The Mineral Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy is scheduled to visit the Civil War Museum at the Exchange Hotel in Gordonsville on Thursday, May 10. Members are asked to meet in the rear parking lot of Louisa Baptist Church at 10:00 a.m. so that they will arrive and begin touring the museum at 10:30 a.m. UDC members are encouraged to plan to attend and to invite a guest.
The Exchange Hotel Museum is Virginia’s only standing Civil War receiving hospital. The Exchange Hotel, a Greek Revival style designed by architect Benjamin F. Faulconer, was built in 1860 for Richard F. Omohundro at an important railroad junction. That strategic location caused the “hotel” to become part of the Gordonsville Receiving Hospital in 1862. In less than one year, more than 23,000 sick and wounded were admitted. Soldiers were brought from nearby battlefields such as Cedar Mountain, Trevilians Station, Mine Run, Brandy Station, Wilderness and Chancellorsville. Although the facility was primarily a Confederate facility, the hospital did treat the wounded from both sides. Twenty-six Union soldiers died there. By the end of the war more than 70,000 men had been treated. More than 700 were buried on the surrounding grounds.
The building survived the war and was used during Reconstruction as a hospital for newly freed slaves as a Freedman’s Bureau Hospital. Later the building became once again a hotel until the 1940s. Historic Gordonsville, Inc. acquired and restored the properly in 1971. In June of 2002, the hotel is acknowledged as an African-American Memorial Shrine.
Admission rates are $7 for adults, $6 for senior adults age 63 and older, $3 for children age 6 through 15, and children younger than 6 are free. Following the tour,the group will have lunch at the Barbeque Exchange.
Members need to RSVP with the number of guest and whether or not they plan on meeting at the Exchange Hotel or carpooling.
On June 14, the chapter will host guest speaker Teresa Roane, archivist from the Museum of the Confederacy, as at its Spring Salad Luncheon.
To make reservations, or for more information about the Mineral Chapter of the UDC, call (540) 967-1076. The chapter usually meets on the second Thursday of the month during the school year.
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