After he served as architect of Colonial Williamsburg from 1971 to 1973, George returned to Texas and re-established his private practice in Austin. However, he was soon called back to Virginia for a different project: the restoration of the Yorktown Battlefield and the Nelson Block.

The Nelson House, which was built around 1724, served as Cornwallis’s headquarters during the final battle of the Revolutionary War, and the battlefield was the site of the British defeat. The Nelson Block comprised the house, gardens, outbuildings, and surrounding grounds.

The restoration of the house and battlefield proved to be an interdisciplinary effort. Working from data provided by archaeologist Norman Barka, George and a former student, Richard Ryan, surveyed the site and determined the position of features to be rebuilt or restored. After they captured the site in 1781, the Americans and French destroyed their own earthworks and redoubts, fearing that these siege structures would be used against them by the British. Under George’s direction, artillery positions were reconstructed back to their historic dimensions from archaeological evidence and using similar European, oak hand-finished ones.

The Eugene George Collection contains a number of measured drawings of the site, as well as George’s comments and reflections on them. George recounted that he took measures to protect the archaeological integrity of the site. To guard against wear and tear from tourists, George designed a sub-surface bed to reduce moisture intrusion into the archaeological levels. Although eighteenth-century earthworks were meant to be temporary, the reconstructions were intended to last much longer. George used techniques specified by the Texas Highway Department to make the embankments long-lasting. Finally, treasure hunters with metal detectors had long posed a preservation risk. George peppered the earthworks with nickel-sized boiler punchings, in hopes that their presence would frustrate looters.