During the Civil War, Market Street ran east and west through the courthouse square in Harrisonburg, roughly dividing it in half, with the courthouse on the north and the jail, clerk’s office, and springhouse on the south, all enclosed by plank fences that were sometimes used as holding pens for prisoners. After the First Battle of Winchester on May 25, 1862, Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson briefly confined about 2,000 Union prisoners of war in these yards before they were marched to Richmond. Civilians and soldiers alike drank from the springhouse in the southwestern corner of the square, later reconstructed, and artist J.E. Taylor sketched the original springhouse while traveling with Gen. Philip H. Sheridan’s Federal army in the fall of 1864. Fighting came to Harrisonburg several times during the war, especially in 1862, and on June 6, just before the nearby battles of Cross Keys and Port Republic, a rearguard engagement southeast of town resulted in the death of Gen. Turner Ashby, Jackson’s cavalry chief. For a town of about 1,400 people in 1860, Harrisonburg had many hotels because of its role as county seat and regional commercial center. The American Hotel, built about 1820 and also known as McMahon’s Tavern, stood on Main Street opposite the southeastern corner of the square and was a popular wartime stopping place; on June 5, 1863, the local newspaper reported that Confederate spy Belle Boyd had been in Harrisonburg for several days, staying at the American. The hotel was destroyed in the great Harrisonburg fire on Christmas Day, 1870.