Belle Grove Plantation

Belle Grove is a limestone manor house built in seventeen ninety-seven by Major Isaac Hite and his wife Nelly Madison Hite, sister of President James Madison. Thomas Jefferson, working through Madison, offered suggestions that shaped the design.

Sixty-seven years after it was built, the plantation became the centerpiece of one of the Shenandoah Valley's bloodiest Civil War battles. On October nineteenth, eighteen sixty-four, Confederate General Jubal Early launched a surprise dawn attack that temporarily overran Union lines here. General Philip Sheridan rode back from Winchester, regrouped his troops, and counterattacked, pushing Early out of the Valley for good. The battle produced more than eight thousand casualties, two-thirds of them Union.

Belle Grove served as Union headquarters throughout the fight. It is now a National Trust for Historic Preservation site and part of Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park.