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The trail marks several species of trees commonly used by American Indians. Native Americans with only stone tools fully used 680+ indigenous American species. Trees provided a basic food (nuts), medicines, dyes, fuel, dugout canoes, dwellings, bowls, paddles, boxes, clothing, masks, religious images, totems, handles, and tools. Indian names for many trees have passed into common English usage and are italicized in this guide.

Catalpa (catalpa speciosa)
Catalpas oddly appearing, pendulous, slender, cylindrical, foot-long seed capsule gave rise to its nicknames "Indian cigar" and "Indian bean tree". The two US species of catalpa grow 100 feet tall and produce white or off-white flowers with yellow stripes and purple or purple-brown spots. Referring to the shape of its flowers, Muskogee Creek Indians of Georgia and Alabama named the tree katalpa, "head with wings".

Cedar
While the name cedar is often used for several conifers that are not closely related, Indians used cedars for many purposes. Its wood was used for bows and its branches for combs. Beds were made on small parallel logs that were staked down and covered with cedar boughs and robes. Split roots of cedar provided the foundation of heavy closely woven baskets. Teepee poles crafted from strong cedar boughs were said to ward off lightning. Cedar wood was used at the Sun Dance on the altar of the Sacred Woman. The sacred Thunderbird was said to nest in mountain cedars.

Hickory
Approximately 17 species of hickory, nearly all native to North America, produce hard wood for bows and plentiful nuts that were widely used by Eastern Indians. The word hickory comes from the Virginia Algonquian word pawcohiccora, which means "food prepared from pounded nuts". In ??1173??, naturalist William Bartram saw one Georgia Indian family storing more than 100 bushels of hickory nuts by pounding the kernels to pieces, then boiling them, and straining out the rich, oily part of the liquid, and finally blending this hickory milk into stews and breads.

Red Ash
California Indians used ash for making pipes, which they smoked to induce dreams, to show respect to a visitor, and to cure illnesses.

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South of the Hill, the town of Strasburg was an important trade center at the junction of major roads and rail lines. The macadamized Valley Turnpike was the major artery of travel through the Valley. By the 1860's, most of the land on Hupp's Hill was in agriculture or had been deforested, giving clear views in all directions and a dominant position astride the Valley Turnpike. The Hill served as a campsite, observation post, fortified strong point, staging area, and battlefield for both Federal and Confederate forces, yielding strategic and tactical advantages during both the 1862 and 1864 Valley Campaigns.

But understanding which directions armies in the Valley are going sometimes seems complicated. Because, unlike every other major river in North America, the Shenandoah River flows from HIGHER elevations in the SOUTH to LOWER elevations in the NORTH, moving NORTH along the Valley Pike is said to be moving DOWN the Valley. Once this geographical peculiarity is explained, it's easier to understand historical accounts of the Civil War in the Valley!

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But while Hupp's Hill clearly influenced events in 1862, its most significant military activity occurred during the months of April through October of 1864. After their defeat at New Market, Sigel's Federals retreated to Strasburg, where they encamped along the Valley Pike between Hupp's Hill and Cedar Creek until May 26th. During the summer of 1864, the opposing armies jockeyed back and forth on the Hill, taking turns occupying it: Confederates on July 21, Federals on August 11th; on August 13th, the Confederates tried to push the federals off the Hill, but, after a sharp fight, withdrew; the federals withdrew on August 15th. After the Third Battle of Winchester, federals once again controlled the Hill and on September 21 broke Early's line of defense at the Battle of Fisher's Hill.

But Hupp's Hill's most direct and significant contribution to the Civil War lies in the posturing of the two armies prior to and during the decisive Battle of Cedar Creek on October 19th. After burning the Upper (southern) Valley, Sheridan's federals leisurely marched to the banks of Cedar Creek, camping at Hupp's Hill among other locales along the way. Following rapidly, outraged Confederates massed on the southern slope of Hupp's Hill, using it to conceal their position in preparation for a surprise attack on the federals now encamped along Cedar Creek. However, inappropriate and unordered artillery fire on October 13th brought two federal brigades from Cedar Creek to Hupp's Hill to resolve the situation, one brigade taking position on each side of the Valley Pike. On the western side of the Pike, just north of the Stonewall Jackson Museum, the outnumbered 54th Pennsylvania withdrew to the safety of Cedar Creek. They left the 34th Massachusetts' flank exposed in their position at the stone wall behind today's Mountain View Family Practice. A short but sharp battle resulted, referred to as the Battle of Hupp's Hill, or Stickley's Farm, or Stickley's Shop. Though victorious in the engagement, the Confederates had lost their position of surprise, and were forced to retreat to their old positions at Fisher's Hill, some six miles south of Strasburg.

