Jackson’s Headquarters

Jackson’s Headquarters. I am quite comfortable. Confederate Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, commanding the Shenandoah Valley military district, lived in this house from mid-November 1861 through early March 1862. Here he planned a winter campaign against Union forces at Romney and Bath (present-day Berkeley Springs) and prepared to defend the Shenandoah Valley., This Gothic Revival-style cottage, Alta Vista, was built in 1854 for William M. Fuller. The south-facing entrance overlooked a broad, open hillside with a commanding view of Winchester. The house’s owner in 1861, Lt. Col. Lewis T. Moore, 4th Virginia Infantry, offered it to the general for his headquarters., Jackson’s wife, Mary Anna, joined him in December 1861. During his time in Winchester, Jackson became fond of the community and hoped to settle here after the war. One hundred years later, the house was purchased for a museum. The collection includes many artifacts associated with Stonewall Jackson., “The situation is beautiful. The building is of cottage style and contains six rooms. I have two rooms, one above the other. The lower room, or office, has a matting on the floor, a large fine table, six chairs, and a piano. The walls are papered with elegant guilt paper. I don’t remember to have ever seen more beautiful papering, and there are five paintings hanging on the walls. ... The upper room is neat, but not a full story and ... remarkable for being heated in a peculiar manner, by a flue from the office below. Through the blessing of our ever-kind Heavenly Father, I am quite comfortable.” , Letter, Jackson to his wife, November 16, 1861.