 As the Civil War began, the Bermuda Hundred and surrounding countryside had mostly receded into a gracious backwater.Some of the original plantations had fallen into dilapidation and disrepair by the beginning of the war and remained as monuments to a long-ago past when the area was a center of the Virginia economy.Several country estates yet remained in the Bermuda Hundred including, Presquile, Mont Blanco, Rochedale, and Meadowville, as well as nearby Varina, Shirley, Curles Neck, Appomattox, and Weston Manor, the large plantations which continued to dominate the surrounding country life.