Last updated: January 11, 2024
Place
McCoull House Site
NPS Photo
Quick Facts
Amenities
1 listed
Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits
The outline of stones here marks the site of Neil McCoull’s house. Even before the armies came here in 1864, the war’s far reaches touched this area. With the United States Army nearby in 1862, people enslaved by McCoull fled to Federal lines, seeking their freedom. Besides their names, Betty and Moses, little is known about these individuals or what happened to them after they reached Federal forces.
Two years later, this home stood in the middle of what became some of the most intense fighting of the entire battle of Spotsylvania Court House. Members of the McCoull family hid in the basement while a Confederate general, Edward Johnson, used the house as his headquarters until he was captured on May 12, 1864.
The landscape here bore the scars of the battle for years after the armies left. One traveler, coming to the McCoull house in the late 1860s, wrote “Of the woods, thinned and despoiled by the storm of iron and lead, only a ghostly grove of dead trunks and dreary limbs remained.” Almost 20 years after the battle, the house was not much improved, with another traveler noting that the house “is a weather-beaten, rickety structure that clearly has been through the mills.”
The home burned down in 1920. Trails connect the house site with the Bloody Angle, about a quarter of mile from here.
Two years later, this home stood in the middle of what became some of the most intense fighting of the entire battle of Spotsylvania Court House. Members of the McCoull family hid in the basement while a Confederate general, Edward Johnson, used the house as his headquarters until he was captured on May 12, 1864.
The landscape here bore the scars of the battle for years after the armies left. One traveler, coming to the McCoull house in the late 1860s, wrote “Of the woods, thinned and despoiled by the storm of iron and lead, only a ghostly grove of dead trunks and dreary limbs remained.” Almost 20 years after the battle, the house was not much improved, with another traveler noting that the house “is a weather-beaten, rickety structure that clearly has been through the mills.”
The home burned down in 1920. Trails connect the house site with the Bloody Angle, about a quarter of mile from here.