At the stone wall, a former speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, Federal Colonel George Wells, was fatally wounded; his death brought notoriety to Hupp's Hill in obituaries in newspapers throughout New England.

Six days after the Battle of Hupp's Hill, Confederates began marching at midnight to launch their surprise dawn attack on the federals headquartered at Cedar Creek. Only once the fighting began in the federal encampments were the noisy cannon rolled out from Hupp's Hill, so that their metal wheels on the oyster shell macadam would not give away the element of surprise. Driven from their camps, the Federals reorganized for a successful afternoon counterattack, which broke the Confederate army. Confederate cavalry mounted a rearguard action that protected the Confederate retreat to Fisher's Hill. Federals then reoccupied Hupp's Hill, and began building the infantry trenches and artillery lunettes still preserved at Hupp's Hill Battlefield Park. These positions were abandoned on November 10th, when it was clear that Confederate control of the Valley was at an end. But for three years Hupp's Hill had participated in the vital defense of the rich Valley resources, keeping several federal armies away from Lee's army on the Peninsula.

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Walking Hupp's Hill's interpretive trails gives you a better understanding of both the Civil War and karst topography. On the Civil War Trail, gray signs mark artillery lunettes, infantry trenches, and points of interest on the more distant landscape. On the karst trail, green signs take you to a wild cave, point out different kinds of sinkholes, and locate on the surface rooms and passages deep within the earth. There are a few text markers along the trails, but the complete trail text can be found in the Hupp's Hill Guidebook, which is available for purchase in the Museum Store.

No trip to Hupp's Hill Battlefield Park is complete without visiting Stonewall Jackson Museum, which interprets all six battles of Jackson's Valley Campaign and three battles of the 1864 Campaign with original artifacts and hands-on reproductions. See how Civil War infantry, artillery, and cavalry soldiers lived, as well as how the medical, quartermaster, and mapmaking departments functioned. You'll understand how the civilian on the home front "made do" with ingenious substitutes for the scarce items of daily life. And an extensive in-house library is available for personal research.

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For your comfort and convenience, public restrooms and a water cooler are located opposite the ticket counter in Stonewall Jackson Museum. Please visit our Museum Store, which offers a large bookstore and Civil War mementoes as well as a large selection of minerals.

Crystal Caverns is a real little gem in the Shenandoah Valley! Legend has it that Shawnee Indians showed the homesteading Hupp family the cave's entrance in 1755. The family quickly began using the cave for food storage, as the constant 54-degree temperature functions as natural refrigeration and provides ideal conditions for churning butter on hot summer days.

The Hupps often hosted "Illuminations", candlelit parties in the cave's depth. Young homesick Civil War soldiers sometimes took time out from the monotony of army life to explore the cave. Hupp children and servants played hooky from farm chores in the cave's cool confines, hiding from their taskmasters in its numerous holes and passages. Crystal Caverns reverberated with first the laughter, then the groans, of children running barefoot throughout the underground passages and stubbing their toes on the "Toe Thumpers". Later, escaped slaves traveling along the Underground Railroad and numerous deserters from both North and South also used those hiding places during the Civil War.

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The main gallery contains exhibits on all 42 presidents, the Declaration, Revolution Constitution, and White House. Our founder, Leo Bernstein, who began collecting presidential artifacts and memorabilia over 60 years ago, provided 98% of the main gallery's exhibits. Each presidential exhibit has a one-page descriptor, one or more portraits, and artifacts, signatures, and memorabilia from the museum collection, which are housed in glass cases scattered around the room. Presidential films are shown upon request.

Children, you may want to view the presidential exhibits by participating in our scavenger hunt. You can get a scavenger sheet, clipboard, and pencil near the gallery entrance; once you complete the sheet, a museum attendant will give you a certificate of accomplishment. But by far, the highlight of your museum visit will be the One Room School House, a hands-on room that features colonial clothes you can try on. You can examine Discovery boxes at real antique school desks. The pot-bellied stove is never hot but it lends an old time feeling to the room, as does the real slate chalkboard that was originally in a local school building. History is Fun at Museum of American Presidents!

Do you want a reminder of your visit to Museum of American Presidents? Be sure to visit our museum store, which is located right off the first gallery.

Jeane Dixon Museum and Library tells the story of one of the most fascinating women of the 20th century. Best known as the clairvoyant who predicted the Kennedy, King, and Gandhi assassinations, Jeane also had many other faces. See her as a devoted wife, real estate executive, wartime volunteer, devout Catholic, animal lover, and humanitarian. View her artifacts, pictures, memorabilia, awards, honoraria, furniture, clothing, artworks, cherished mementoes, and religious icons. Browse through the extensive research library, which contains hundreds of volumes on prophecy, paranormal studies, and presidential biographies, including books Mrs. Dixon authored as well as those she collected and studied.

