A Middleburg Mystery: The Stone Grave Marker
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By Childs Burden
as anyone noticed the mysterious stone grave marker located on the south side of Route 50 just off the old roadbed and a few hundred yards east of Atoka? It’s just under a tree and along the side of the stone wall.
I noticed it there some 30 years ago and, naturally curious, I asked longtime residents whether they thought the marker was a grave stone. Most thought so, but didn’t know much more. Imagine my delight when I found a book, “The Memoirs of the Stuart Horse Artillery Battalion,” edited by Robert Trout, widely considered the leading historian of the horse artillery both North and South. Trout has given us the complete journals of three Confederate artillery soldiers who fought under Confederate General JEB Stuart in the Civil War. One journal was written by Lieutenant Lewis T. Nunnelee, who enlisted in Captain Marcellus Moorman’s Beauregard Rifles in Lynchburg on May 10, 1861. He joined up at 41 as a private but survived the war and later donated his journal to The Museum of the Confederacy. The Middleburg area was inundated by large-scale actions twice during the Civil War—after the Battle of Antietam in late October and early November of 1862 and just before Gettysburg, in June, 1863. Cavalry battles raged up The Ashby Gap Turnpike (Route 50) from Aldie on June 17 to Middleburg on June 19 and to Upperville on June 21. There were 21,000 troopers fighting stirrup to stirrup on two fronts. By the end of the day, the Federal troopers returned to their bases across the Rappahannock River. Soon, Stuart’s men began drifting up across the Rappahannock in a wide arc to cover
Photos by Leonard Shapiro
The fallen soldier’s grave is just feet away from route 50 near Atoka.
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Go Green Middleburg | Winter 2020
