The Hocking sentinel. [volume] (Logan, Ohio) 1871-1906, 1905-01-12
Graphic Account of Stirring Scenes
Witnessed on the Battlefield and In
Camp-veterana Of the Rebellion Re-
cite Experiences Of Thrilling Nature.

Manassas, from mere hamlet Mt
the junction of the Orange and Alex
andria Railroad and the Manassas
Gap Railroad, has become a small vii
lage and is the county seat of Prince
William County, whereas Brentsville
had that distinction in Americas
heroic age.
The bells of Sudley Westinghouse
and Centreville church ring out every
Sunday. and old men pray there who
listened to the firing. saw glimpses of
the struggles, carried water to the
wounded and helped bury the dead.
Those churches were hospitals during
and after both battles.
A shot from a Union battery, which
made 4 breach in the walls of Sudley
Westinghouse, is preserved by q men,
Der of the congregation.
Bethel Church, which was Fitz-John
Porter's headquarters when he lay be-
hind Dawkin's branch on August %,
1862. has been removed four miles
south of the old site, but the founda-
ton stones may be seen by those who
will enter the thicket Of underground
that obscures them.
The Henry house, the Chinn house,
Dogan and Matthew houses, destroyed
by shells, were long ago restored on
their first foundations and are Today
as they were in 1861.
The Stone house still stands at the
crossing of the Warrenton pike ard
Sudley road and until recently was
occupied by Virginia farmer who,
az cavalryman under Stuart, fought
over the fields around the house.
The Van Pelt house, damaged by
the first shell thrown from Tyler's
division when the fight opened at the
stone bridge, is still there. So, too, is
the Robinson house and Robinson, the
old negro who dwelt there when
Hunter and Heintzelman drove Bee,
Barlow and Evans from the heights
north of the pike to those on the south.
dwells there to-day.
The Lewis house, Johnston's head
quarters. is still occupied by Mr.
Lewis. and the Hampton Cole house
which figured so conspicuously in the
Fitz-John Porter case is standing.
Mrs. Dogan, through whose farm
runs the railroad cut where Porter,
Sigel, Reynolds and King fought to
dislodge Jackson on August 80, 1862,
Is still living at Groveton. She is 81
years old and hearty. She likes moth
Ing better than to tell of the red, grim
scenes Of war.
The fields In that bloody square
bounded by Centreville on. the east.
Groveton and Gainesville on the west,
Sudley on the north and Manassas on
the south are, as rule, still titled by
the families who worked them when
Prince William and Fairfax counties
shook under the tread of armies and
crash of guns.
1t is believed that most of the bones
Of the men slain at Blackburn's ford
July 1S, 1861; Bull Run, July 81, 1851:
Stone bridge and Gainesville, August
n and %, 1862, and Groveton and
Sudley. August 90 and 80, 1862. have
been exhumed.
Those recovered from the Federal
positions We're removed to Arlington,
where many hundreds are heaped
under the monument Of the I'm
known" and many other hundreds are
buried in individual graves marked
with q little slab also inscribed I'm
known"
Bones dug from the Confederate po-
sitions in the first battle are inferred
under a red sandstone shaft at Ma
nassas, five miles south of the central
fighting ground. This shaft is in
scribed: Dedicated by the Ladies'
Memorial Association of Manassas,
on August 80, 1899. to the Heroes of
Virginia and Her Sister States Who
Yielded Their Lives, on July 1S and
21, 1861, and August 20 and 30. 1862,
In Defense of the Confederate Cause"
Close by the Henry house there is
a rude Union monument erected I'm
Memory of the Patriots who fell at
Bull Run. Erected June 10, 1865"
In bit of cedar woods by the rail-
road cut at Groveton there is another
little Union monument 'In Memory
of the Patriots who fell at GrovetOn,
August %, 90 and 30, 1862"
There is no Confederate monument
on the battlefield.
Bones taken from the Confederate
lines of the second battle are buried
on knoll at Groveton.
AS the position of the armies often
overlapped, it is safe to believe that
Northern and Southern soldiers are
mingled at Arlington and Manassas.
Identification of the bones at Grove
ton was not difficult, for, while the
Confederate dead were buried in
deep trenches, the Union soldiers who
fell near the cut" the place of great
est slaughter, were not given sufficient
burial. Earth was simply shoveled
over the poor corpses where they lay.
/ The first heavy rain washed away the
earth and exposed the remains. This
statement is made on authority OF
Mrs. Dogan, who, ordered from the
field by Jackson's men as the fighting
began, returned to her farm before
the removal of all the wounded or the
burial of the dead.
| Reminders of the fighting are ever
coming to light. Hunters often come
upon skeletons in woods far from the
! field. These are the bones of mel
who, wounded, struggled off and died
With each spring plowing bones OF
men and horses, buckles, canteens
payonets, gun barrels and buttons art
upturned.
When 4e Groveton monument was
dedicated. three years after the las
battle, the fields We're still thickiy
strewn with weapons and articles OF
soldiers equipment.
D The line of railroad bed (the road
was never finished along which Jack
son formed from Gainesville to Sudiey
is we'll preserved. though oversrowr
with pine and cedar.
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