A humorous take on the War of 1812: Robert Carter Burwell, the man who built Long Branch and Captain of the 51st Regiment of the Virginia Militia, fought and died in the War of 1812. Unlike the soldiers in College Humor’s video, Burwell knew why and against whom he was fighting, but if you are […]
Long Branch Plantation is nestled at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in the Shenandoah Valley (named for the Shenandoah River which flows through the valley). Long before the English came to settle Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley and surrounding regions had been home to various Native American tribes for twelve thousand years. These tribes […]
Early in the year of 1861, Adelaide Nelson was required to contact her insurance agent over the matter a fire which had consumed Long Branch’s greenhouse while Hugh Nelson, her husband, was off at war. Little did she know that her involvement with this “man’s work” would only be the first in a line of […]
Long Branch Plantation was lucky to have escaped much of the physical damage of the war. Apart from an individual account that a field was burned, the evidence shows that the estate remained unscathed. Most homesteads weren’t so fortunate. Many estates in the Shenandoah Valley were looted by both Union and Confederate soldiers for food […]
With so many men enlisting in the armed forces after the attack on Pearl Harbor, American manufacturers turned to women to fill gaps left in the workforce. Women became factory workers and assisted in the production of arms, airplanes, and tanks, among other things. In addition to factory jobs during the war, some women […]