sentences:  In 1775, as the hostilities which became the American Revolutionary War escalated, British troops loyal to the final Royal Governor, Lord Dunmore, walked along the road to steal gunpowder and munitions from the colony's stores at the Powder Magazine in Williamsburg.During the American Civil War (1861-1865), although he had personally hoped to avoid secession and a war for Virginia, James City County resident Benjamin S. Ewell, the president of the College of William and Mary, joined the local Virginia militia as the Board of Visitors closed the College during the War.Colonel Ewell, an older brother of Confederate Major General Richard S. Ewell, was tasked with designing fortifications across the Virginia Peninsula east of Williamsburg which became known as the "Williamsburg Line".