Loudoun County is situated at the very top of Virginia, bordered on the north by the Potomac River and Maryland, to the west by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah River, and a mere 35 miles from Washington DC to the east. Due to her strategic location, the county saw more continuous and sustained action during the Civil War than any other location in the southern Confederacy, and in fact traded hands between Union and Confederate forces six times between 1862 to 1864. Many battles were fought on her soil, including Ball's Bluff and the battles of Middleburg/Aldie/Upperville just one month prior to Gettysburg.
The battles at Manassas (also known as Bull Run) were just a stone's throw away in neighboring Prince William County. Colonel John Mosby (the famous "Gray Ghost") lived in and haunted the Loudoun countryside as a perpetual thorn in the flanks of the Union Army.
From 1861 to 1864, while the fighting raged back and forth across Loudoun's borders, the court books remained in hiding. Court was suspended and no court data (wills, deeds, probate, marriages, etc) was recorded during that time. However extensive data just prior to, and immediately after, the war is available, as well as Confederate military documents and private diaries and letters. Much of this information exists in the Thomas Balch Library in Leesburg, and in the Loudoun County Historical Library.