Excited for a new investigation coming up this weekend.
It is amazing how rich this area is for Civil War era related activity ( which is a new one for me)
I've been running down my list or traditional questions, and HATE when I go over evidence and think " I should of asked this, or should of asked that" so... if you guys want to throw questions out there, that I can burn into my brain prior.. kudos to you.
Here is a little history on the focus of our investigation this Saturday:
Name : The Exchange Hotel and Civil War Museum
Built : 1860 for Richard F. Omohundro
Until 1862 it was used as a Luxary Hotel along the Virginia Railway, and because of it location became a receiving hospital for both Confederate and Union Soldiers, it serviced/treated nearly 70,000 soldiers wounded and dying from nearby battlefields such as Cedar Mountain, Chancellorsville, Trevilian Station, Mine Run, Brandy Station, and the Wilderness were brought by the trainloads, a little over 700 soldiers were buried on the grounds of the Hotel. This hospital treated its patients with formulas made from homeopathic remedies that were supplied by the African-American, Monacan Indian, and mountain people who staffed the hospital.
Some hospital workers found the conditions so depressing that they were overcome with despair and took their own lives. The hotel/hospital had four confirmed suicides during the Civil War. Two were female nurses who lived in boarding houses on the grounds. A Quarter Master ( Mr Richarsds) had also killed his wife by stabbing her to death there.
In the reconstruction period, this hospital served the newly freed slaves as a Freedman's Bureau Hospital. As the United States healed and the railroads boomed, this graceful building returned to its role of hotel. Now fully restored, the hotel is a museum dedicated to the Civil War era, filled with medical instruments, weapons and uniforms of the soldiers
.