Nobody warned you that a quick day trip to Gordonsville, Virginia, would leave you questioning everything you thought you knew about old buildings and the people who never quite left them.
The Exchange Hotel Civil War Medical Museum has that effect on people.
It’s a handsome, gray-painted structure sitting on a gentle rise in this small Orange County town, with wide porches, tall shuttered windows, and an exterior staircase that gives the whole building a kind of dignified, formal posture.
And then there’s the cannon on the front lawn…