Richmond under the strain of war
During the Civil War, Richmond became a city under extraordinary pressure. Soldiers, prisoners, patients, workers, and civilians poured into a landscape that was never designed to hold them all. Warehouses, factories, and other buildings were adapted into hospitals and prisons—some remembered today, others nearly erased from view.
Uncivil Wards follows a section of old Richmond to the sites of several wartime hospitals and prisons. Your storyteller will connect surviving structures with places lost to redevelopment, revealing how these institutions came to be and what became of them after the war.
What you will explore
- The rapid growth of Richmond’s wartime hospital and prison system
- The experiences of soldiers, prisoners, medical workers, and civilians
- Historic buildings that survived and sites that disappeared
- How the war reshaped Shockoe Bottom long after 1865
This is an outdoor walking tour. History can be difficult, and the tour discusses war, imprisonment, illness, and death with care and historical context.
Tour in focus
Meeting location
Libby Prison historical marker at South 20th and East Cary Streets in Shockoe Bottom.
Please rely on the details in your booking confirmation for final arrival instructions.