Historic Gardens of Virginia 



Byrd coach-and-six with the liveried outriders, when the Colonel 

 and his ladies would go a-visiting to Shirley or Brandon or to 

 Buckland. 



Then came the Revolution. Burgesses from Williamsburg and 

 the first men of the colony, perhaps, sat on those benches and 

 through the smoke of their long-stemmed clay pipes discussed the 

 peril of the times. Officers of the Continental line, in buff and 

 blue, strode the paths in shining jack-boots, or made love beneath 

 the arbors to the beautiful Byrd girls. 



Westover knew Red Coats again, too, for Arnold, the renegade, 

 stopped there in 178 1, and a few months later Cornwallis crossed 

 the river there, bound for Yorktown and his doom. 



To the gay French officers who took part in that siege, the fair 

 chatelaine of Westover and her beautiful daughters were magnets, 

 and their bright uniforms must have made even the roses pale. 

 The Marquis de Chastellux claimed in his memoirs that Westover 

 was the most beautiful place in America. 



The clouds of war passed and the only scarlet coats seen at 

 Westover were those of fox hunters. Quiet fell again upon the 

 garden, and how pleasant it is to recall the children who romped 

 along the paths in charge of their old negro mammies ! The garden 

 rang with laughter and there was no thought of the darker days 

 that were yet to come. 



Westover was no longer in the wilderness. The Indians had 

 vanished; the river had become a highway of commerce. Broad 

 fields around smiled with rich crops and in the garden all was 

 peace and happiness. 



Yet war was to come again and in more frightful guise. Mc-. 

 Clellan, on his retreat from Richmond, used the house for his 

 headquarters, and the garden resounded to the clatter of arms. 

 The fences were torn down, the flower beds trampled, the hedge- 

 rows broken; but McClellan passed, as Arnold and Cornwallis and 

 the Indians had passed, and the garden remained to spring into 

 new beauty. 



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