Centreville, Virginia General Assembly This Fairfax County Community Is a Virginia-History Crossroads
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Cross roads | by Priscilla Knight, Contributing Writer CENTREVILLE, VA o t o h P n o s e i h t a M . G Virginia bluebells bloom in abundance along Bull Run and Cub Run in spring. In 1789 the Virginia Centreville, Virginia General Assembly This Fairfax County community is a Virginia-history crossroads. chartered ‘Centreville,’ entreville, Virginia, thrives today people with nothing. … Here individuals as a fast-paced suburb of of all nations are melted into a new race of where people traveling CWashington, D.C. men whose labor and posterity will one But dotted among landscaped malls, day cause great changes in the world.” from Washington or modern office buildings and homes, historic markers indicate something FROM COLONY TO COUNTRY important happened here years ago. Also in 1755 British Gen. Edward Alexandria to Leesburg, It did. Braddock led his troops west through the If land radiating out from its crossroad village to fight in the French and Indian Winchester, Warrenton center at Lee Highway (Rt. 29), Sully Road War. Mud hampered his military caravan. (Rt. 28), Braddock Road, and I-66 could To lighten the load, legend says Braddock’s talk, it would say, “Let me tell you about men buried two brass cannons and and other towns stayed founding fathers, Civil War battles, spies $30,000 worth of gold coins in the village. in hoop skirts, and electricity.” This Braddock died from battle wounds. No overnight. George “census-designated place” in Fairfax one found the treasure. County sits at a Virginia-history Ultimately, the British received Canada Washington rested there, crossroads, and is worth a visit. from France and Florida from Spain, but at a cost England’s King George III thought COLONIAL ‘MELTING POT’ the colonists should help pay. His as did Thomas Jefferson At a spot on a bluff, with vistas of “taxation without representation” ignited mountains and valleys carved by fresh the American Revolutionary War in 1775 on his way from water runs, 17th-century settlers established and caused the colonists to declare a crossroads village. By the 18th century, independence in 1776. Despite few landowners, tenant farmers, slaves, and supplies and funds, Gen. George Charlottesville to convicts from English prisons worked Washington’s Continental Army and together from dawn to dusk. Michel Jean French forces defeated the British at his presidential de Crevecoeur, a French nobleman who Yorktown in 1781. came to the British colonies in 1755, In 1789 the Virginia General Assembly inauguration in 1801. observed: “Here there are no great lords chartered “Centreville,” where people with everything and a horde of common traveling from Washington or Alexandria 32 | Cooperative Living | May 2017 www.co-opliving.com N O T O O S I H L P L A T & H G Z I R N U K K A L L I C S I R P Above: Color lithography of the First Battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861; Right: Fife and drum band at the Manassas National Battlefield Reenactment. to Leesburg, Winchester, Warrenton My very dear Sarah: they chased scurrying Northerners in “the and other towns stayed overnight. … I have no misgivings about, or lack of great skedaddle.” George Washington rested there, as confidence in the cause in which I am Chaos ensued in Centreville. did Thomas Jefferson on his way from engaged, and my courage does not halt or A Massachusetts soldier wrote: “The Charlottesville to his presidential falter. I know how strongly American wounded had been gathered and here inauguration in 1801. Civilization now leans on the triumph of the likewise the dead were buried. It would Government, and how great a debt we owe to seem that in a well-known Virginia town ROLLING THROUGH those who went before us through the blood on the high road, only miles from the CENTREVILLE and sufferings of the Revolution. And I am capital, boards enough might have been Centreville grew. The Gazetter wrote willing — perfectly willing — to lay down found to make into rude coffins … but in 1835: “Centreville Post Village … is all my joys in this life, to help maintain this they could not be; and as it was necessary elevated and highly picturesque, affording Government, and to pay that debt. … Sarah, to bury them immediately, they were one of the best mountain prospects in my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind wrapped and covered with their own the state of Virginia. It has always been me with mighty cables that nothing but blankets, and thus consigned to the earth.” remarkable for the salubrity of its air and Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Major Ballou was one of the the health of its inhabitants.” Country comes over me like a strong wind Union dead. Wealth came from exporting crops, and bears me unresistibly on