top of page

Oak Hill Plantation House

GPS Coordinates: 38.8210152, -77.2398881
Closest Address: 4716 Wakefield Chapel Road, Annandale, VA 22003

Oak Hill Plantation House

Here follows an excerpt from the 1970 Fairfax County Master Inventory of Historic Sites which contained entries from the Historic American Buildings Survey Inventory:

Oak Hill is an old Fitzhugh family house built some time in the eighteenth century. The date of construction is unknown ,and speculation has placed it as early as 1750 and as late as 1796-1800. In his book, "Washington and His Neighbors," Charles Stetson quotes a former owner, Mr. Egbert Watt, as remembering that during his childhood in the house a member of the Fitzhugh family came to visit and told the Watts that the house had been built in 1780 for a Fitzhugh bride.

The house was originally two stories high and one room deep, but there have been major alterations to the structure over the years. The Watt family bought the house in 1889 and added a two-story ell to the center back. Mr. and Mrs. Edward Howrey, who bought the house in 1935, extended this ell all along the back (north) side and made its upper level into bedrooms and bath. The Howreys made many structural changes; they replaced the simple porch with a front portico, added dormers in the attic, covered some of the random-width hard pine floors with plywood and carpeting, made the old kitchen a dining room and made a new kitchen out of the old shed, made the old dining room into a second sitting room, and installed an elevator in the front hallway.

In 1969, the John Mathers purchased the house. They have removed the elevator and the plywood flooring and have been working to repair or replace the old flooring. They are trying to locate period mantels to replace some which appear to have been added recently; however, Mrs. Mather believes that some of the hardware may be original.

The landscaping is extensive. According to the Watt family, American boxwood was already on the property in 1889 and Mr. Watt added to it during the 1920's. The plantings include spruce, evergreen, hemlock, and Australian pine.


<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>
<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>

Here follows an excerpt from the Clio Foundation website as written by the Appalachian Studies Association:

The Georgian-style Oak Hill mansion was constructed on the Ravensworth tract by Richard Fitzhugh, descendant of some of the first land-grant holders in northern Virginia, circa 1790. Expanded in 1830, the house stayed in the Fitzhugh family, selling from cousin to cousin, until 1889. In that year, William Watt purchased the house; he was the first person outside of the Fitzhugh family to own the property, and he would pass it on to his son upon his death. In the 1930s and 1940s, the building, then owned by Edward F. and Jane Gould Howrey, underwent a significant renovation in the Colonial Revival style, directed by architect Walter M. Macomber. Between 1931 and 1983, Oak Hill changed hands several times. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on the basis of its historical architecture merits in 2004.

The Ravensworth tract was granted to Colonel Henry Fitzhugh, though no permanent structures would be built on the land until after his death. The tract was divided between his five sons and his nephew, though the exact division is unknown. Oak Hill was built by Richard Fitzhugh in 1790 on his share of the Ravensworth tract. Originally the structure was a two-story wood frame dwelling with a center hall in the Georgian Style. Following his death, the property was deeded to a cousin and from there passed down to other members of the extended family. Thomas Jefferson slept here a number of times while traveling between Washington and his home at Monticello.

The mansion grew in 1830 with the addition of a new wing and porch. This new wing was most likely an outbuilding incorporated into the structure of the main house. For most of the nineteenth century, the house and property passed between members of the Fitzhugh family; by 1857, it was deeded to Ann Battaille, a cousin of the family, and in 1861, Nancy Bataille owned it. The property was the site of a Civil War skirmish that same year.

In 1889, William Watt, a Scottish immigrant, was the first person from outside of the family to purchase the property. Under William Watt, one acre of land was donated for the construction of Wakefield Chapel Road. His son William Watt Jr. would inherit the property after his father's death in 1911. The Watts were the last owners during use of Oak Hill as an active farm.

Trial lawyer Edward F. Howrey and his wife Jane Gould Howrey purchased Oak Hill in 1931. Civil engineer Ernest Johnson reported that the house demonstrated significant deterioration and damage. The Howreys renovated the house in the Colonial Revival style, directed by restoration architect Walter M. Macomber. These renovations uncovered Confederate cash hidden under the floorboards. Among other changes, moldings from the Italianate Riggs Mansion in Washington, D. C. were rescued upon the demolition of that building and installed at Oak Hill.

The house changed hands four times before being purchased in 1986 by Andrew and Carol Sheridan. The home was saved from development by the new owners in 1995, Seville Homes, due to an easement prompted by the Oak Hill Citizens Association. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.


<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>
<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>

Here follows an excerpt from local author and historian Mary B. Lipsey's "This Old House: Annandale, Springfield, Burke & Beyond" presentation:

Oak Hill was built by the great-grandson of William Fitzhugh. William Fitzhugh was an immigrant from England. He bought a lot of land. He owned over 22,000 acres of Fairfax County. Never lived here, but his future generations did, and they owned Ravensworth and Ossian Hall and Oak Hill.

