Richmond Howitzers on Parade

Spectators line the fairgrounds as members of the Richmond Howitzers parade by on horse-drawn howitzers during the Virginia Day celebration that took place on June 12, 1907, during the Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition. The exposition, held in Norfolk from April 26 to November 30, 1907, marked the 300th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown.

American military might was on conspicuous display at the Jamestown Ter-Centennial, which was held less than a decade after the American triumph in the Spanish-American War (1898) and during a time when the hero of that war, Theodore Roosevelt, occupied the White House. Exhibitions on the Civil War battles of First and Second Manassas (1861, 1862), and Gettysburg (1863) were especially popular, and there were various demonstrations involving Virginia units like this one, as well as U.S. Army units and military school cadets. In 1907 the Howitzers were a state artillery battalion, but a decade later, when the United States entered World War I, the unit was folded into federal service as part of the 1st Field Artillery Regiment of the Virginia National Guard.