For a quick primer on Alexandria’s history, stop by this small city museum in a beautiful Greek Revival building dating from 1839. A somewhat dusty array of artifacts, vintage photos and maps tell the stories of Native Americans, colonists fighting for independence, and northerners and southerners caught up in the Civil War (Alexandria became the longest occupied Confederate city).
The statue of the unarmed Confederate soldier in the crossing in front of the museum marks the spot from which soldiers left Alexandria to join the Confederate Army on May 24, 1861. The lone figure faces the battlefields where his comrades fell in the South. The names of those who lost their lives are written at the base.