Winchester, Virginia > Downtown Winchester
Alta Vista, the headquarters of Confederate General Thomas J. Jackson on the north side of Winchester, Virginia, is the home to Stonewall Jackson’s Headquarters Museum. (Open seasonally; see website for date and time.) It is marked by two historical markers on the street, and has been designated both a Virginia and a National Historic Landmark.
From the wayside marker:
Jackson’s Headquarters
I am quite comfortable.
Confederate Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, commanding the Shenandoah Valley military district, lived in this house from mid-November 1861 through early March 1862. Here he planned a winter campaign against Union forces at Romney and Bath (present-day Berkeley Springs) and prepared to defend the Shenandoah Valley.
This Gothic Revival-style cottage, Alta Vista, was built in 1854 for William M. Fuller. The south-facing entrance overlooked a broad, open hillside with a commanding view of Winchester. The house’s owner in 1861, Lt. Col. Lewis T. Moore, 4th Virginia Infantry, offered it to the general for his headquarters.
Jackson’s wife, Mary Anna, joined him in December 1861. During his time in Winchester, Jackson became fond of the community and hoped to settle here after the war. One hundred years later, the house was purchased for a museum. The collection includes many artifacts associated with Stonewall Jackson.
“The situation is beautiful. The building is of cottage style and contains six rooms. I have two rooms, one above the other. The lower room, or office, has a matting on the floor, a large fine table, six chairs, and a piano. The walls are papered with elegant guilt paper. I don’t remember to have ever seen more beautiful papering, and there are five paintings hanging on the walls. … The upper room is neat, but not a full story and … remarkable for being heated in a peculiar manner, by a flue from the office below. Through the blessing of our ever-kind Heavenly Father, I am quite comfortable.” —Letter, Jackson to his wife, November 16, 1861.
From the historical marker:
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Jackson’s Headquarters
This house was used by Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Jackson, then commanding the Valley District, Department of Northern Virginia, as his official headquarters from November 1861, to March, 1862, when he left Winchester to begin his famous Valley Campaign.
Erected 1963 by Virginia State Library
Location
The house and markers are on the west side of North Braddock Street 70 yards north of Peyton Street in Winchester, Virginia. (39°11’20.8″N 78°09’55.5″W)