The first account of Jamestown's role in the Civil War includes a summary of all of Jamestown's military history since 1607, but emphasizes the strategic importance of the island for both the Confederacy and the Union during the Civil War. Embattled Shrine is a narrative of the Civil War at one of America's earliest national symbols, recounting how both sides conducted that war behind the Richmond-Petersburg front. Here is the most recent scholarship on on of the Civil War's forgotten places.