Richard Eppes Richard Eppes ( May 2 , 1824 – February 17 , 1896 ) was a prominent planter in Prince George County , Virginia and a in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War . Eppes is notable for his having kept extensive journals about his plantation and life ; the journals for 1849 and 1851 - 1896 are held by the Virginia Historical Society and have been invaluable to historians of the antebellum South . His Appomattox Manor was used as a base by Union general Ulysses S . Grant during his siege of Petersburg , Virginia . Early life and education . Eppes was born in City Point , Virginia . He had earned his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania and inherited his ancestral home , Appomattox Manor at City Point , by the age of twenty . Marriage and family . After graduating from college and coming into his inheritance , he married a woman from Philadelphia , Pennsylvania . They started a family . Career . At the time of the Civil War , Eppes owned nearly 130 slaves and 2 , 300 acres ( 9 . 3 km² ) at City Point and Eppes Island just offshore . He had given up his medical practice to manage his three plantations , devoted to wheat and other grains , and associated slaves . Eppes favored preservation of the Union , provided that Southern rights in slave property could be protected . In the Election of 1860 , he supported John C . Breckinridge , who led the Southern faction of the Democratic party . Breckinridge represented those who were states rights and pro - slavery men , but who were not radical secessionist s . When war broke out , Eppes enlisted in the 3rd Virginia Cavalry and helped equip the unit . About a year later , he paid for a substitute to complete his obligation . ( Most planters were excluded from service , as the government believed they needed to keep agricultural production going and to manage the slaves . ) Early in May 1862 , his wife and children moved to Petersburg , which was located inland above the falls of the James River , for safety . Just days later , a Union raiding party landed at City Point . When the troops departed , all but twelve of Eppes ' slaves had escaped with them , choosing to join the Union forces to gain freedom . Among those who escaped was Richard Slaughter , who decades later told his story to a Works Progress Administration interviewer in 1936 . Most slaves were taken to Hampton , where they worked for the Union forces , and many began to learn to read and write . When given the chance , Slaughter and other men enlisted in the United States Colored Troops . Eppes worked as a civilian contract surgeon for the Confederate army in Petersburg for the duration of the war . In the middle of the siege , Eppes got his family out of Petersburg and sent them to his wife ' s family in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , to wait out the war . When Petersburg fell , Eppes decided to stay behind with the wounded as Robert E . Lee evacuated the Confederate forces from the city . By May 1865 , Eppes had taken the Amnesty Oath , but found that his wealth excluded him from benefits of the Amnesty Proclamation . He had to raise money to reclaim and essentially purchase the title to his land and settle up with the Federal government . He also had to pay for any of the structures which the Union army left behind on his land before he could alter them . By early 1866 , after a favorable transaction with the government , he controlled his plantation again . By March 1866 , his family had returned and they were living at City Point . Eppes kept voluminous , detailed journals , which have been a source for historians on his planning and operation of his plantation , as well as the war and post - bellum years . The volumes for 1849 and 1851 - 1896 are in the collections of the Virginia Historical Society , in Richmond .