Jeane Dixon maintained that the veins of calcite crystals coursing through Crystal Cavern's winding passages rejuvenated and refreshed her, sharpening her psychic powers. Other visitors with such sensitivities have claimed similar experiences. We predict that you'd enjoy visiting there too!

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This spring, we opened two new exhibits, Blue, Gray, & Red, and Blue, Gray,& Black, to explore the contributions of often-forgotten war participants: Indian and Black soldiers. As you "hear" the voices of minority members serving in either the Northern or Southern armies, you can clearly see the irony of their military service, given the social climate of the era.

So what was missing? The Voices of Children at War, which gives a truly unique perspective on the War Between the States!

Our exhibit is a five-panel timeline, beginning with army mobilization and ending with a post-war epilogue, with the battles of 1st Manassas, Shiloh, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Atlanta, Savannah, and Appomattox filling in the center. The exhibit contains over 40 quotations from young soldiers and civilians who fighting for survival during America's bloodiest four years. As you view photographs of their sweet young faces, their "voices" tell of facing horrors with courage beyond their years. A kid viewing this exhibit wonders what it would have been like to have been a child during that time, while his parent shudders at the thought. The exhibit also explores several questions.

Both sides had children inthe army.

Why would a child join an army? Both sides, North and South, were gripped with patriotic fervor that pervaded newspaper editorials, rousing songs, and even children's textbooks. The War, and who should prevail in the fighting, was the topic of every conversation. Many boys wanted to get into the action, to prove that they were men, to impress a girl left back home, to wear a great uniform in a military parade, to see places beyond their provincial upbringings, to go off adventuring with the older men of the town. Thomas Galwey said he went to the Cleveland armory where "they seemed to like me and I liked them. I didn't tell them that I was only fifteen (And so) I became a soldier".

If a soldier was supposed to be at least 18-years-old, how could an underage boy get into the army? Tall, strapping farm boys often appeared older than their real age and armies desperately in need of warm bodies often took a recruit's word at face value. Youngsters reared in strict families, while not happy about telling an overt lie, were capable of telling an evasive falsehood: putting a piece of paper on which was written 18 in his shoe, the boy could swear with technical truthfulness "I am over 18" because he was indeed standing over the numeral! Others, like 10-year-old Johnny Clem, aka Johnny Shiloh, were more like company mascots; Johnny's angelic face fooled no one, and no one even attempted to pass him off as an adult; the company officers pitched in for his pay and uniform. There were also female vivandieres, the daughters of the regiment, who traveled with their fathers' regiments and gave aid to wounded soldiers.

Did kids know what they were getting into? Some boy soldiers complained bitterly about ill-fitting uniforms, long marches, and lack of sufficient rations and medical supplies, but the adults in their units did, too. And also like older recruits, they waited and wondered how they would perform in their first battle. Sixteen-year-old Elisha Stockwell (14th Wisconsin), who had run away from home to join the army, said that while lying in a ditch at Shiloh, "as the shells were flying over us, my thoughts went back to my home, and I thought what a foolish boy I was to get into such a mess. It is very trying to one's nerves to lay under fire and not to be able to do anything in return. But as soon as we were ordered forward, the fear left me".

But did these kids really see the full horrors of war? They certainly did. Sixteen-year-old Thomas Galwey (8th Ohio) wrote in his diary that 28 of his company's 32 men were dead or severely wounded after the Battle of Antietam. At the wall in Fredericksburg, 16-year-old Theodore Gerrish (20th Maine) said that the artillery "vomited fire and earth incessantly. The ground was covered with guns, blankets, haversacks and canteens, while dead comrades were lying grim and ghastly around us". Drummer Charles Bardeen (1st Massachusetts) wrote to his mother after working a 6-hour hospital shift that "I have seen enough. Let any one go into the Hospital where I was and see the scenes that I saw". But he went on to fight at Gettysburg, where he saw "an awful sight, men, horses, all lying in heaps as far as the eye can reach". Those angelic faces started changing into the battle-hardened visages of much older people.

Did the boys stick it out? Most did. Many 15-year-old drummer boys enlisted as privates when they turned 18; many soldiers of every age re-enlisted when their first term was up, and were often promoted up the ranks. Nineteen-year-old Elisha Hunt Rhodes enlisted as a private in the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers in 1861, but was a seasoned 23-year-old colonel when the regiment disbanded in July, 1865. Little Johnny Clem later became a career officer in the US Army. Others didn't return from the war.

