RECTORTOWN STATION VA JUL 24 (1861) CDS, light but clear strike of this rare cancel with UNLISTED manuscript Paid 5 on pristine cover addressed to Mrs. Mary B. Gordon, Care of E. S. Pegram, Esq., Cobham, Albemarle, Va; tiny opening tear at upper left, Very Fine. Too late to be listed in the 2012 CSA Catalog. Ex John Vagnetti. $450.

Dr. John Churchill Gordon (1831-1919) was born at “Edgeworth” in Virginia and received two M.D. degrees – one from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and the other from the Medical College of Virginia, Richmond. He married Mary Beall Pegram June 4, 1861, and was appointed Assistant Surgeon a little over a week later to the 38th Virginia Infantry. He resigned in November the same year, but practiced medicine in Albemarle County until 1910. The Gordons had ten children.

Rectortown became the center of “Mosby's Confederacy” during the war, so called because John S. Mosby and his Rangers wreaked havoc on Union forces in the area. November 5, 1862, the Army of the Potomac's Gen. George B McClellan, established his headquarters at Rectortown. It is in Fauquier County and was on the Manassas Gap Railroad.