Oak Hill was built by the great-grandson of William Fitzhugh, named Richard Fitzhugh around the year 1790. There are famous ghost stories. You've got to ask the residents about the ghost stories there. We know that Thomas Jefferson slept there, because he wrote his friends the Fitzhughs and said, "I'm coming through, tell me where the roads aren't muddy." Because he had a long trip to come down from Washington DC down to Charlottesville. I believe he slept on the first floor because I don't know if you could do it. This is a house that they open once a year. It's a privately owner residence today. If you've been in there, you see how steep the steps are. Well, he was plagued with arthritis or rheumatism or whatever its called. I can't imagine him walking up the stairs.

So I think and the family who owned it in the thirties, there was a bedroom on the first floor. They called it the grandma's bedroom. So it was already known as a bedroom. There was also an outdoor kitchen. Traditional kitchens were not connected to the house in case the kitchen had a fire. Oak Hill was a working farm through the 1930's. The family that owned it through the 1930's had lots of stories. I was blessed to be able to interview two sisters who were born in the house talking about their entertainment, like putting up circuses in the barns, going to Washington to sell the produce from the farm and his father dropped them off at the Smithsonian. So they would walk around the museums during the day and he would be off selling produce.

It was an all day trip to do that. They talked about going to a school in the area, a church in the area. There were 11 children in the family. It was quite an active place. Oak Hill was owned by a series of people up until the 1970's, when it was put up for sale and people were so concerned because they were afraid to tear the house down. So the county stepped in with the Northern Virginia Conservancy Trust and together they put an easement on this house, which protects that house forever. They can't do anything to the outside of it without the county knowing. And they also asked to at least once a year open it to the public. So that's why we have the annual open house.


<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>
<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>

Here follows an excerpt from the Northern Virginia History Notes website:

Naval Captain Andrew Fitzhugh of Oakhill
(near Annandale, Virginia)

Written by Debbie Robison
February 17, 2013

INTRODUCTION:
Back in the age of naval sailing ships, Andrew Fitzhugh of Oak Hill advanced through the officer ranks and reached the pinnacle of his career as a naval captain during the Mexican-American war in command of the steam frigate Mississippi. The Mexican-American war was caused by a dispute between the United Mexican States and the United States of America over the ownership of land between the Rio Grande and the Nueces River. Fitzhugh’s spotlight in history occurred at the start of the war when he announced the blockade of the port of Vera Cruz.

Fitzhugh was described as a corpulent man. Reverend Fitch W. Taylor, sailing aboard the Home Squadron flagship, gave a more generous account:

"Captain Fitzhugh of the Mississippi is a gentleman of comfortable proportions for wintery weather; and enjoys a flow of spirits with good nature, that loves to laugh, and to make others laugh. He amused me, by recounting an adventure with one of my clerical acquaintances; and professes to have been quite liberal, and is yet quite favorable towards Bishop Meade’s “Manufactory of Parsons” as he designates the Episcopal Seminary, near Alexandria, D. C."

The Mississippi was a ten gun frigate equipped with a coal-fired steam engine that drove paddle wheels positioned on each side of the hull. The vessel was also rigged for sail as an alternate source of propulsion, which was advantageous in the event of a coal shortage.

FITZHUGH’S BLOCKADE OF THE PORT OF VERA CRUZ:
Fitzhugh learned that hostilities commenced on the part of the Mexicans via correspondence received on May 4, 1846 while he as in Pensacola Bay. He immediately proceeded to Vera Cruz, Mexico per the orders of Commodore David Connor who commanded the Home Squadron that operated in the Gulf of Mexico. Shortly after arriving, Fitzhugh notified the commanders of neutral vessels in the harbor of Vera Cruz of a blockade of that port.

"STEAMER MISSISSIPPI, May 20, 1846. Sir: - I have the honor to inform you that the port of Vera Cruz was this day blockaded by the Naval forces of the United States upon this station. Neutral vessels now in the harbor are at liberty to leave, with or without cargo, within the space of fifteen days from the present date. Mail-packets, not merchantmen, belonging to neutral Powers, are at liberty to enter and leave the port. I remain, with respect, &c. ANDREW FITZHUGH."

To this notice the editors of the Mexican journal El Indicator responded:

"And are we to remain calmly looking on seeing the hated flag of the stars waving in the breeze? Shall we be citizens less worthy than those of Matamoras, whose heroic valor will be spoken of as an immortal example of bravery? No! a thousand times no! And be he a thousand times cursed who, in such a trying time as this, abandons his post on the walls of heroic Vera Cruz!"

