Virginia

The Virginia panel pays tribute to the lead mines of present-day Wythe County, Virginia, important to the production of musket balls for the Continental Army.

The panel depicts Welsh miners who were hired and brought to the colony to revive the failing mines. Subject to the same conditions as other laborers, they worked alongside enslaved men who were hired out by their masters as well as convicts who were serving commuted sentences. Once the lead ore was excavated from the mines, it was transported to a smelting furnace and cast into bars that were later made into ammunition for muskets and rifles.

An enslaved man named Aberdeen (upper right) defied his Loyalist master’s orders to join the British and instead offered his service to the Patriots. Laboring far from the front line, Aberdeen served in the mines for seven years. After submitting a petition to the House of Delegates explaining his service to the Patriot cause, Aberdeen received his freedom in 1783.

It is believed that some of the shots fired during the last major battle of the war, the Battle of Yorktown, used musket balls derived from the mines of Wythe County.