A house amid the fighting

You're standing in front of the Bell House, one of the most historic buildings in Winchester. The house was built between 1809 and 1811 by John Bell II. When he died in 1838, the house passed to his son, John Newton Bell. John and his second wife, Margaretta Hutton Brown, lived here at the time of the Civil War.

Like most families in Winchester, the Bells faced hard times during the war, and like many, they suffered personal loss when Robert Bell, one of John's children with his first wife, was killed at Rappahannock Station in November of 1863. The war also came to the Bell House itself, most notably during the Third Battle of Winchester, fought on September the 19th, 1864. Just the day before, on September 18th, Margaretta had given birth to a child, Stuart Bell.

Adding to the strain on the family, John Bell had been imprisoned by the Union military and was being held at Fort McHenry in Baltimore at the time. When the battle began early on the morning of September the 19th, many residents initially thought it was just another small action. But as the roar of combat grew louder and louder, it became clear that this was no ordinary fight. The last epic struggle for Winchester had begun, and it was coming toward the city. As the fighting moved closer, Union cannon fire crashed around the Bell House.

Mrs. Bell, her newborn son, family, and enslaved workers all huddled in the cellar for safety. The ground-shaking impact of the shells was terrifying. The concussions from the artillery blast were so powerful that they stopped the grandfather clock in the main hall, leaving the hands frozen at 4:32 p.m. As the explosions rocked the building, a slave rushed to the attic to close a hatch on the roof that had been opened for ventilation earlier that day. Almost immediately, the shelling seemed to move away, bringing some relief.

Later, the Bells had come to believe that the inside of the roof hatch had been used for the sighting of the cannons by the Union gunners who were pummeling the town. Later, when the Confederate defensive line was broken, the streets around you were a scene of madness and chaos, full of retreating Confederates, pursuing Federals, and panicked civilians. The third battle of Winchester ended major fighting in the city, but the winter that followed was hard and bitter. The temperatures were brutally cold and food and supplies were very scarce. In this time of crisis, the Bells stepped forward.

Margaretta Brown Bell reached out to her family and friends in Baltimore. Margaretta's mother traveled to Winchester and convinced Union Commander General Philip Sheridan to permit food to be sent from Baltimore, providing badly needed relief to the destitute. Even after the war ended, the Bells continued to import aid. Some of that aid was by gift, but much of it was by loan, and it took the Bell family decades to repay the loans. John Newton Bell died in 1890, and the house passed to his son, Stuart Bell, the boy who had been born the day before the third battle of Winchester.

The small building that you see to the left of the main house was the summer kitchen before the current kitchen was installed in 1948. More recently, for many years, the small building was the local office of Congressman Frank Wolf. Congressman Wolf was one of the greatest driving forces behind the creation of the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields National Historic District.

Today, the Bell House is part of the Battlefields Foundation's museum system and is occasionally open for tours, giving visitors a chance to see the remarkable collection of historic furnishings and artwork, including the grandfather clock that was stopped by cannon fire, a still standing witness to the impact of war.