Early on the morning of Friday, May 23, 1862, Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson paused at Asbury Chapel well in advance of his 16,000-man army as he sought a route to Front Royal that would avoid the restrictions of the main roads and remain concealed from Union Gen. Nathaniel Banks at Strasburg, who still believed Jackson was farther west in the Shenandoah Valley beyond Massanutten Mountain. The Confederate army actually stretched for twelve miles south on the Luray and Front Royal Turnpike, which passed the west side of the church in 1862. Here, Col. Isaac King, a church leader, told Jackson that Lt. Samuel J. Simpson, a Warren County native in his army, knew the area thoroughly. Simpson soon arrived and advised that a road just south of the church, today’s Rocky Lane, led northeast to Gooney Manor Road, now Browntown Road, and Front Royal, with good ground for deployment. Jackson then ordered the 1st Maryland to the front to lead his army as it turned off the turnpike onto Rocky Lane, and he sent Col. Turner Ashby ahead to cross the Shenandoah River at McCoy’s Ford and ride west to Buckton Station on the Manassas Gap Railroad to cut communications between Front Royal and Strasburg. The attack on Front Royal had begun. After winning at McDowell on May 8, 1862, Jackson had crossed Massanutten Mountain and marched north toward Front Royal in hopes of outflanking the Union army at Strasburg. Asbury Chapel, now Asbury United Methodist Church, was built in 1848 and named for Bishop Francis Asbury, who evangelized throughout the Shenandoah Valley from 1783 to 1805. During the Civil War the congregation met irregularly, and the church was used as a hospital, probably after the Battle of Front Royal. In 1916 the building was dismantled, revealing bloodstained floorboards, and the congregation completed the present structure the next year, using original materials when possible and following a similar design. The reconstructed church was dedicated on the fourth Sunday in October 1917.
