I first stopped at Ox Hill Battlefield Park, which is located just off I-66 in the heavily developed Fair Lakes area of Fairfax. The Battle of Ox Hill (or Chantilly in the North) was fought amidst a violent thunderstorm on September 1, 1862. The engagement arose when Robert E. Lee attempted to cut off John Pope's line of retreat following the Union defeat at Second Manassas. As Stonewall Jackson moved down Little River Turnpike (present-day US-50), however, Pope struck first. Union divisions under Isaac Stevens and Philip Kearny attacked Jackson's much larger force at Ox Hill on the afternoon of September 1. The short fight, which ended in a stalemate, cost both armies about 1,500 killed and wounded. Stevens and Kearny were counted among the dead. That night Union troops marched towards the safety of Washington's defenses. Lee, meanwhile, had other ideas in mind, and within days his men were fording the Potomac into Maryland.
Little remains of the actual battlefield. Residential and commercial development has tragically swallowed most of the landscape where the armies met. Fortunately for us and future generations, men like Ed Wenzel fought hard to save a critical part of the battlefield from destruction. The Fairfax County Park Authority now runs the 4.8-acre battlefield site. As serendipity would have it, this same land happens to mark the spot where Stevens likely fell during the engagement.
|The sign at the entrance to the battlefield along West Ox Road. Note the commercial development and traffic congestion just outside the park boundary.|
I was extremely impressed with Ox Hill. The Park Authority has installed a series of interpretive markers along a stone loop trail. The historical signage does a truly remarkable job of explaining and illustrating what happened there. I found the maps on the markers particularly useful for understanding unit positions in relation to where I was standing. I supplemented the markers with an excellent 25-minute audio tour that I downloaded to my iPod from the Park Authority website. The recording features insightful commentary from Wenzel and other historians.
|A view across the field of the Union advance to the spot where Stevens was shot dead leading the 79th New York ("Highlanders") against the Confederate line at the edge of the woods. After Stevens was killed, the Union soldiers pushed ahead and drove back Harry Hays' Louisiana Brigade. A marker explains the attack and Stevens' death.|
I felt moved to stand on the very ground where Stevens lost his life. Readers may remember that I have written extensively about the Battle of Lewinsville. On September 11, 1861, then-Colonel Stevens led the 79th New York and other Federal units on a reconnaissance of the neighborhood around Lewinsville, Virginia (present-day McLean). A smaller Confederate force under J.E.B. Stuart attacked the Union troops as they prepared for the return to camp. Stevens successfully withdrew his men under the cover of artillery fire. I couldn't help but think that a little short of a year later and less than twenty miles from Lewinsville, Stevens would lose his life while bravely rallying the Highlanders in an attack on the Confederate lines at Ox Hill.
St. Mary of Sorrows/Fairfax Station
The second part of my tour focused on Union efforts to treat and evacuate the wounded in the wake of Second Manassas and Ox Hill. The Union Army sent thousands of wounded soldiers to Fairfax Station on the Orange & Alexandria Railroad. The men were laid on the ground around St. Mary of Sorrows Catholic Church and on the hillside near the railroad tracks. Here the injured soldiers awaited transportation from Fairfax Station to the hospitals in Washington and Alexandria.
The War Department asked for volunteer nurses to help with the large number of causalities at Second Manassas. The roads and rails to the front were soon clogged with citizens responding to their country's call. Unfortunately, many of the would-be Good Samaritans were more interested in drinking the supplies of medicinal alcohol than in helping the wounded. Clara