3/07/2006

Civil War hospital for sale

Come March 11, you can own a Civil War hospital that was also a fort during the French and Indian War - Fort Evans. (Its dimensions suggest more of a stronghouse than a fort.)

It's in Berkeley County, WV, where Washington took the waters en route to what became Pittsburgh.

According to Breaking the Backcountry, at the high water mark of Indian success against the Virginia and Pennsylvania frontiers, raiding parties followed the Potomac into Eastern Maryland.

As co-owner of a German stone farmhouse in Loudon County predating the French and Indian War, I sometimes like to picture those war parties moving across the periphery of our property, between the Catoctin and the Potomac.

Breaking the Backcountry describes the successive waves of Indian raids making ever greater inroads against frontier communities until the west is entirely depopulated and Eastern cities like Philadelphia are choked with starving refugees.

I assume this place became a Civil War hospital during Lander's defeat of Stonewall Jackson in 1861, or after Antietam, or even during the Gettysburg retreat. Perhaps all of the above.

It's an auction, so name your own price. Become a neighbor. Plenty of pictures here.