Ben Lomond Plantation

Main house Ben Lomond Plantation in Prince William County, Virginia.

The home, which was part of a plantation, was built in 1832 by Benjamin Tasker Chinn.  He was a descendant of the Carter family, who owned much of what is now Northern Virginia.  He later leased the plantation to the Pringle family, who were also farmers.

When the Civil War began in 1861, the house became a field hospital.  The main road between the battlefield and initial Confederate positions, Blackburn’s Ford, ran on the east side of the house, and this was one of the closest homes to the battle that was not on the battlefield itself.  Like many homes during the battle, this house was seized by soldiers and made into a hospital.  (Other homes converted to field offices, officer quarters, or headquarters.)  The Confederate Army seized the home and brought their wounded here to be operated on.  While some soldiers survived, many of them died.

Later, the home was seized by the Union Army, who charged the Pringle family with trading with the Confederacy.  The furniture was destroyed, and the walls were covered with graffiti.  The Pringle family struggled to rebuild the home after the war.  They were eventually forced to leave the property.  In the twentieth century, the United States Surgeon General made the house their retreat home, and it became a large dairy farm.