Rappahannock County
In Washington, Virginia (known by tourists as “Little Washington”), on Old Mill Road (Route 683)—near the library and visitors center, where Avon Mill still stands and Jett Mill once stood—was a neutral trading site or truce zone for the blue and the gray. There, soldiers took a timeout and traded coffee, tobacco and newspapers. Unofficial “soldiers’ truces,” as well as official truces requested so each side would have time to bury their dead, demonstrated moments of humanity. “They forget that they are enemies, and a kind of chivalric honor and courtesy are strictly observed,” one reporter noted in The Soldier’s Journal in October 1864. Through the Rappahannock County Civil War Trails, visitors can trace 32 other wartime sites throughout the county, such as camp, drill and skirmish sites and three well-preserved slave cabins.