Damaged but not Destroyed

While the 1864 battle raged around their home, members of the Shelton family sought safety within its thick basement walls. Shells from Confederate cannon struck the house many times, terrifying the family inside and causing significant damage. Walter Shelton, then 14, later recalled, "When a shell would strike the chimney...the dust & soot" in the basement "would be so great that we could hardly breathe." Shells exploded upstairs, setting fires that were extinguished by Union soldiers. Damage is still visible in the attic and in the jagged mark on the rear wall. But the house, which had stood since approximately 1725, survived. Shelton descendants continued to live and farm here another 140 years. With the exterior restored to its 1864 appearance, the battle-scarred Shelton House is a reminder both of the wartime experience of all those who lived at Rural Plains, and the larger struggle that brought freedom to its enslaved population.

Mechanicsville, Virginia · United States