen mark­ers from Portsmouth’s Path of History, which I’ll com­bine in one post so we don’t have an entire week or two on the his­tory of the Portsmouth Naval Hospital.

Now on to the marker about Collier’s Raid:

State Historical Marker
Virginia Q-8-G
Collier’s Raid

Location: Crawford Pkwy & Washington St, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 23, 2009, 1:55pm

Transcription of marker: A British fleet under Commodore Sir George Collier sailed up the Elizabeth River and shelled Fort Nelson in May 1779, dur­ing the Revolutionary War. A land­ing force of 1,800 infantry­men led by Brig. Gen. Edward Mathew cap­tured the fort on 10 May after a brief resis­tance. The British occu­pied Portsmouth, Gosport, and Norfolk, and burned Suffolk and the Gosport ship­yard. Collier also cap­tured or burned 137 ves­sels in Hampton Roads and dis­man­tled Fort Nelson. The British force then embarked and sailed to New York.

Department of Historic Resources, 1998

My impres­sions: As some­body from out­side the US, from a coun­try that peace­fully moved from colony to coun­try, it takes me aback to think that this was hap­pen­ing in 1779, three years after that “magic” date of 1776. Reading the marker it seems almost ran­dom: the British forces did a lot in this area and then the one cryp­tic sen­tence: The British force then embarked and sailed to New York.

It almost sounds like “Nothing left to destroy here, we might as well move along…want to catch a Broadway show?” This is actu­ally a tan­ta­liz­ing taste to me. That one sen­tence on its own seems so incon­gru­ous that it leaves me want­ing to research what actu­ally hap­pened. WHY did they leave here and sail to New York?

Markeroni sta­tus: Logged.

State Historical Marker
Virginia K-265
Fort Nelson

Location: Crawford Pkwy, west of Court Street, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 23, 2009, 1:50pm

Transcription of marker: On the site of Portsmouth’s Naval Hospital stood Fort Nelson. There, Virginia’s Revolutionary gov­ern­ment late in 1776 con­structed the fort of tim­ber and rammed earth. Three years later, the British fleet com­manded by Admiral Sir George Collier con­fis­cated its artillery and sup­plies and destroyed most of the para­pet. In 1779 – 1781, Lord Cornwallis and General Benedict Arnold occu­pied the fort. It was recon­structed in 1799 of earth lined with brick, fol­low­ing a design by archi­tect B. Henry Latrobe, and aban­doned after the War of 1812. The Confederate gov­ern­ment strength­ened Fort Nelson, but on 10 May 1862 the Union army occu­pied Norfolk and Fort Nelson.

Department of Historic Resources, 1997

My impres­sions: It is some­times inter­est­ing to think about forts that do this, pass­ing from one set of hands to another mul­ti­ple times. It seems that if it wasn’t good enough to pro­tect the other side, why would you want it to save yours? Or is it just the invin­ci­ble assump­tion of the vic­tors that they are supe­rior to the van­quished? Or is a fort only as strong as the peo­ple who defend it?

Markeroni sta­tus: Logged.

I have to admit to a certain…uncertainty about what to feel when I come across his­tory of the American Revolution. I come from a coun­try which was peace­fully granted its gov­er­nance grad­u­ally and peace­fully. Canada doesn’t really have any sto­ries of war­ring with those who gov­erned us (those same Brits). In fact, Canada still looks to the Queen as our head of state, though the posi­tion is almost exclu­sively cer­e­mo­nial today. But when in Rome and all that…

Unknown his­tor­i­cal marker
Revolutionary War at Portsmouth

Note: This marker is of a sim­i­lar form to the Virginia state his­tor­i­cal mark­ers, but is not num­bered and does not appear to list a depart­ment and year, as do all state mark­ers I have seen to date. I hope to inves­ti­gate this side of things fur­ther. Hopefully, if it’s a state marker, it will be listed in my copy of A Guidebook to Virginia’s Historical Markers, cur­rently on its way from Amazon. Otherwise, I may try some of my own research into the place­ment of this marker.

Location: In front of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum, High St & Water St, Portsmouth VA 23704

Visited: June 1, 2009, 1:20pm

Transcription of Marker: In October 1775, Virginia’s last royal gov­er­nor, the Earl of Dunmore, made his head­quar­ters at Gosport, one mile south of here. After his defeat at Great Bridge and the destruc­tion of Norfolk, he entrenched at Hospital Point, one mile north, but was again dri­ven out in May 1776. Portsmouth was again invaded by the British: Sir George Collier in 1779, General Leslie in 1780, the trai­tor Benedict Arnold and General Phillips in 1781. Here, on this Portsmouth water­front in August 1781. Lord Cornwallis embarked his 7000 troops and sailed to Yorktown where he sur­ren­dered to the vic­to­ri­ous American and French forces, 19 October 1781.

My impres­sions: I think that this is one of those that I’m not qual­i­fied to say a whole lot about right now. I know far too lit­tle about the American Revolution and thus lack the frame­work to hang these names and dates on. It doesn’t do much to inspire me to want to learn about it, but I won­der if my reac­tion would be dif­fer­ent if I’d learned about some of this stuff in his­tory class when I was in school.

Markeroni sta­tus: This has not yet been sub­mit­ted to Markeroni, await­ing more infor­ma­tion on the source of the marker (if I can find it) as well as a low­er­ing of the “whelm” level.