The El Indicator called on the government to arm every one of their vessels as privateers and to give letters of marque to any Mexican who asks for them.

Fitzhugh returned to Pensacola the following month bringing as passengers Dr. Wood, U.S. Navy, who was the bearer of important dispatches from Commodore Sloan, commanding officer of the naval forces in the Pacific, John Parrot, U. S. consul at Mazatlan, Mr. Diamond, U. S. consul at Vera Cruz, and seven other passengers. This was not the first time that Fitzhugh ferried passengers between Mexico and the United States. Shortly before the war, Fitzhugh conveyed John Slidell, the United States Minister to Mexico, back to the U.S. In a letter found in a box under the attic floor boards at Oakhill, Slidell thanked Fitzhugh for bringing him home in Fitzhugh’s gun boat. He suggested that he had reason to believe that the President would send an important message to Congress on the Mexican situation shortly.

RESCUE OF THE FLAGSHIP:
Fitzhugh returned to Vera Cruz with the Mississippi and was on hand when an attempt was made to cut out several small Mexican vessels from the river Alvarado. On July 28, 1846, the flagship Cumberland, with support vessels in her wake, was underway towards the mouth of the Alvarado. Commodore Connor mistook the point of passage through the reefs at the Point of Lizardo and ordered the ship to tack causing the ship to hit the coral. Wind and the tide drove the ship further on. Attempts to take the ship beyond the shoal tended only to place the ship further upon the reef. The ship came to a dead stop, and the rise and fall of the sea swell succeeded in wedging the keel two or three feet down into the reef.

The steamer Mississippi, left at anchor off Green Island, was called to assist. The Cumberland, still in sight of Green Island signaled the Mississippi to come and tug the ship off the reef. The operation began the following day when daylight would make for a safer operation. A hawser (thick rope for towing or mooring a ship) was put aboard the Mississippi, but moments after the tugging began, the hawser snapped. After considering the next move, a light chain cable was conveyed out to the Mississippi by the Cumberland’s launch. This caused some concern since the Mississippi’s sister ship, the steamer Missouri, sank in the Potomac River while attempting to take a ketch off an oyster bed using a heavy chain.

Once the chain cable and additional hawsers were passed through the hawser-holes in the bow of the frigate Cumberland, they were attached to the stern of the Mississippi. A call of “All’s fast, Sir” followed by a return reply of “Haul tight!” was all that could be heard. The paddle wheels of the steamer started churning while black smoke poured out from the chimney pipe. The chain cable held but there was no movement off the reef. Fitzhugh sent a message to Commodore Connor that He was doing his best.

The Cumberland began to further lighten its load. During the night, they had pumped thousands of gallons of water overboard. Now they dumped 16 guns from the upper deck into the sea and made rafts out of the spare spars and anchored them to the reef. The shot, round, grape, and canister was sent on board other ships along with provisions of beef and pork. And still the Cumberland was stuck.

The Mississippi remained at its labors for the entire day making very slight progress to rotate the ship. Inexplicably, Commodore Connor gave up hope and exclaimed to the captain, “Come Forrest, it is in vain – let us take it quietly – and now get a cup of tea.” They proceeded to the table in the cabin where the Commodore added, “the Department shall be informed, Captain Forrest, that it was no fault of yours, that the ship went ashore.” Captain Forrest soon left the table and went on deck. It wasn’t long before half a dozen voices yelled “She is afloat!”

“Stand by to let go the larboard anchor!” ordered Captain Forrest. The Commodore, still seated at the table heard the order, sprang to his feet and raced to the upper deck clapping his hands and exclaiming, “Thank God, she’s off! Thank God, she’s off!” The Mississippi lurched forward with the Cumberland in tow until she reached the length of her cable. In total, the Cumberland was stuck on the reef for 27 hours. The following day Fitzhugh towed the Cumberland further from the reef. It took only a few days for the crews to retrieve the guns and spars from the reef.

FIRING ON ALVARADO:
Another attempt was made to capture Mexican vessels in the Alvarado port. Captain Fitzhugh with the Mississippi, along with the Princeton and three small schooners, were sent to cut out the vessels, i.e. go in and snatch them. At least one schooner anchored close to the shore battery and began firing. The steamers were out of range, but subsequently the Mississippi came close enough.

The Mississippi commenced firing but could not spring the ship due to the strong current. (Springing a ship involved attaching a rope to the anchor cable at the bow and taking it up aft by the capstan. This allowed the ship swing left or right to bring the guns to bear.) As a result, Fitzhugh could only use his bow guns. Because of the strong current and the shoal water on the bar, the boat expedition could not be sent into the river.

