Petersburg & Jamestown
Driving from Southport, NC to Jamestown, VA | Merchant’s Mill Pond State Park | Camping in Big Woods WMA, VA | Petersburg National Battlefield | Visiting Historic Jamestown | August 2025
After our time in Southport, NC wrapped up, we had 4 days to make our way to Curtis’ next assignment, which would be bringing us to a new-to-us plant near Wilmington, Delaware. This presented us with the opportunity to drive through a lot of new counties in NC, VA, and MD, and visit some historical sites that had been on our radar for quite some time. We had sort of planned to visit these areas years ago, a few different times, but always ended up pivoting and going to the Blue Ridge instead. We always prefer being in the mountains, and it was overall better that we did that then when we had Charlotte, because the weather and more nature-focused activities were better for her comfort. But now, it just made more sense to stick to the coast. The whole trip just made more sense for us now, and while it wouldn’t be our favorite, we knew we had enough to do to stay busy and make the most of it.
We left Southport on a Friday, which happened to also be the start to Labor Day weekend. We made our way to Northeast NC, where we planned a route to knock out several counties in this corner. Thanks to all our effort, we now only have 3 counties left in NC! On our way, we stopped at a Food Lion to pick up a few groceries to get us through the weekend, and made another stop at Merchants Mill Pond State Park just to say we did something in NC. At the park, we walked through the visitor center, then went for a walk on the South side of the pond on a nature trail. There were signs along the way that were supposed to tell a story, but it had the vibe of being made with AI so we weren’t all that impressed.
We entered Virginia, and continued on a route which we planned to get us the most counties possible as we made our way to our sleep spot for the night. We expected this trip to be all urban camping, but tonight we actually found a free dispersed spot in Big Woods Wildlife Management Area. It was quiet and peaceful in the woods, except for the mosquitoes which ended up keeping us inside for most of the evening.
The next morning, we started our day with driving to Petersburg and our first National Park site of the trip, Petersburg National Battlefield. We started our visit with walking the trails through the park, then walking through the visitor center, where we read through the signs and watched the short film.
Petersburg was the anti-climatic culmination of the Overland campaign at the very end of the Civil War. General Grant chased General Lee South from the Potomac River all the way to Richmond, VA, fighting many, many bloody battles along the way. But once in the Confederate Capitol, Grant made an attempt to surround and capture Lee by capturing the town of Petersburg to the South. The original assault was successful, but the Union forces did not seal the victory and soon Petersburg became a long and protracted siege from June of 1864 to March of 1865 when General Lee evacuated the Confederate Capitol and ultimately surrendered at Appomattox .
Because of how long the siege played out, the historic sites associated with Petersburg are many and scattered all around the city. Today we focused on several of the sites to the West of the city and South of James River. The historic drive was closed, but we were able to see some of the original fortifications from the very beginning of the siege and then visited City Point. City Point (now called Hopewell) was the logistical hub for the siege and some of the processes and procedures developed there during the war had long lasting implications for modern warfare.
Once we were finished here, we made the drive over to Jamestown and the Colonial Parkway. This is where I made the mistake of not actually researching places, and instead followed my memory of the last time I was here….which was when I was 7 years old on a family vacation. I actually have very fond memories of this trip, because we met up with my long distance best friend and her family in Williamsburg. We were both obsessed with American Girl dolls, and if you’re familiar with that franchise you know that one of the first dolls, Felicity, was from Williamsburg. My dad has some funny home videos of our families exploring the area, my friend and I carrying around our dolls as we toured the grounds. So when we were making plans to visit this area today, I just followed my heart as I directed Curtis to a parking lot in Williamsburg, somehow believing that I was taking him to Colonial Williamsburg National Historic Site. When we arrived, we found a very full lot in the center of a very busy town and no national park signs to be seen. It was then that I realized that Colonial Williamsburg National Historic Site does not exist. No, Williamsburg is along the Colonial Parkway, but it itself is not a historic site, just a very busy town with some historic sites which are mostly reconstructed. I’m sure there’s some great things to see here, but it just wasn’t fitting our mood of the day. The real travesty though is that the Colonial Parkway, which connects Jamestown and Yorktown, was closed for construction so instead of taking a nice, scenic road around the area, we had to mostly drive on busy highways to get anywhere.
After that little mishap, we rerouted and drove to an actual national historic site, Jamestown. This was much less busy, and was an easy way to fill up the rest of our day. Jamestown is, of course, the oldest permanent English settlement in the United States. (Lots of conditional statements in that phrase since Roanoke is older but not permanent, and St. Augustine is older still and permanent, but not English, not to say anything about the Puebloan ruins we’ve seen). Unfortunately, the archaeological site itself is gate kept behind a fee, but we still walked through the museum, watched another film, and then went on a couple of long walks around the settlement and along the scenic drive.
Once we were finished with the historic site, we drove a little on the Colonial Parkway to a scenic pullout on the water, where I made dinner and we watched the sunset. For tonight’s campsite, we drove to the large parking lot for the Jamestown Settlement (a private museum about the settlement – you see how it’s easy to get confused), which allows overnight parking and seemed to be a safe and legal spot to spend the night. It was a little busier than we expected because across the road was a brewery that had a live band playing cover songs outside. But somehow, we were able to fall asleep to the sound of hits from the 80s, and didn’t wake when all the other cars vacated the lot.
