No prospective purchasers who would keep the museum in Fredericksburg could be located. Mr. Chewning added that Fredericksburg had made no attempt to acquire the collection and, in fact, 'had evidenced little real interest in it.' For these reasons, he said, he and Mrs. Chewning deemed it advisable to accept Mr. Richards' 'highly attractive proposition. Mrs. Chewning said that while she regrets the removal of the collection from Fredericksburg, she is 'happy to know' that it will be permanently in Virginia. Collection transfers Florida native Julius T. Richards was a commission merchant in Washington, D.C. A Marine Corps veteran of World War One, Richards also collected Civil War artifacts. He added the Chewning artifacts to his own collection and built a $20,000 museum on the Manassas battlefield to display the relics. An additional $3,000 went into the exhibits that covered of wall space. The museum stood along Lee Highway (State Route 29) to the east of the famous Stone Bridge along Bull Run. Richards retained the name The National Battlefield Museum and opened his business on May 8, 1938. Unfortunately for Richards, hopes for a thriving tourism business proved fleeting. World War Two greatly affected tourism to the battlefield and Richards ultimately put the collection into storage. The end of the war brought its own concerns for the museum. Construction of the National Park Service museum and administrative building at Manassas in 1945 created competition for Richards. Hoping to find a more suitable location, he took his collection and moved it to another Civil War site. Whereas the Chewnings always fretted about keeping the collection close to its origin, Richards opted to move it out of Virginia. Vicksburg, Mississippi proved to be the new home for The National Battlefield Museum. Vicksburg's role in the Civil War, Richards admitted, made it a natural location for his business. The museum sat at 4005 Washington Street and the local newspaper referred to it as "a mecca for tourists." The centerpiece of the collection remained the Stonewall Jackson amputation table. Mrs. Richards later stated that the collection's storage during the war dealt a blow to the collection's provenance. "During its storage," she claimed, "many of the papers were lost, destroyed or stolen, including a complete file on each item and its description and identity." Nonetheless, The Vicksburg Sunday Post Herald reported that Richards "can provide an interesting story about almost every object." It's possible