Roadside turnout, gravel with information sign - North side of highway. Sign at roadside turnout commemorates the Battle of McDowell. 'Stonewall Jackson, to prevent a junction of Fremont and Banks, took position on the hills just to the South and beat off the attacks of Fremont's advance under Milroy, May 8, 1862. Milroy retreated that night. Western Virginia is mountainous, covered by the Allegheny and Blue Ridge mountains with the great Shenandoah Valley falling between the ranges. The central piedmont region, with its rolling hills, flattens out into the sandy coastal plain toward the Atlantic Ocean.