page_title: Rude's Hill
section_title: 1862
hierarchical_section_title: Rude's Hill / 1862
caption_attribution_description: English: Rude's Hill, seen from the flatlands of Meems Bottom. This is the viewpoint which Union forces would have in various stime during the war when approaching Confederate forces defending the hill. The Valley Turnipike (now Rt.11) is on he far right.
context_page_description: Rude's Hill is a 981 foot hill just outside of the town of Mt. Jackson in Shenandoah County, Virginia, United States, primarily known because it was a strategically placed elevation on which many Civil War events occurred. It was named after the Danish Lutheran minister Anders Rudolph Rude, who arrived in the USA in 1836 and married the widow of the Steenbergen plantation. They inhabited a house on the hill called "Locust Grove" which dates to 1792, according to county records. As of July 2014 when the property was for sale, "Locust Grove" was in severely neglected condition with several ungainly exterior modifications over the years, but was still standing.
  Rude's Hill was an important site in the American Civil War, occupying a commanding high point overlooking the key Valley Turnpike where is passes through a point between Smith Creek on the east and the North Fork of the Shenandoah River on the western side. Rude's Hill is the first elevation on that route beyond the flat Meems bottomland on the south end of the town of Mt. Jackson.
context_section_description: During Shenandoah Valley campaign, following his rare tactical defeat at the First Battle Of Kernstown on March 23, 1862, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson withdrew down the valley to Rude's Hill and made Locust Grove one of his headquarters from April 2-17, 1862. There he rallied his troops and reorganized his command, with his forces swelling to 6,000 men on Rude's Hill. On April 16-17, 1862 there was a skirmish at Rude's Hill, With Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks approaching with 20,000 troops, Jackson was planning to make a stand on Rude's Hill but his cavalry, under pressure of the Union's skirmishing advance on the 16th, had failed to destroy the gateway bridge over the river. So Jackson withdrew south on April 17, but ultimately defeated Union generals in a series of moves and battles up and down the Shenandoah Valley from May to June, 1862.  
  During the war, pastor Rude's wife and daughter were unintended victims and the property suffered heavy damage, so Rev. Rude left in the autumn of 1862. In Texas he became a minister and Professor, but this hill continued to reflect his family name. Jackson's dispatches from this headquarters bore the dateline, “Rude’s Hill," a name that stuck due to its continuting role in the war. After 1862, the house was evidently occupied by Reverend Addison Weller and his wife, both Methodists.
caption: Rude's Hill, seen from the flatlands of Meems Bottom. This is the viewpoint which Union forces would have had in various points during the war, approaching Confederate positions defending the hill. The Valley Turnipike (now Rt.11) is on the far right. The Massantten mountains are in the distance.
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