Charlottesville VA

Wikipedia says: Charlottesville, colloquially known as C’ville, is an independent city in Virginia, United States. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. The former capital of Virginia, it is named after Queen Charlotte.

Charlottesville was the home of two U.S. presidents, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe. During their terms as Governors of Virginia, they lived in Charlottesville and traveled to and from Richmond, along the 71-mile historic Three Notch’d Road. Orange, located 26 miles (42 km) northeast of the city, was the hometown of President James Madison. The University of Virginia, founded by Jefferson, straddles the city’s southwestern border. Jefferson’s home and primary plantation, Monticello, located 3 miles (5 km) southeast of the city, is, along with the University of Virginia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, each attracting thousands of tourists from across the country every year…

Unlike much of Virginia, Charlottesville was spared the brunt of the American Civil War. The only battle to take place in Charlottesville was the skirmish at Rio Hill, an encounter in which George Armstrong Custer briefly engaged local Confederate Home Guards before retreating. A year later, the Charlottesville Factory, founded c. 1820–1830, was accidentally burnt during General Philip Sheridan’s 1865 raid through the Shenandoah Valley. However, the mayor had surrendered the city to Generals Custer and Sheridan to keep the town from being burned. The factory had been taken over by the Confederacy and used to manufacture woolen clothing for the soldiers. It caught fire when some coals taken by Union troops to burn the nearby railroad bridge dropped on the floor. The factory was rebuilt immediately and was known as the Woolen Mills until its liquidation in 1962.