After Dolley Madison sold Montpelier in 1844, the estate witnessed major events of the 1860s during the Civil War. Owned by Frank and Thomas Carson, Montpelier became a landmark for both Union and Confederate soldiers. Frank Carson offered the mansion for a ball given by General J.E.B. Stuart, the mansion was used for courts-martial, and it is believed that 10 North Carolina soldiers were executed there for desertion. After his defeat at Gettysburg in July 1863, Confederate General Robert E. Lee retreated to Orange County, where his troops set up defenses along a 30-mile front on the south bank of the Rapidan River and watched the Union army across the river in Culpeper County from Clark's Mountain and other high points. When the Union army failed to move south in the Mine Run campaign, both sides settled into winter quarters, and through the winter of 1863-64 as many as 4,500 Confederate troops in three brigades camped on the Montpelier plantation. General Samuel McGowan's South Carolinians spent part of that winter re-planking the road to Orange, laying new timbers over the deteriorated road, and those improvements helped troops move quickly to fight Union forces 30 miles east at Germanna Ford on May 4, 1864. Within 24 hours, McGowan's 1,500-man brigade had left Montpelier and entered the Battle of the Wilderness, where one-third of his force was lost. After the Confederate surrender in 1865, formerly enslaved people could claim the freedom promised in the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. Most remained near their families and communities, often working for small wages on the same plantations where they had been enslaved, and for African Americans landownership was a universal goal. Gilmore Farm, home of freed Montpelier slave George Gilmore and his wife Polly, stands as a testament to the journey from slavery to freedom and U.S. citizenship.
