One is always close to the ghosts of history here in Virginia. Burbling through our camping area is the headwater to Bull Run, where 15 miles downstream two armies clashed twice for control of the vital railroad junction at Manassas. Our site is in the heart of the wild territory known as Mosby's Confederacy for the last two years of the Civil War. While it remains privately owned, President James Madison’s home at Oak Hill is just 4 miles north.

All around is a deep well of stories. Nearby are two of the 30 or so African-American hamlets that grew up in Loudoun County after the War. Stewartown and Bowmantown were separate but closely intertwined communities that shared Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church. Stewartown lies just at the end of Buchannon Gap Road, while along what is now New Mountain Road, freed blacks also founded Bowmantown. Many residents were members of the Bowman and Napper families. Our late friend Mike Napper and his family lived in the house on the hill just south of the old church.

US 15 is the “Main Street” of the Journey Through Hallowed Ground, 180 miles of America’s richest history from Monticello to Gettysburg. During the 2015 Sequicentennial, JTHG began a project to create a “Grand Alleé” by planting a tree alongside the road for each of the over 620,000 killed or missing in the Civil War. Over 1,300 trees were planted near here, including from Gilberts Corners past Oatlands Plantation.

If you came to the original Mountville site (before 2010), you may have driven through Aldie, up the historic Snickersville Turnpike, and past a stone monument 1 1/2 miles west of Aldie. It memorializes a cavalry engagement during the Battle of Aldie, which figured prominently in the events leading up to Gettysburg. On June 17, 1863, that battle cost nearly 300 Union men their lives and involved historically significant figures such as a young lieutenant named Custer and the founders of the Boston Symphony and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. That monument is the only one on "southern soil" dedicated to northern soldiers.

A scant two miles from here, a smaller battle was fought at the historic Mt. Zion Church on U.S. 50 just east of Gilbert's Corners, where the legendary Confederate guerrilla raider Colonel John Singleton Mosby ambushed and routed a Federal column on June 6, 1864.

Our rich history is here waiting for you to explore. Weekend guests have Saturday morning free and available to take in some of the sights and stories. We are blessed to be at the gateway of northern Virginia's rich Wine Country, a nod to an agricultural pursuit passionately championed by Thomas Jefferson. Drive the historic Snickersville Turnpike (on the right just west of Aldie), the nation's first toll road back in 1810. Many structures along it date back to this era, including the finely detailed stone walls originally built by enslaved people and more recently renewed and rebuilt by skilled central American artisans.

Learn more at www.aldieheritage.com, www.piedmontheritage.org, and www.hallowedground.org.