Civil War Medical History Driving Tour
Despite being far from the frontlines of the Civil War, Southwest Virginia has quite a few Civil War sites for medical history. Hospitals appeared in Abingdon, Pearisburg, and Wytheville after skirmishes and battles nearby, leaving wounded Confederate and Union troops in churches, homes, and courthouses of the area. Southwest Virginia was also the home of a few frontier doctors, including Dr. Harvey Black, attending physician at the amputation of Confederate general Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s arm. This corner of the state also used to be the site of a top hot springs resort of the 19th century, the Montgomery White Sulphur Springs, which turned into a Confederate general hospital during the war. Visitors to this region can learn about medical practices of the mid-19th century, the lives of the doctors who practiced medicine in the region, and spa culture and practices of the top resorts of the period.
The following tour will take visitors from Christiansburg to Abingdon. The driving portion of this tour should take about 2.5 hours, though visitors should allow for extra time for the return trip, touring individual sites, and the addition of any bonus sites of interest. Please see the bottom of the page for additional information about Civil War medical history.
Montgomery White Sulphur Springs
1865 Den Hill Road, Christiansburg
Not much remains of this once thriving hot springs resort which once provided relief and recovery to the sick and injured of the 19th century. Today, the area is remembered only through a monument to the Confederate dead that died while under care at the hospital during the war.
Westview Cemetery
723 East Roanoke Street, Blacksburg
Founded in 1832, this cemetery contains a lot of Blacksburg’s history and of Southwest Virginia’s Civil War history. This cemetery is the final resting place of Dr. Harvey Black, attending physician to Confederate general Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.
Pearisburg
120 North Main Street, Pearisburg
The courthouse served as both soldiers’ barracks and as a hospital during and after the skirmish that occurred on Pearisburg’s streets in May of 1862. The commanding officer of the Union troops also made use of a doctor’s office as his headquarters, making the building a site of both military and medical history.
Wytheville
275 East Main Street, Wytheville
Both St. John’s Episcopal Church and the Haller-Gibboney Rock House in Wytheville saw use as Civil War hospitals. The Haller-Gibboney Rock House also served as the home to Wytheville’s first physician in the early 19th century.
Abingdon
222 Main Street, Abingdon
Abingdon had two hospitals for Civil War soldiers: The Tavern, built in 1779, and still operating as a restaurant, and the Virginia House (now called Dunn’s Hotel).
Bonus Sites
Crockett’s Cove Presbyterian Church
Intersection of State Route 600 and State Route 603, Wytheville
This church served as a field hospital for wounded Union soldiers following the battle of Cove Mountain, May 10, 1864.
Yellow Sulphur Springs
3145 Yellow Sulphur Road, Christiansburg
Buildings such as this one stand as evidence of the spas and resorts that once thrived in the region.
Want to learn more about Civil War medical history?
“A Little R&R in the Summertime…”, published by Special Collections at Virginia Tech (blog), June 24, 2013.
Dorothy H. Bodell, Montgomery White Sulphur Springs: A History of the Resort, Hospital, Cemeteries, Markers, and Monument, Christiansburg, VA: Montgomery Museum and Lewis Miller Regional Art Center (1993).
Shauna Devine, Learning from the Wounded: The Civil War and the Rise of American Medical Science, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press (2014).
Ina Dixon, “Modern Medicine’s Civil War Legacy”, published by The American Battlefield Trust, October 29, 2013.
Jenny Goellnitz, “Civil War Medicine: An Overview of Medicine”, in The Ohio State University’s online exhibit, “Civil War Battlefield Medicine”.
Margaret Humphreys, Marrow of Tragedy: The Health Crisis of the American Civil War, Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press (2013).
T.A. Wheat, “Medicine in Virginia During the Civil War,” published by Encyclopedia Virginia, April 27, 2016.