“With the prisoners at the top of the mountain at Ashby’s Gap”

On the morning of October 17, 1781 the unthinkable happened. A drummer appeared on the British entrenchments at Yorktown, followed closely by an officer carrying a white handkerchief. Their appearance marked the end of the Siege of Yorktown, and in many ways, the end of the War for Independence. Although sporadic fighting would continue until the Treaty of Paris was adopted two years later, the Franco-American victory at Yorktown marked the end of major campaigning in North America and the de facto recognition of American independence. It also marked the beginning of a major problem for George Washington – what to do with thousands of prisoners?

The Surrender at Yorktown by Louis-Nicolas van Blarenberghe

In the aftermath of Yorktown, over 7,000 British, German, and American Loyalists were now prisoners of the Continental Army. This number was roughly equal to the number of men under Washington’s command, and it was essential to move them away from the coast and any potential British rescue. It was also necessary to move them to the interior of the continent in order to find a place untouched by the war, where food and shelter could be obtained. Throughout the war towns like York, Pennsylvania; Frederick, Maryland; and Winchester and Charlottesville, Virginia were used to house increasing numbers of prisoners. Even smaller inland towns, such as Leesburg, had seen groups of British and German soldiers from time to time.

Camp Security, outside of Charlottesville, was typical of a POW camp in the American backcountry.

Now, faced with a massive number of captured men and officers to house, Washington chose to split the prisoners into two groups. The first was bound for Winchester, the second for Fort Frederick, a disused French and Indian War-era fort near Hancock, Maryland. On October 25th he wrote his Commissary for Prisoners Abraham Skinner the following letter outlining the numbers of prisoners, their regiments, and their destinations:

To the Commissary General of Prisoners
Camp near York 25th Octr 1781
Winchester
Artillery 193
Guards 467
23d Regiment 205
43d Do 307
76 Do 625
2 Battalions of Anspach 948
Queens Rangers 248
Pioneers 33
3029
Fort Frederick
Light Infantry 594
17th Regiment 205
33d Do 225
71st Do 242
80th Do 588
Prince Hereditory 425
Regt De Bosc 271
Yagers 68
British Legion 192
North Carolina Volunteers 114
2924
You are to dispose of the Prisoners as above.
G. Washington

Now that the arrangements were made, the question became how to get the prisoners to their destinations. Rations and other supplies needed to be collected and a route of march needed to be planned out. For security, Washington called upon a number of Virginia militia companies to act as guards, including several from the Heritage Area. Until 1781, the Revolutionary War was fought largely outside of Virginia, and as a result the militia of the northern Piedmont had seen relatively little combat. Local companies called out to assist the army at Yorktown, especially those of Fauquier County, were chosen to escort the prisoners northward.

The long march began on October 21st. The column stretched out for miles along the road from Yorktown, as soldiers, officers, livestock, wagons, and women and children clogged the route. The militia division marched at the head, with guards scattered about the length. It would take the slow moving mass over a week to reach the Rappahannock River at Falmouth. Near constant rain and dropping temperatures slowed progress further. One British officer noted with some humor that the Piedmont men guarding the column seemed to have little love for their tidewater countrymen:

our guards were all from the upper parts of the state, called backwoodsmen, between whom and the inhabitants of the lower parts there existed no cordiality; and at night when we halted, they not only allowed but even encouraged our men to pull down and make fires of the fence-rails…when the proprietor complained, they only laughed at him
Samuel Graham, 76th Highland Regiment

The prisoners continued northward on the road and into Prince William County, resting briefly near Dumfries. On November 2nd they reached Fairfax Courthouse. Here the prisoners were split into two groups, as outlined by Washington’s instructions. The Maryland-bound prisoners moved northwest into Loudoun County. Marching through Leesburg and turning up the Carolina Road, they crossed the Potomac at Noland’s Ferry, where they were handed over to Maryland militia to continue their journey to Fort Frederick.

Nolands Ferry, where the north-bound prisoners crossed the Potomac into Maryland.

The remaining prisoners, numbering around 3,000, turned westward along the old colonial road to Ashby’s Gap. Decades later the road would become known as the Ashby’s Gap Turnpike, and it is now traced by US Route 50, but in the 1780s it was a muddy wagon road that followed an ancient Native American path. The prisoners trudged on through the increasingly cold weather. They forded Goose Creek just downstream from the current location of the Goose Creek Bridge, and the Blue Ridge Mountains loomed closer and closer each day.

Looking east into Fauquier County from Ashby’s Gap. The view is remarkably similar today to what the marchers would have seen as they took one last look back before crossing the mountain.

