The Pritchard House

The Pritchard House, a large brick dwelling built in 1854 by Stephen Pritchard, Jr. and his son Samuel Pritchard, was occupied during the Civil War by Samuel, his wife Helen, and their two small children. Fighting swirled around the home during the First and Second Battles of Kernstown and during smaller engagements on June 13, 1863, and August 17, 1864, and whenever combat raged across the farmstead Samuel sheltered his family in the cellar. After the fighting subsided, the house was used as a field hospital, and Helen Pritchard, a Unionist from New York, personally cared for many wounded Union soldiers there. After Second Kernstown, Confederate soldiers carried the mortally wounded Col. James Mulligan of the Union Army into the house, where a Confederate surgeon offered what little medical care he could and a priest from the Louisiana Tiger Brigade gave Mulligan his last rites; two days after the battle, Mulligan died peacefully as Helen Pritchard cradled his head in her arms. As armies moved up and down the Shenandoah Valley throughout the war, the Pritchard family endured loss of and damage to their property. After the First Battle of Kernstown, Union Col. Nathan Kimball impressed seven of Pritchard's horses to replace artillery horses killed in the battle, and during the winter of 1864-65, Maj. Gen. Phillip Sheridan's Union Army occupied the Lower Shenandoah Valley, taking crops and harvesting valuable timber from Pritchard's property to build and supply the army's large winter encampment near Kernstown. After the war, the Federal Government refused to reimburse the Pritchards for their losses because Samuel Pritchard could not prove his loyalty to the United States during the war, although many former Union officers supported his effort.

Winchester, Virginia · United States