The Story Behind Barracks Road
Today, Barracks Road and the Barracks Road Shopping Center are familiar landmarks, known to nearly every Charlottesville resident. Fewer realize that the name points to a long-vanished prisoner-of-war camp that once stood just outside town. In the winter of 1779, roughly 4,000 British and German prisoners marched into Albemarle County and built a sprawling encampment along Ivy Creek. For nearly two years, this hillside settlement became one of the largest communities in Revolutionary Virginia.
The story began far from Virginia. In October 1777, British General John Burgoyne surrendered his army to American forces at the Battle of Saratoga in New York, a turning point in the Revolutionary War. Under the terms of the Convention of Saratoga, Burgoyne’s defeated troops—consisting of thousands of British and German (or Hessian) soldiers—were supposed to be transported back to Europe on the condition that they would not fight again in North America.
The agreement soon unraveled. American leaders suspected Britain might redeploy the soldiers once they returned home, while British authorities hesitated to fully honor the terms. As the stalemate dragged on, the captured force, soon called the “Convention Army,” remained in American custody.
Initially housed near Boston, the prisoners became a financial and logistical burden for the surrounding communities. Concerned about security and supply, the Continental Congress decided in late 1778 to move them far inland. Albemarle County seemed an ideal location because it was remote from British naval power and situated within a fertile agricultural region capable of supporting a large camp.
Thomas Jefferson, who would be elected the second governor of Virginia in June of 1779, saw another advantage to setting up a camp in Albemarle. “The safe custody of these troops is another circumstance worthy [of] consideration,” he wrote to Patrick Henry in March 1779. “Equally removed from the access of an Eastern or Western enemy central to the whole state so that should they attempt an eruption in any direction they must pass through a great extent of hostile country, in a neighborhood thickly inhabited by a robust and hardy people zealous in the American cause, acquainted with the use of arms and the defiles and passes by which they must issue, it should seem that in this point of view no place could have been better chosen.”
Local landowner John Harvie, a lawyer, planter, and member of the Continental Congress, offered a tract of land along Ivy Creek northwest of Charlottesville for the purpose. Harvie proposed allowing the government to use the land rent-free, but historians note that the arrangement also promised practical benefits, such as federal construction and prisoner labor that could improve the property’s value. Congress accepted the proposal, and preparations began for what would soon become known as Albemarle Barracks.
The prisoners began their journey south in late 1778. After marching for about 70 days and covering roughly 600 to 650 miles, more than 4,000 British and German prisoners of war arrived here after a long march from Massachusetts. For nearly two years, they lived in a sprawling, stockaded camp, transforming a rural tract along Ivy Creek into a temporary town, complete with huts, gardens, workshops, guards, and constant wagon traffic bringing supplies from nearby farms.
When the first groups arrived at Albemarle Barracks in January 1779, the scene awaiting them was grim. Construction of the barracks had fallen behind schedule. Instead of finished quarters, the prisoners encountered a partially cleared site dotted with unfinished log structures. Contemporary accounts describe their frustration at discovering that only a handful of huts had been started, many still roofless and filled with snow. As described by a Hessian officer, “The construction is so miserable that it surpasses all that you can imagine in Germany of a very poorly built log house.”
Faced with winter weather and inadequate shelter, the prisoners were forced to complete much of the work themselves. The barracks were laid out as a large square enclosure measuring about 1,000 feet on each side, surrounded by a wooden stockade. Rows of log huts filled the interior, while guard posts controlled entry through the main gates.
Life inside Albemarle Barracks was harsh at first. Early huts lacked windows, doors, chimneys, and even proper flooring. Cold weather and shortages of clothing and firewood added to the misery. Gradually, however, the rough camp began to resemble a small town. The prisoners chinked the walls of their huts and built stone fireplaces. Some established small workshops for carpentry, blacksmithing, and tailoring. Livestock appeared inside the enclosure, and vegetable plots spread along the cleared ground. At least two churches were built and, according to one later account, a tavern, theater, and billiard hall were added inside the stockade.
Food, flour, beef, and firewood arrived constantly by the wagonload from nearby farms. Local craftsmen and teamsters found work supplying the encampment. The surrounding hillsides were steadily stripped of timber to feed the camp’s enormous demand for fuel. For a time, Albemarle Barracks became one of the largest concentrations of people in Virginia and was larger than the colonial capital of Williamsburg. Just outside the small town of Charlottesville, a wartime community had appeared almost overnight.
American authorities hoped to demonstrate the young republic’s civility by treating prisoners with respect. Officers were frequently granted parole, allowing them to live outside the barracks under the promise that they would not escape. Many rented rooms in nearby houses or plantations.
Escapes also occurred, and some prisoners slipped into the Blue Ridge Mountains, where stories later circulated about deserters settling permanently in the region. While not every legend can be verified, historians acknowledge that desertion was common during eighteenth-century warfare.
Despite its rapid growth, Albemarle Barracks proved temporary. By 1780, the Revolutionary War was shifting southward. British forces were active in the Carolinas, and American leaders worried that an inland raid might attempt to free the Convention Army. Virginia governor Thomas Jefferson and other officials also feared that if British troops approached the region, the thousands of prisoners in Albemarle might stage a mass escape or uprising.
The Continental authorities decided to disperse the camp, and beginning in late 1780 and continuing into 1781, most of the prisoners were marched north to new confinement sites. Many had finally made their huts comfortable just as orders arrived to abandon them.
Once the prisoners departed, Albemarle Barracks quickly deteriorated. The Continental Army had little use for the site and the buildings began to decay. In 1782, Quartermaster General Timothy Pickering authorized the sale of the remaining structures. Timber and other materials were sold off, and the land gradually returned to agricultural use under John Harvie’s ownership.
Today, little visible evidence remains of Albemarle Barracks. The original site lies within a residential area near Barracks Farm Road and Ivy Farm Drive, roughly five miles northwest of downtown Charlottesville. A Virginia historical highway marker and a plaque installed by the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society identify the general location of the Revolutionary War camp.
One of the most poignant remnants is a small burial ground discovered during residential development in the late twentieth century. The site marks the resting place of several unknown British and German prisoners who died while confined in Albemarle County.
Otherwise, all that remains of the Albemarle Barracks are the familiar roads and the shopping center that share the Barracks name.