Union troops camped in the fields south of McDowell between April 17, 1862, and the Battle of McDowell on May 8, deploying artillery, including two twelve-pounders placed on a plateau behind the church to cover the bridge over Bullpasture River. After the battle, wounded from both armies were cared for in the church, and the dead were buried in its cemetery across modern U.S. 250, the old Staunton-to-Parkersburg Turnpike. The house of Confederate Capt. Felix Hull to the northwest facing the turnpike served as Federal headquarters before the battle and as Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson’s headquarters afterward, and U.S. Gen. Robert C. Schenck probably wrote his May 8 message there about the lack of forage, the position’s weakness, and skirmishing with Confederates on the surrounding hills. The home of Hull’s brother, George Washington Hull, west of the turnpike, also became a hospital after the battle, where a Virginia Military Institute cadet who arrived on May 9 later recalled burying two dead men. That same day, Jackson pursued the Federals west on the Staunton-to-Parkersburg Turnpike, then veered north toward Franklin on present-day State Route 629.