hospitals by the armies on both sides. Through the city passed the army of Johnston, on its withdrawal from Yorktown; and within its streets burst the shells of the Federals in the bloody battle of Williamsburg in 1862. Then came the great army of McClellan—and so the scenes of direful war changed and shifted, the place being sometimes in possession of the Confederates and sometimes in possession of the Federals.
Peace came at last, and the war-worn city took up again the burden of its destiny. The college, which had been burned by the Federal troops, was rebuilt on the old walls, after the old Confederate soldiers returned to their homes. In 1881, the centennial of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis awakened new life. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad ran its cars through the place for the first time, as it transferred the multitudes to Yorktown, thirteen miles away. In 1888, the college, which had been closed for several years, assumed new energies under the patronage of the State Legislature. Then, in 1893, the bicentennial year of the college charter, Congress, by an appropriation of money, made amends in some measure for the injuries inflicted by war.
