The Venue

For more than a century the Polegreen Church stood as a monument to the Hanover Dissenters and Samuel Davies in their struggle for religious liberty in pre-revolutionary America. In 1864, during America's agonizing Civil War, General Grant, trying to take Richmond, attempted to break through General Lee's lines along Totopotomoy Creek. Polegreen Church rested squarely in the center as the two armies faced each other. During an attack the Union forces overran the Confederate outer positions and occupied the church. In an effort to dislodge Union sharpshooters, Confederate artillery fired on the church. According to the diary of William S. White, a gunner with the Richmond Howitzers, his gun fired the shot that set the church ablaze. Ironically, his diary notes that his own father had been baptized in Polegreen Church.