Evening star., 1908-12-20
SAW BOTH BULL RUNS.
Virginia Woman Watched Two
Historic Struggles.
QUEEN OF BATTLEFIElDS
Gave Wounded of Both Armies
Water From Gourd.
STILL LIVING AT GROVET0N
Mrs. Lucinda Dogan, Now Ninety
Years Of Age, Tells Story
of the Conflicts.
STILL LIVING AT GR0VET0N

Mrs. Lucinda Dogan. ninety years old
called in the northern part of Virginia
Queen of the Battlefields,' is still
living at Groveton. Virginia, little ham,
let one mile west of and overlooking
The field of the first battle of Bull Run,
July II. 1861. Her home was the central
point in the second battle Of Bull Run,
August % and 80 1862
This old woman saw both battles of Bull
Run and looked upon the fields in all their
horror when the firing had ceased. With
her children she walked among the dead
and wounded. carrying buckets Of water
and gourd dippers, giving drink to the
moaning soldiers of both sides.
Groveton is hamlet OF tragic memo
res. 1t is on the Warrenton pike, five
miles west of Centerville. three miles
east of Gainesville. FIVE miles north of
the town of Manassas and two miles
southeast of Sudley-all bloody names in
civil war annals. Groveton Is a group OF
three houses. In one of these the Dogans
live; another is occupied by tenant farm
ers of the Dogans. and in the third lives
Jim Redmond, an old negro who was
living there at the time of the fighting.
saw the same scenes Mrs. Dogan looked
upon and worked with the burial parties
in digging the long trenches in which
the Confederates were laid
Saw Fighting From Hillside.
Groveton Is on high ground. and 100
yards east of the group of houses is a
hill that commands a fine view TO the
east 1t was from this hill that Mrs.
Dogan saw the fighting on July u. 1851.
Telling of the events of the day Mrs.
Dogan says:
"The Yankees were all around Center
vile and our boys were lying along Bull
run. Some of our troops kept coming
through Gainesville from the valley Of
Virginia. Early Sunday morning we
heard shooting down the pike toward the
stone bridge. and my husband called out
that the Yanks were coming. We went
! up on the hill yonder, and a lot of the
neighbors came up, too. We could see
smoke rising above the trees about the
stone bridge OFF toward Sudley we could
see clouds of dust. After the shooting had
been going on for half an hour we could
see crowds of men running back from the
stone bridge to the Sudley road and then
| going toward Sudley.
Southern troops were coming up from
| toward Manassas marching across the
Henry fields, then over Buck Hill and or
Sudley. Not long after this the shooting
began between the pike and Sudley. We
could hear the sharp cracking of the mus
kets and the loud reports Of the cannon
and could hear the men shouting.
Shot as They Ran.
Not long after the men that had gone
north toward Sudley came running back
through the woods and across the fields,
stopping now and then to shoot Not far
behind them came crowds of other men,
| running and shooting. More Confederates
were coming from the direction Of Manas-
sas and were forming on Buck Hill and
the Matthews farm. After fighting there
for some time our boys ran back over
the Henry place and the Yanks after
Manassas. Then the Yanks went up Hen
ry hill The shooting had got SO fast
now that couldn't hear any single
musket and the firing of cannon was so
! fast that you sometimes couldn't pick out
single shot. The country down there
was now so covered with dust and smoke
that we wouldn't see the men and you
couldn't distinguish the shooting from the
shouting.
After o'clock in the afternoon the
noise was at its loudest and we could
see small bodies Of men going back across
the Matthews place and on toward Sud
ley. Then more and more went back that
way. and finally the field over there got
so full of men that we couldn't see them
for the dust they made. The shooting
quieted down SO that we could hear sim
gle shots, and the dust in the Henry field
got thinner and higher. We knew that
the Yanks were running back to where
they came from
Sick Woman Killed by Shell.
About q o'clock that evening my hus-
band and ! drove over to the Henry
place. The Henry house was nothing but
smoking ashes. My old friend, Mrs. Ju-
dith Henry. who was sick in bed when
the fighting began. had been killed that
morning by a she'll which burst in her
bedroom. All the trees about the place
had been shot down so that only the
stumps were standing. Parties of Con-
burying them. We saw great many
wounded men. and nearly all of them
were begging for water The field was
just Uttered with muskets. coats. caps,
knapsacks, belts and such like"
Mrs. Dogan, after clearing up the break
fast dishes on August 20, 1862, was told
by a stam officer of Stonewall Jackson to
move OF her farm as there would be
fighting there that day. There had been
heavy fighting the day before around
GAINESVILLE, three miles west, along the
pike. Mrs. Dogan and her children had
not reached the home of her father, two
and half miles away, when a Union
battery and supports took station near
the Dogan house and opened on Jackson's
line along the abandoned railroad cut that
ran through the back part of the Dogan
farm.
Dead and Dying Everywhere.
All day of the 10Th and the next day
fighting around Groveton was fierce and
bloody. The railroad cut, where the losses
were heaviest. was 1000 yards in the
rear of the Dogan house. Pope withdrew
on the night Of August 30 and the next
morning Mrs. Dogan and her children re-
turned to the farm. OF this the old wom