with all these including “King Tobacco.” Oxen-pulled chains to the battlefield. … Encampment rigs rolled tobacco hogsheads through the After a hoop-skirted spy tipped off the In October, 40,000 Confederates village on Braddock and Union Mill roads, Confederates, guns and cannons started arrived at Centreville about midnight. then onto Rolling and Ox roads to firing in Manassas near Bull Run on July 21. A veteran wrote: “The boys threw their Potomac River ports. So assured were Washingtonians of a tired frames upon the ground and slept Union victory that ladies with parasols and soundly. … The hills and valleys around EXPLODING INTO CIVIL WAR gentlemen in top hats watched the first the little village of Centreville were The American Civil War, 1861-1865, major battle of the war. occupied by Regimental and Brigade embroiled Northern Virginia, particularly The federals overwhelmed the camps. As the darkness increased, the Centreville where its high plateau and Confederates initially, but when southern skies above were lighted with the glimmer proximity to Washington, D.C., made it soldiers started to retreat, one soldier of a thousand camp fires.” strategic. Roads that brought travelers also shouted to his fellow southerners to look The soldiers spent the harsh winter brought Union and Confederate troops. at Gen. Thomas Jackson, sitting resolutely building one of the largest military on his horse “like a stone wall.” They earthworks ever constructed. They First Manassas turned and fought with such renewed fury fooled Union scouts by placing Quaker In mid-July 1861, 37,000 inexperienced that Union soldiers retreated right into guns — logs shaped like cannons and federal soldiers headed for Centreville. ladies and gentlemen throwing picnic painted black — in embrasures. Soldiers Union Major Sullivan Ballou wrote to baskets into their buggies. The Confederates built 1,500 log huts and scrounged for his wife: let out a high-pitched “Rebel Yell” as food and firewood. www.co-opliving.com May 2017 | Cooperative Living | 33 O T O H P . R S N O S E I H T A M . E G E R G Civil War Reenactment in Manassas — the 150th Anniversary In spring 1862 the Confederates This looks rather hard to a green Vermonter. CENTREVILLE’S DEATH departed. They left behind what a … I tell you Jane when I think of those old After four brutal years Confederate Pennsylvania soldier described as “one farmers up there in Vermont sitting in their Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union vast barren waste.” He wrote, “The timber easy chairs beside a comfortable fire & Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Appomattox, was all cut off last winter and used for fuel.” grumbling about the hard times I wish they Virginia, on April 9, 1865. More than could take our places through one march 600,000 Americans had died; so had Second Manassas such as we have just had. A march of 26 Centreville. An observer wrote: That summer, U.S. forces prepared to miles in two days, half fed … seventy lbs. on “Centreville is even more of a desert. march to Richmond. Antonia Ford, their backs through mud & mire & then let Once a village of rare beauty, … its ruins a beautiful 23-year-old, overhead Union them talk about hard times. lie about, invested with all the saddening plans in her parents’ Yankee-occupied influences of perfect desolation.” Fairfax home. With Ford’s alert, the Rebels Mosby’s Rangers Fighting destroyed so many trees rushed to Centreville to stop President John S. Mosby and his band of that even in the late 1880s people in Abraham Lincoln’s army. Confederate “rangers” harassed, sabotaged Fairfax could see the newly completed More than 120,000 soldiers from both and captured Union soldiers throughout Washington Monument. sides made camp in or near the village the war. They hid in Centreville and in Not much improved 50 years after the before the Second Battle of Manassas Loudoun and Fauquier County dens. war. The Washington Sunday Star wrote began on Aug. 28. Two days later, the Mosby’s tactical brilliance, speed and cool in 1914: South won again after the blood of 17,500 bravery earned the University of Virginia dead, dying and wounded soldiers soaked lawyer the moniker “the Gray Ghost.” Centreville is not a stirring place. the battlefield. Donald C. Hakenson and Charles V. It does not feel a single busy throb. … Several months later, William Knight, Mauro describe in A Tour Guide and Some men say “it’s dead.” If ever a a U.S. soldier, wrote: History of Col. John S. Mosby’s Combat village was killed in war it was Operations how five “New Yorkers attacked Centreville. Perhaps it was choked by Centerville Dec 14th/62 Mosby’s party” in Centreville in 1864. The smoke of burning powder or smothered by Dear wife, We started from Fairfax Court rangers shot the horse out from under a the sulphurous gas from guns; perhaps it House yesterday at eight o’ clock and moved U.S.