The Campus after the Civil War

Despite the precarious condition of the College after the Civil War, President Benjamin Ewell was able to reopen the institution in October 1865, using the Brafferton and the President’s House, both of which had sustained only slight damage. By October 1869 a new Main Building, constructed once again on the surviving walls of the earlier buildings, was completed. This fourth building continued in use for almost six decades, until the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation began the restoration of the second building in 1928.

A photograph, taken sometime between 1869 and about 1874, shows the new structure flanked by the two surviving original buildings, to both of which porches had been added (Fig. 14, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation). An addition to the President’s House had also been constructed in 1865, when the Main Building was in ruins. Students were much in evidence around the fourth building shortly after its completion (Fig. 15, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation), but the College remained closed for lack of students from 1882 to 1888.