The footsore and bedraggled column reached the foot of Ashby’s Gap on the morning of Sunday, November 4th. While the men began the steep ascent up the mountain pass, several officers gathered for a meal at Ashby’s Tavern in the village of Paris. Samuel Graham, a Scottish officer in the 76th Highlanders, recounted his encounter with the landlady many years later:

I asked Mrs. Ashley [Ashby] if she could give two or three of us anything to eat. She stared at my uniform, saying — ” A militiaman, I guess.” ” No,” was my reply. ” Continental, mayhap” to which I also replied in the negative. “Ho!” said she, ” I see you are one of the sarpints [serpents], one of ould Wallace’s [Cornwallis’s] men; well now, I have two sons, one was at the catching of Johnny Burgoyne,
and the other at that of you ; and next year they are both going to catch Clinton at New York; but you shall be treated kindly, my mother came from the ould country.”
Samuel Graham, 76th Highland Regiment

Ashby Tavern in the early 20th century. Sadly, the building was destroyed by a runaway truck in the 1930s.

It would take the prisoners most of the day to make the laborious climb up and over the Blue Ridge. Their discomfort grew when they crossed the frigid and waist deep waters of the Shenandoah near sunset. Many men lost their footing and were dunked in the cold and swirling waters.

Late in the next day the prisoners finally arrived on the outskirts of Winchester. It was a journey of sixteen days and over 240 miles. With the prisoners secured it was time for the Fauquier militia to return to their homes. A number of militiamen would recount their experience decades later as they applied for their military pensions. Spencer Withers of Warrenton was one of those men. In August 1832 he went before the Fauquier County court to testify to his military service. He claimed service in the Carolinas in 1780, and that he had fought with Lafayette in Virginia in the summer of 1781. After Yorktown he “marched with prisoners towards Winchester and was discharged at Ashby’s Gap about Christmass.” Withers would also testify on behalf of the family of Captain Linchfield Sharpe of Fauquier County. The old soldier recalled how Sharpe “was in command with the prisoners at the top of the mountain at Ashby’s Gap.”

To learn more about how the American Revolution affected the Virginia Piedmont Heritage Area we invite you to come out to our Drive-Thru History program on August 21st. Visit our headquarters at 1461 Atoka Road, Marshall, VA from 5:30 to 7:30 PM for a casual and family-friendly educational program. We’ll be looking at some of the soldiers from our area, talking uniforms and equipment, and exploring the impact of the conflict on the civilian population. We do ask that all guests maintain at least 6 feet of distance from other family groups and that they wear masks when interacting with staff and volunteers. For more information visit www.piedmontheritage.org/events.

A Revolutionary War-Era Estate Meets the Cold War

Two vastly different eras, both facing geopolitical tensions; both witnessed from the rolling hills of Millwood in southern Clarke County.

I recently joined colleagues from the Clarke County Historical Association at Millwood to do some history-based videos. We are all pitching in to get local history education to folks hungry for learning, or for teaching their homebound students, or at least in need of distraction. Our focus in Millwood was Carter Hall, built by Nathaniel Burwell between 1792-1800, but the owners, Project Hope, also mentioned a Cold War Bunker on the property.

Carter Hall in Millwood, with 1814 portico

Nathaniel Burwell, Tidewater gentry and a Virginia Delegate during the Constitution-ratifying days, moved from Carter’s Grove on the James River, up to Frederick County (later separated into Clarke County in 1836) on the tide of primogeniture refugees. He was looking for opportunity or land not depleted by tobacco or coastal sicknesses. He was also a great-grandson of “King” Carter and therefore an aristocrat.

Nathaniel Burwell was community-minded, co-owning the Burwell-Morgan Mill with Revolutionary War hero, Daniel Morgan, in Millwood. He also donated the land to the Episcopal Church to build Old Chapel in 1793, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Old Chapel included a cemetery, in which longtime Carter Hall extended stay guest, Edmund Randolph was buried in 1813, as well as Nathaniel Burwell himself one year later. In 1814, George Burwell, inheritor of Carter Hall, commissioned Dr. William Thornton, architect of the new Capitol building, to design the portico we recognize today.

Moving quickly, we jump to 1930 when Gerard Lambert and family took possession of Carter Hall as a sort of legacy birthright as Mr. Lambert believed he descended from “King” Carter. Gerard Lambert marketed his father’s invention of Listerine as an opportunity for the masses to overcome halitosis, and provided his family with immense wealth that enabled them to live at Carter Hall and also to provide funding for Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight.

The Lamberts at Carter Hall brought a massive restoration, using European architectural features and trends, and introduced terraced, formally-elegant gardens and landscape design. Rachel Lambert, daughter of Gerard and a student at nearby Foxcroft School, picked up a horticultural education that would make her world-famous in the 1960s.

Rachel Lambert grew up to become Bunny Mellon, the legendary horticulturalist and philanthropist who always carried a torch for Carter Hall and Millwood. She moved to nearby Upperville and there she designed and funded the 1960 construction of Trinity Episcopal Church, modeled after a 12^th-century French church campus. Next, she helped her dear friend, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, by designing the White House’s Rose Garden. Mrs. Kennedy, later as Mrs. Onassis, and Bunny Mellon visited Millwood often to antique.

Enter the second part of my day at Carter Hall, those elusive Cold War stories of bunkers and nuclear fallout. The Mellon family allegedly constructed five underground bunkers during the Cold War in the area, to provide housing for staff and family in the event of nuclear war against nearby Washington DC.

