Must-see Richmond history

State Capitol. Designed by Thomas Jefferson, this was the first legislative building in America to symbolically connect the architecture of a Roman temple with the United States’ republican form of government. Like many Jeffersonian buildings, it holds surprises inside, such as an impressive interior dome that’s invisible from the outside. Pause beneath the dome to admire George Washington in marble, sculpted from life by Jean-Antoine Houdon. During the Civil War, the Capitol was also the legislative headquarters of the Confederacy. Use Capitol Square as a starting point for exploring the city’s Civil War past by downloading walking tour podcasts at www.civilwartraveler.com. Recognize the struggles and triumphs of civil rights at the square’s most recent monument, the Virginia Civil Rights Memorial.

Civil War Central. The turbulent war years are the sole focus of two Civil War attractions by the river, as well as the Museum and White House of the Confederacy in Court End. At riverside, where Tredegar Iron Works forged cannons for the Confederacy, two historic buildings are home to the Richmond National Battlefield Park Civil War Visitor Center and the American Civil War Center. They have joined forces with the Richmond Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau to create a Richmond Gateway to the Civil War. The free National Park center helps visitors find their way to battlefields along the eastern and northern edges of the region. The American Civil War Center interprets the war from three perspectives: Union, Confederate and African American. The Museum and White House of the Confederacy showcase the world’s largest collection of Confederate artifacts and the restored wartime home of the Confederate president to tell about personal tragedies as well as the tragedies of a nation torn apart. A Richmond Civil War Pass includes admission to all three.

Adjacent to Capitol Square, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church marks the pews where Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and Confederate President Jefferson Davis worshipped. Just west of downtown, Hollywood Cemetery holds the Confederate president’s tomb as well as the tombs of U.S. Presidents James Monroe and John Tyler and a 90-foot pyramid honoring 18,000 Confederate soldiers.

Monument Avenue. Richmond’s grand boulevard, now a National Historic Landmark, was built around statues of Confederate heroes Robert E. Lee, Jeb Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis and Matthew Fontaine Maury. The street changed its symbolism in 1996 with the addition of a statue honoring Richmond-born African-American tennis star and humanitarian Arthur Ashe.

       
St. John's Church. Revolutionary War Richmond comes to life in the re-enactment of Patrick Henry’s impassioned speech. While Philadelphia has the Liberty Bell, Richmond can claim his reverberating call of “Give me liberty or give me death.” You can follow more of Patrick Henry’s path on a Road to Revolution driving tour to see his birthplace, workplace and home in Hanover County.

James River and Kanawha Canal. George Washington’s dream of a far-reaching canal system could be considered a 1700s version of our interstate highway system. At the Canal Turning Basin, you can see a map of how far it went and some reminders of the commerce it carried. Children will want to climb inside the model of a box used by a slave named Henry Brown to ship himself to freedom. Take a canal boat ride to get a water’s edge view of downtown. Walk across the suspended pedestrian bridge to Belle Isle, once home of a notorious Civil War prison, to see some of the rapids that made the canals necessary and now offer whitewater thrills for rafters and kayakers.

Reconciliation statue. Freedom, as defined by Patrick Henry and the other Founding Fathers, omitted a large swath of the population, African-American slaves. The Reconciliation statue — along with its counterparts in Liverpool, England, and Benin in West Africa — memorializes the triangular trade route bringing slaves to America and commodities to Europe. In the years immediately before the Civil War, when imports of slaves had been banned, Richmond had the second-largest domestic slave market in the nation, after New Orleans. The blocks immediately east of the Reconciliation statue held many slave markets. To follow in the footsteps of slaves, walk the Slave Trail to Ancarrow’s Landing, a place where some slaves boarded ships that took them forever away from family and home.

The Big Story. The Virginia Historical Society and Valentine Richmond History Center put the city and the war in context. Don’t miss the Valentine exhibition “An American Turning Point,” which opens Feb. 4 as the signature exhibition of the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission.

Henricus. Four years after Jamestown became the first permanent English foothold in America, English settlers created a second community at Henricus in 1611 — a full decade before the Mayflower and its Pilgrims reached Plymouth. The reconstructed village, which included the nation’s first English hospital and had a charter for its first college, is about a half-hour drive from the city center. For a downtown brush with the 1600s, find the cross in Shockoe Slip that marks an English scouting expedition from Jamestown in 1607.