A Place on the High Ground
Centreville Civil War Forts & Earthworks
In the fall of 1861, after their July defeat at Manassas (Bull Run), Union forces retreated to Washington, D.C. to organize and retrain. Confederate forces concentrated in Centreville to bolster their defense of Northern Virginia and protect access to the Orange and Alexandria Railroad which led to Richmond, the Southern Capital.
As winter set in, 40,000 men constructed a 5-mile defensive line along the high ground of Centreville extending from Cub Run to the west, around Centreville to Little Rocky Run on the south. With local lumber, the men constructed log huts as winter quarters, while Confederate General Johnston established headquarters at Mount Gilead, an early 18th century house located directly across Mount Gilead Road west of this site. The earthen mound you see before you is the historic remains of a section of the defensive network that included earthworks and fortifications and provided thirteen battery positions for seventy-one field guns.
When Union forces eventually marched to Centreville they were shocked to find they had been deceived by the Confederate defenses, as the fortifications were supported by ‘Quaker Guns’ – logs painted black to resemble cannon. The earthworks and forts were reused later in the war, by Union forces who further extended the earthworks to fully encircle the town of Centreville.
Marker is on General Johnston Place, on the right when traveling west.
Courtesy hmdb.org