The Mosby Heritage Area has its share of Cold War facilities, actually. Just a half hour away from Carter Hall was Vint Hill in Fauquier County, which was opened in World War II as an Army Base and National Security Agency facility. Vint Hill’s role in the Cold War came out in the late 1980s near the end of hostilities, when articles disclosed that Vint Hill’s Signals Intelligence intercepted Soviet diplomatic and military communiques. Vint Hill even had a cryptology school!

Quite close to Carter Hall, of course, is Mt. Weather, known as Camp 114 from 1943-1946. Mt. Weather was, yes, a weather bureau, born of the late 1800s, but re-purposed during World War II as a Civilian Public Service Facility (Camp 114) where conscientious objectors could still serve their country during wartime by coding maps, tracking Pacific weather, and learning Russian. Camp 114 housed about 60 men until an Iron Curtain was hung, and the facility became a relocation site in the event of nuclear bombing in the capital. In 1959, Area B, the underground bunker, was completed with the task of housing key Civilian and Military leaders, and priceless works of art from the National Gallery, in the event of Communist attack. When TWA Flight 514 crashed at Mt. Weather in 1974, curious locals and news crews tried to catch a glimpse of that underground bunker, to little avail. Area B was also used by Congressional leaders during the 9/11 attacks.

As many Americans can tell you, not least because of duck-and-cover drills, the Cold War was a strange time. No wonder the Mellon family built underground bunkers. We had the opportunity to throw open the trapdoor, climb down into the bunker (which is at an undisclosed location of course), and see the mod furniture left in place, the shower and the ventilation unit rusting away. Stay tuned for a video of our underground explorations later this week!

A ventilation shaft is one of few clues that a Cold War bunker lies beneath

Many of my peers who saw the end of the Cold War in 1991 would predict this blog post would show a shaky juxtaposition between the Revolutionary War figures who overthrew a monarch’s rule with the Soviet containment we grew up overhearing. And yet, what brought me into the lifelong study of history so many years ago, is exactly this. The rippled glass windows overlooking a pastoral landscape from a Colonial estate are the same windows a Generation X’er looked through wondering if a nuclear mushroom cloud could be seen from Washington DC. History evolves, us with it, and it is thanks to preservationists that make it possible to view this landscape today from the same windows as founding fathers or Cold War protesters.

A (Cool) Spring afternoon in the Heritage Area

Last week staff went to survey one of the tour sites MHAA will highlight during the Civil War Conference this fall. Cool Spring Battlefield is a newly preserved historic site, until 2013 it operated as a golf course along the Eastern bank of the Shenandoah near Bluemont, Virginia. Now it is the River Campus of Shenandoah University, a landscape dedicated to environmental and historical stewardship.

Native shrubs are quickly reclaiming the area

Paved golf cart trails make the park an easy and fun walk for history buffs, cyclists, and nature lovers. Although most of the fighting on July 18, 1864 happened on the opposite bank (now privately owned by Holy Cross Abbey), the paths are dotted with interpretive signposts describing the crossing made by Union forces under Crook and Thoburn. Attempting to chase down Jubal Early’s Army of the Valley after probing the defenses of Washington D.C. at Fort Stevens, the Federals began crossing the Shenandoah River just north of Castleman’s Ferry.

The southernmost crossing point, forded by Thoburn’s Federals

By skirting around the ferry, Federal troops were able to cross without heavy opposition and form a battle line along a stone wall bordering the river’s edge and Cool Spring Farm. When Confederate General Breckenridge heard of the advance, he sent Wharton’s and Gordon’s divisions to push them back down towards the river, while Rodes’ division punched through the Union right flank. The Federals retreated back across the river, allowing Early’s rear guard to continue up the Valley unimpeded.
Want to know more about Jubal Early’s 1864 Maryland Campaign? Come to our 22nd Annual Conference on the Art of Command in the Civil War!

Today’s visitors will enjoy following the battlefield with on-site guides (Photo 1), exploring the heights near the 1st Rhode Island artillery position (Photo 2), admiring the river and crossing sites to Parker Island (Photo 3), and learning about The Retreat, home to Judge Richard Parker (Photo 4).

Did you know?

Union forces knew to cross north of Castleman’s Ferry thanks to Confederate deserter John Carrigan
The Retreat was first built and inhabited by a Revolutionary War veteran Thomas Parker, who was also called to service as an officer in the War of 1812.
John Singleton Mosby’s 43rd VA used Snickers Gap and Castleman’s Ferry for frequent access to the Shenandoah Valley, including on October 14, 1864’s “Greenback Raid“.

The battlefield at Cool Spring is a great day time experience without the crowds of larger Civil War sites. If you’re looking for a bite or beverage afterwords, nearby Dirt Farm Brewing offers spectacular views of the Heritage Area looking east across the Loudoun Valley. Once you See it, be sure to Save it and Pass it on!