Mountain House

The Battle of McDowell began three miles southeast of here near the intersection of Routes 629 and 716 when Confederates were fired upon by Union cavalry on May 7, 1862. After skirmishing, Federals rushed to the base camp here, sounding the alarm as they rode through. A Northern cavalryman recalled that his company, five miles beyond Shenandoah Mountain, was cut off by Johnson’s force and had to fight its way back, losing one man, six horses killed in the road, and ten more shot so badly they would never recover. This land was part of a farm abandoned by Henry Ryan, a prosperous settler who had left the area because he was a pacifist. On May 8, 1862, a Staunton diarist wrote that General Johnson had surprised about 200 Federal scouts at Ryan’s in the Pastures the day before, and that cannonading was heard from early morning until four o’clock in the afternoon in the direction of Shenandoah Mountain. Georgia troops had camped in Ryan’s fields while stationed atop Shenandoah Mountain. After they abandoned Camp Shenandoah on April 19, Federals advanced to this point, with cavalry stationed to the east as pickets. Jed Hotchkiss, Stonewall Jackson’s mapmaker, wrote on May 7, 1862, that the enemy had retreated up Shenandoah Mountain and was thought still to be holding Fort Johnson at the pass on the summit, but after a steep climb his party found the enemy gone except for a rear guard on Shaw’s Ridge.

Virginia · United States