plantation house | slave market

the new york times' DISUNION blog brings us a tour of the abandoned civil war-era architecture across the south:

Perhaps the most famous house of 1861 was, by July of that year, no longer standing. The home, called Spring Hill, belonged to Judith Henry, an invalid widow, and stood on a hill overlooking Bull Run. In the battle that engulfed the fields around Spring Hill on July 21, Henry was killed and her home destroyed, save for a few remnant beams and a section of chimney.

Over the next four years of war, countless thousands of homes, from grand mansions to decrepit shacks, would be damaged or destroyed. Many others were simply abandoned by fleeing families, never to be reclaimed. What was left behind was a landscape of human ruin, some of it still standing today, 150 years later. (via)