Tales from the road: Civil War meets 'Civil Weird' in Virginia

"Turner Ashby" rests in his "coffin" where the real Turner Ashby lay in 1862.

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So en route to Nashville last April, I passed through the Shenandoah Valley on I-81 — “The Devil’s Highway” and a route that seems like a magnet for every tailgater and ornery driver in the United States. 

Along the way, I made a pit stop in tiny Port Republic, Va., to score a “witness tree pen” and a tour from my friend Aaron of the Frank Kemper house, where the body of Confederate cavalry commander Turner Ashby lay in late-spring 1862.

As some of you may recall from this space, a couple years ago Aaron quit his gig as a cop to mow battlefields. The man sure has a passion for the Civil War.

The folks in this "kinda creepy" image
 stare at the faux Turner Ashby
in a coffin.

Anywho, I vowed to get one of those “witness pens” after learning about them several years ago from a local man who makes fabulous BBQ chicken at the Port Republic convenience store. The wood for the pens came from a white oak under which Stonewall Jackson supposedly prayed during a Sunday service in mid-June 1862. 

In 2011, locals had the pens made from “Jackson Prayer Tree” trimmings. (The tree had toppled in a windstorm.) 

After scoring pens — plural — from Aaron, he showed me inside the Kemper house, the home for a first-floor museum that includes artillery shells, swords and guns — all stuff Mrs. B will never let in our own house. 

The place also includes one of the stranger Civil War displays you’ll ever see: a coffin with a life-sized, post-mortem image in the opening of the 34-year-old Ashby — “The Black Knight of the Confederacy” — who had been killed at a skirmish near Harrisonburg (Va.) on June 6, 1862. 

Locals and Confederate soldiers paid respects to the real Ashby at this very house. Jackson himself was among the mourners. The faux coffin rests on the same spot where Ashby’s body once lay.

In the window above it is a bizarre, modern image of a woman, boy and a Confederate soldier staring intently at the photo of Ashby in the coffin. 

“It’s kinda creepy,” Aaron admitted. 

You’re telling me.

Side notes: Country ham sandwiches from the Port Republic convenience store sure are salty. Aaron told me he recently got a 96-inch mower to replace the 48-inch mower, making battlefield mowing a breeze. 

The Frank Kemper house in Port Republic, Va.

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