This monument, located at Stop #9 on the park's self-guided driving tour, was dedicated in 1907 by veterans of the 14th Brooklyn Regiment. This unit saw action in both the First and Second Battles of Manassas.
Born enslaved in 1831, only months prior to Nat Turner’s revolt, Andrew J. "Jim" Redman learned the blacksmithing trade at an early age. By the outbreak of the Civil War, Redman worked as a blacksmith at this corner of the Groveton intersection. He witnessed the contending armies maneuver and battle during both Manassas campaigns in 1861 and 1862.
In 1860, Benjamin Chinn and his family lived here in a two-and-a-half story frame farmhouse. Known as "Hazel Plain," the modest plantation comprised several hundred acres. The property was typical of those in Prince William County, yielding wheat, corn, oats, and potatoes for cash and subsistence. Like roughly one-third of their immediate neighbors, the Chinn family owned slaves.
The plantation house of Francis Lewis, known as Portici, stood atop the ridge to your east. Massive brick chimneys flanked the frame house. The house was destroyed by fire in 1862.
Battery Heights served as a key artillery position for both Union and Confederate Artillery during the Second Battle of Manassas. Today, this site is Stop #2 on the park's self-guided Second Manassas driving tour.
Throughout August 29, 1862, Federal troops repeatedly attacked Jackson's left flank - Gen. Maxcy Gregg's South Carolina Brigade - on a knoll just west of here.
The Bull Run and Groveton Ladies' Memorial Association, established in 1867, launched a campaign to recover Confederate dead from the battlefield. The organization established this cemetery and orchestrated the re-interment of an estimated 500 soldiers.
In 1906 the State of New York authorized the erection of three monuments on the field of the Second Battle of Manassas, honoring the sacrifices of the Fifth New York Volunteers, the Tenth New York Volunteers, and the Fourteenth Brooklyn.
The monument marks the spot where Colonel Francis S. Bartow was mortally wounded leading the 7th Georgia Infantry during the First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run), July 21, 1861.
Union Captain James Ricketts' Battery I, 1st US Artillery held this position on the afternoon of 21 July 1861. Fighting raged along this line throughout the afternoon, with the guns changing hands three times. During the fighting, James Ricketts was severely wounded.
Originally expected to attack over open ground west of the Groveton-Sudley Road (Featherbed Lane today), Grover shifted his brigade to the right of his initially assigned position and into these woods to mask his movement and avoid Confederate artillery fire.
Following the Union retreat, Lee remained determined to crush Pope. Again, he divided his army and sent Stonewall Jackson's troops on an encircling march to cut off the enemy's escape route to Washington.
Stonewall Jackson's defensive line extended nearly two miles- from Sudley Church to the Brawner Farm. Many of his 24,000 troops were posted behind the cuts and fills of the unfinished railroad grade before you.
In response to Stonewall Jackson's urgent request for support, General Robert E. Lee directed General James Longstreet to send reinforcements to bolster the Confederate line along the Unfinished Railroad, one-half mile ahead of you.
As one of the first regiments to arrive in the nation's capital at the outbreak of war, the 71st New York State Militia received immediate orders from Gen. Winfield Scott to guard the Washington Navy Yard.
As the Ohioans strived to delay the Confederates, Federal reinforcements rushed to Chinn Ridge in support. With these troops came the 5th Battery, Maine Light Artillery, under the temporary command of Lt. William F. Twitchell.
Although the unfinished railroad grade provided a formidable defensive position, weakness existed in the Confederate line, putting some troops at risk. The low and marshy ground on which you stand was meant to be spanned by a railroad trestle.
Colonel Nathaniel McLean braced his men for the coming onslaught. The Union officer, a civilian attorney with no prewar military background, commanded 1,200 Ohioans on Chinn Ridge.
In 1860, Benjamin Chinn and his family lived here in a two-and-a-half story frame farmhouse. Known as "Hazel Plain," the modest plantation comprised several hundred acres.
In 1997 the National Park Service and the Smithsonian Institution began to develop a proposal at Manassas National Battlefield Park to mitigate the loss of wetlands resulting from construction of the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, a National Air and Space Museum facility at Washington Dulles International Airport.
Observing a column of tired, unsuspecting Federal troops marching eastward on the Western Pike (U.S. Rte. 29 today), General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson chose to reveal his position and draw the Union Army of Virginia into battle on ground favoring the Confederates.
You are standing in the wartime Sudley Road. Twentieth-century Road realignments severed this short section and coincidentally preserved the historic trace.
Thirty minutes before the main assault, Colonel Hiram Berdan's 1st U.S. Sharpshooters clambered over the fence along the Groveton-Sudley Road and dashed into the open pasture.
