ebsite. 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 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 o