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The Exchange Hotel: Gordonsville, Virginia
Gordonsville Virginia’s Exchange Hotel opened in 1860 and provided an
elegant stopping place for passengers on the Virginia Central Railway. In March, 1862 the Confederate army
transformed the hotel into the Gordonsville Receiving Hospital. Dr. B.M Lebby of
South Carolina was the director of the hospital and its operations continued
under his leadership until October 1865.
The wounded and dying from nearby
battlefields such as Cedar Mountain, Chancellorsville, Brandy Station, and the
Wilderness were brought to Gordonsville by the trainloads. Although this was
primarily a Confederate facility, the hospital treated the wounded from both
sides. By the end of the war, more than 70,000 men had been treated at the
Gordonsville Receiving Hospital and over 700 were buried on its surrounding
grounds and later interred at Maplewood Cemetery in Gordonsville.
By the end of the Civil War, Virginia had
fifty three Receiving Hospitals similar to this one. All were burned to the ground by the Union
army except the Gordonsville Receiving hospital.
A brief look at love, sex, and marriage in the Civil War. The book
covers courtship, marriage, birth control and pregnancy, divorce, slavery and
the impact of the war on social customs.
A quick look at women doctors and medicine in the
Civil War for the general reader. Technologically, the American Civil War was
the first “modern” war, but medically it still had its roots in the Middle
Ages. In both the North and the South, thousands of women served as nurses to
help wounded and suffering soldiers and civilians. A few women served as
doctors, a remarkable feat in an era when sex discrimination prevented women
from pursuing medical education, and those few who did were often obstructed by
their male colleagues at every turn.