Did these boys become totally callous and battle-hardened for the rest of their lives? No, after the war several wrote their war reminiscences, and marveled at their own changing perceptions. An older Carlton McCarthy (Richmond Regiment) found "it is amusing to think of the follies of the early part of the war, as illustrated by the outfits of the volunteers. They were heavily clad, and so burdened with all manner of things, that marching was a torture. The change came rapidly (Later,) no soldiers ever marched with less to encumber them, and none marched faster and held out longer". Some survivors even met black days with an even blacker humor. After the Battle of Chancellorsville, 15-year-old Drummer Charles Bardeen noted in his diary "the fighting was terrific, Badger and Baxter of my Company were killed. Glad that they weren't taking us alphabetically".

How did young civilians view the War?

As the Anaconda Plan started constricting the South, most Southerners faced severe shortages. The Federal blockade of the southern coastline kept vitally needed supplies away from both the army and the homefront. Confederates stretched their supplies of and devised ingenious substitutes for over 90% of the products used in everyday life. Ten-year-old Evelyn Ward remembered "Mother had rye toasted with just enough coffee to flavor it to make the coffee hold out. When all the candies were gone from the stores, we made taffy of sorghum". But in areas under siege, shortages became utterly critical. When Mary Loughborough's attention was momentarily diverted, her 2-year-old daughter quickly consumed both portions of their remaining food; the half-starved tyke told her "Mamma, it's so dood!". Later, they were forced to eat her pet jaybird; during the same time, dogs and cats virtually disappeared from Vicksburg streets.

Caught in the crossfire between the two armies, 17-year-old Jennie McCreary described the massive Confederate artillery barrage preceding Pickett's Charge on July 3, 1863: "Nothing can be compared to it, one who has never heard it cannot form any idea how terrible it is". During the repeated bombardments of Vicksburg, 4-year-old Lida Lord was not comforted when her mother told her "Don't cry, my darling, God will protect us" and responded, "But, Mamma, I's so "fraid God's killed too!". Lucy McRae remembered being buried alive, and then rescued, when a shell collapsed the cave they were hiding in; when her family decided to seek safer haven, "I was bent over from my injuries and could not run fast. Watching the shells, we learned to run toward them, to let them go over us". But, even after a battle, danger remained; 15-year-old Albertus McCreary remembered souvenir-hunting on Cemetery Hill with a school mate, who blew himself up handling a shell on the battlefield.

The death and destruction was awful in every sense of the word. Ten-year-old Carrie Berry told her diary she "never saw a place torn up like Atlanta is. Half of the houses are torn down". Seventeen-year-old Theodore Upson said that at the end of the first week of Sherman's March to the Sea, they wiped out a pickup force at Griswoldville, Georgia. "We went down on the line where lay the Confederate dead. Some one was groaning. It was a harvest of death". Teenager Eliza Andrews observed along Sherman's route that "crowds of our soldiers were tramping over the road and I saw numbers seated on the roadside greedily eating raw turnips, meat skins, parched corn - anything they could find, even picking up the loose grain that Sherman's horses had left". After a battle, local resources to care for the sick and wounded were overwhelmed; every building in town was often converted to a makeshift hospital. Ten-year-old Charlie McCurdy remembered wounded men covering the threshing floor of his barn.

Children expressed heart-rending loneliness when writing letters to their absent soldier-fathers and brothers. Ten-year-old Loulie Gilmer wrote to her father, Major Jeremy Gilmer, "I do want to see you so much. I do miss you so much in the evening when I come in and no one is in, and I am so lonesome by myself and if you were here you would tell me stories and so I would not be so lonesome". She was lucky, however; Major Gilmer was captured near Fort Henry, escaped from prison, rejoined his unit, and finally returned home. After a serious illness, 16-year-old Maria Lewis and wrote to her father that "when I was sick I was so fraid I would die and not get to see you but I am spared and hope to see you again". But Maria never saw her father again; Captain Andrew Lewis, died July 2, 1862, after being wounded, captured, and having a leg amputated. After 11-year-old Katie Darling of Glencoe, Virginia, thought about the Gettysburg Campaign, she told her diary "I think our people did right to invade the enemy's country" but in the next sentence asked "I wonder where my dear Brothers are to-night?".

When the exhausted South laid down its weapons, many children were just glad it was over. Seven-year-old Robert Martin remarked "when the news came of the surrender, it also meant the return of my father whom (I saw) not more than twice during the war". Such pivotal events shaped these children's characters. It is not a coincidence that American leaders during World War I wanted a generous peace treaty that did not further retaliate against the Central Powers - these leaders were children during the Civil War, and remembered only too well the Reconstruction of the South.

After following these young people through several battles, the young Museum visitor often feels he knows them personally and even identifies with their expressed emotions. This process expands his awareness of people suffering in other wars elsewhere in the world. They understand why their contemporary, 11-year-old Zista Filipovec of Sarajevo, said "I am 'young' and politics are conducted by 'grown-ups'. But I think the 'young' would do it better. We certainly would not have chosen war". The children of the Civil War would probably not have chosen war either, but they - and their voices - survived it.