War Comes to McDowell

War Comes to McDowell. "The Parlor Had Been Used as a Hospital". Entering this house, the Mansion House (The George Washing Hull House), on May 9, 1862, the day after the Battle of McDowell, a VMI Cadet witnessed a horrifying scene. "The parlor had been used as a hospital; there was a dead man laid on top of the piano, and in the dining-room on the table there was a [man with] the front half of his head entirely empty; yet he still breathed.", Union and Confederate troops had visited McDowell earlier, but the battle on May 8, 1862, brought the full horrors of war. It's likely that every building in town was used as a hospital, including the Presbyterian Church, where the Confederates discovered 12 dead Federals after the battle. Fallen from both sides were buried in the cemetery across from the church., The Felix Hull House (built ca. 1855), the red brick house 500 feet to your right, was used as a headquarters by both Federals and Confederates, including Gen. Stonewall Jackson. Felix Hull died at his home of "camp fever" on October 31, 1861, but the widow Hull and her family were among the few resident who were still in McDowell during the battle; most had left after the Federals occupied the town in mid-April 1862.,

"In a few days a city of tents appeared to rise as if by magic in the beautiful valley of McDowell." , Rev. W.T. Price, a circuit rider based in McDowell

, (captions) , George Washington Hull was a delegate to the Virginia Secession Convention in 1861 but died of typhoid fever in April 1862. Images courtesy Highland Historical Society, McDowell, c. 1880s, Buildings Present During the War , To explore all the sites on the McDowell walking tour, grab a map in the museum, Sugar Tree Store or the visitor center in Monterey.