I needed to know the layout of Stonewall Jackson's Winchester headquarters, since it's a prominent location in my fourth novel. However, very little could be found about the house online. The building was restored and converted to a museum several decades ago, so I arranged a field trip!

Before the tour started, I asked the guide if I could take exhaustively in-depth pictures of the rooms, as well as an audio recording of the tour. He said sure, so long as he wasn't in any of the pictures. Fantastic! Each picture I took I can use as an illustration reference, and most of the furniture was original. Through comparing images of both the interior and exterior in conjunction with our guide's helpful knowledge, I was able to create a basic floorplan of the house as it would have been in 1862. And none of this I could find online!

I cannot encourage anyone enough to visit this museum for themselves. The guide is amazingly knowledgeable, the gift store fantastic, and you'll be walking through a piece of the Civil War!