 Barton, however, was anything but a pretender. After procuring a load of supplies from the Sanitary Commission, the Patent Office clerk and future founder of the American Red Cross boarded a train on August 31, 1862 and headed to Fairfax Station. Over the next few days, she and her fellow volunteers tirelessly cared for the wounded soldiers. On September 2, 1862 Barton climbed aboard the last train of wounded to leave Fairfax Station. As Barton described her narrow escape:
The conductor stood with a torch which he applied to a pile of combustible material beside the track. And we rounded the curve which took us from view as we saw the station ablaze, and a troop of [Confederate] cavalry dashing down the hill. (in Epler 46.)
The picturesque St. Mary of Sorrows Catholic Church was my first stop after leaving Ox Hill. During the late 1850s, Irish Catholic immigrants came to this part of Fairfax to work on the Orange & Alexandria Railroad. Priests traveled all the way from St. Mary's in Alexandria and said Mass for local Catholics in boxcars. The need for a permanent church building soon became apparent, and in 1858, the Bishop of Richmond laid the cornerstone for St. Mary's. Railroad workers helped to build the church, which was dedicated in September 1860. As I strolled through the now peaceful churchyard, I imagined Barton and her band of volunteers moving about and comforting the wounded soldiers.
|Historical marker at the entrance to St. Mary's commemorating Clara Barton's service there after Second Manassas and Chantilly.|
I next drove a short distance to the Fairfax Station Railroad Museum, which is housed in the former railroad station. Erected in 1903, the building sits across the street from its original location next to the railroad tracks. The first station, built in 1852, fell victim to the Second Manassas Campaign. The Union Army rebuilt the depot after Antietam. Other stations followed in 1873, 1891, and 1903. The railroad closed the station permanently in 1973. Unfortunately the museum is only open on Sundays so I could not check out the history displays and model trains. I took the time to read a Civil War Trails marker in front of the station and talked with a history intern from George Mason who was preparing for an upcoming Sesquicentennial event at the museum. A return trip, however, is in order.
|The Fairfax Station Railroad Museum, located in the 1903 train station. A Civil War Trails marker in front of the station describes Barton's feelings on arriving at Fairfax Station in August 1862: "We were a little band of almost empty-handed workers, literally by ourselves, in the wild woods of Virginia, with 3000 suffering dying men crowded upon a few acres within our reach." The station at the time of the Civil War was a two-story building. Union soldiers wrote about surgeons performing amputations on the station's first floor.|
After touring Fairfax Station, I grabbed lunch in the City of Fairfax and then visited a few sites associated with other periods during the Civil War. (More to come in future posts!) Overall, I would recommend that visitors add Ox Hill, St. Mary's, and Fairfax Station to any itinerary involving Second Manassas. The tour gave me a real feel for the days following the battle. Ox Hill alone tells the powerful story of an engagement that resulted in the deaths of two rising stars in the Union Army. The park also teaches an important lesson about battlefield preservation. St. Mary's and the land around Fairfax Station speak to the hardships endured by ordinary Union soldiers, as well as the sacrifices of Barton and other courageous volunteers. Although more obscure compared to places like Manassas National Battlefield, these sites certainly merit a detour in their own right.
Aside from the websites referenced in the main text, the following sources were useful in compiling this post:
David H. Burton, Clara Barton: In the Service of Humanity (1995); Percy H. Epler, The Life of Clara Barton (1915); Elizabeth Brown Pryor, Clara Barton: Professional Angel (1987); Stephen W. Sears, Landscape 