On April 27, 1862, Union forces under Major General Nathaniel Banks were pursuing Stonewall Jackson and his men up the Shenandoah Valley after the First Battle of Kernstown. The 4th Ohio Volunteer Infantry were part of the 1st Brigade of Shields Division commanded by Brigadier General Nathan Kimball. In their regimental history they detail their march south. They arrived a few miles north of Harrisonburg on the 26th and went into camp at what they called “Camp Cave” the following day. The camp was near Melrose Caverns (Harrison’s Cave during the Civil War). They remained there until May 6th when they moved their camp to the foot of Massanutten Mountain one mile east of town. During that time, they visited what they called Wier Cave on the 28th with 500 of their men and the band. On May 5th a reporter from the Painesville Ohio Telegram visited the current Melrose Caverns along with men of the 4th OH. Many other Confederate soldiers visited the cave at later points in the war.

History of Melrose Caverns from their website- Melrose Caverns lies on the John Harrison, Sr. homestead, a small part of a pre-revolutionary land grant to the Harrison family.  John, a brother of Thomas Harrison, the founder of Harrisonburg, discovered the Caverns in 1818. In April 1862, Union forces under the command of General Nathaniel P. Banks marched south from New Market along the Valley Pike to reinforce advance units already occupying Harrisonburg. Elements of Banks’s army paused, and pitched tents under blossoming pear trees next to the present day service station by the Valley Pike. General Banks himself may have occupied the tents, as his dispatches indicated that by then he had arrived in the vicinity of Harrisonburg. The troops soon discovered the entrance to the Caverns and proceeded to explore the underground chambers with torches. With a regimental band playing music in the echoing grottoes, soldiers from Ohio regiments fired muskets and handguns at some of the columns and carved their names and dates, along with a Union shield and bust of President Lincoln, on various underground formations. At other times during the conflict, Confederate soldiers from Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina also recorded their presence on the Caverns walls. Due to the lack of weather underground, the ballistic impacts and other markings have remained visible and vibrant.

Melrose Caverns offers a one hour history tour of the caverns but the cave is only open seasonally. The pictures below were taken inside the cave on one of those tours. It was an excellent tour.

The soldiers used the stalagmite below for target practice.

One of the previous owners of the cave decided to build a hotel on top of the cave and blew a hole in the roof in order to try and cool the hotel using air from the cave.

The two images below show a group of signatures from a reunion of the Valley Rangers on November 2, 1874. Reuben Moore, owner of the cave during the Civil War, and his brother David were members of the Rangers. Reuben Moore is in the center of the front row in the picture below.

I could not make out the signatures in the next several images.

The next group of images show signatures of what are reported to be Confederate soldiers.