By Kevin Allen Rappahannock News Staff Writer The story

By Kevin Allen

Rappahannock News Staff Writer

The story of the Civil War is often told in third person, from the unemotional voice of a text-book author listing generals’ victories and defeats on famous battlefields at places like Manassas, Gettysburg or Antietem.

But another side of the war was that seen by people who never carried a gun, fired a cannon or wore a military uniform. -Thousands of Piedmont families had a close-up view of the drama as it swirled about their homes, and one of those places was Mountain Home near Chester Gap.

During the war, the 6,000square-foot Greek Revival mansion was home to the family of Samuel Beck Gardner, who built the home in 1847.

In 1862, his 15-year-old daughter, Ann Chunn Gardner, penciled her thoughts about the war into her diary.

The small journal, now faded and sometimes illegible, has been on file at the Warren Heritage Society in Front Royal since the 1950s. But the book is attracting attention again now that Mountain Home is for sale.

The diary begins in June 1862 — some three months into Gen. Thomas J. ‘‘Stonewall* Jackson’s famous Valley Campaign. The campaign included the Battle of Front Royal on May 23, 1862 - one month prior to the first entry in Ann’s diary.

By late June, Jackson had headed south to join Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond. As the Union Army attempted to regain control of the lower Shenandoah Valley, large numbers of troops passed in front of the Gardners’ home.

Located along Chester Gap Road (now U.S. 522) between Front Royal and Chester Gap, the Gardners were in a prime position to observe movements of bpth Confederate and Union soldiers.

Ann’s entries shift from loving descriptions of nature to her dislike of cleaning her room to accounts of soldiers begging for - and sometimes stealing - food. '