Spotswood Hotel
Information about the Spotswood Hotel in Richmond, VA during the Civil War.

The Spotswood Hotel was located at the southeast corner of 8th and Main streets.

Written Accounts

1866-04-25, New York Herald; description of General Grant’s visit to Richmond – staying in the Spotswood and visiting battlefields.
1867-05-20, Richmond Dispatch; General U. S. Grant and party are in Richmond, staying at the Spotswood Hotel. Party visited Cold Harbor yesterday
1870-12-16, New York Times; very dramatic and detailed account of the Spotswood Hotel fire. Erasmus Ross, former clerk of Libby Prison, among the dead.
1870-12-26, Richmond Dispatch; account of the Spotswood Hotel fire, including many vignettes of of close escapes, and accounts of the deaths of Erasmus Ross, former clerk of Libby Prison, and others.
1870-12-28, Richmond Dispatch; more details of the Spotswood Hotel fire
1871-01-06, Richmond Daily State Journal; Rees photograph of the Spotswood ruins has been published in Frank Leslie’s newspaper
1871-01-10, Richmond Whig; human bones found in the ruins of the Spotswood Hotel
1877-07, Scribner's Monthly, July 1877; "Richmond Since the War" - good material on Tredegar Iron Works, Belle Isle, Libby Prison, Oakwood Cemetery, and Capital Square
1890-04-03, Richmond Dispatch; excellent description, including valuable testimony of Isaac Carrington, of the evacuation fire of Richmond. Notes that Libby had been emptied the day before
1894-06-30, Richmond Dispatch; great description of Richmond for the Confederate reunion, focusing on how much has changed since the war

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