Firing continued until the dark. It was expected that they would recommence the following morning, but Commodore Connor signaled “come here again,” which ended their first fire on the enemy. No damage was done to the steamers or schooners; however no advantage was gained by the affair either.

Commodore Connor was criticized in publications for not taking more aggressive action in the Gulf. The Navy Department sent Commodore Perry to support Connor. Perry relieved Fitzhugh of his command of the Mississippi when Fitzhugh was given command of the navy yard at Pensacola.

FITZHUGH’S EARLY CAREER:
Andrew Fitzhugh (1793-1850) grew up at the family home of Oakhill located near present-day Annandale, Virginia. He became a midshipman in June 1811 at the dawn of the War of 1812 and was promoted to lieutenant five years later. As a 4th lieutenant, he served on the 38-gun frigate Congress and toured the West Indies to protect United States commerce from pirates. The 1st lieutenant onboard the Congress was John D. Sloat who later became commodore of the Pacific Squadron during the Mexican-American war.

In 1825, Lieutenant Fitzhugh was attached to the 74-gun ship of the line North Carolina for their 28 month cruise of the Mediterranean. During this time, the North Carolina served as the flagship for commodore John Rogers. Fitzhugh remained attached to the North Carolina serving under Master Commandant Mathew C. Perry, who later became commodore of the Gulf Squadron during the Mexican-American war.

In 1829, Fitzhugh served on the U.S. ship St. Louis under Captain Sloat whom he served with on the Congress. The St. Louis was a sloop of war.

In 1831, Fitzhugh was lieutenant commandant of the schooner Dolphin armed with twelve 6-pounder guns.


<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>
<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>

Here follows an excerpt from the Northern Virginia History Notes website:

Truth or Myth:
The Legend of Miss Ann and Captain Hawkins
Oak Hill, Fairfax County, Virginia

Written by Debbie Robison
December 18, 2014

A legend is told in the communities surrounding Oak Hill about Miss Ann Fitzhugh who died protecting her English love, Captain Charles Hawkins. Oak Hill, commonly called “Miss Ann’s Mansion,” is located near Annandale, VA. The story was documented by Mrs. Edward F. Howrey and published in the Historical Society of Fairfax Yearbook in 1961. The Howreys owned Oak Hill from 1935 to 1968.

Names of the nearby streets of Miss Anne Lane and Captain Hawkins Court were derived from the legend. The legend dates back to at least 1941 when the Fairfax Garden Club sponsored tours of Oak Hill. Visitors were told of the “tragic ghost ‘Miss Annie’ Fitzhugh.”

THE LEGEND:
The tale goes like this.

Mr. Fitzhugh went back to England on business and took his daughter Ann. While there, Ann fell in love with Captain Charles Hawkins. Mr. Fitzhugh and Ann returned to the “Colonies” when the trouble began. Charlie was sent to America to put down the rebellion. He landed at Dumfries and visited Ann several times at Oak Hill.

Federal troops got wind of his visits and surrounded the house. Ann hid Charlie in a secret room over the dining room reached by a trap door. Upon leaving, one soldier poked a sabre or bayonet through the trap killing Ann. Charlie jumped through a fan light in the attic and escaped. Ann haunts Oak Hill with plaintive cries for “Charlie.”

So is there any truth to the legend?

Myth: The legend states that Ann Fitzhugh and Captain Charles Hawkins met when the area was part of the British colonies. Therefore, according to the legend, they would have met prior the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Truth: Miss Ann Fitzhugh did live at Oak Hill. She was the daughter of Richard Fitzhugh, who built Oak Hill. However, Ann was born ca. 1805, which was 29 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence and 16 years after adoption of the United States Constitution.

Myth: Englishman Captain Charles Hawkins was sent to America to put down a rebellion. Ann hid him at Oak Hill.

Truth: Oak Hill was constructed ca. 1793 after Ann’s father, Richard Fitzhugh, inherited the property from his father. A plat of the property prepared for the land division in December 1792, indicates a number of dwellings; however, Oak Hill is not one of them, thus suggesting that the house wasn't constructed yet. Richard Fitzhugh moved to Fairfax County in 1793. Ann could not have hidden Hawkins at Oak Hill during the Revolutionary war since the house didn’t exist at that time. If the rebellion referred to in the legend was the War of 1812, which resulted in British soldiers in the region in 1814, then Ann would have been only 9 years old.

Myth: Captain Charles Hawkins was Miss Ann’s lover.

Truth: It is unknown if there was a British Captain Charles Hawkins; however, the Alexandria Gazette mentions a Captain Charles Hawkins in 1842. He was an officer of the Alexandria Sharp-Shooters. There isn’t any evidence found to date to show that Captain Charles Hawkins of Alexandria knew Miss Ann Fitzhugh.

Myth: Miss Ann was killed by a soldier using a sabre or bayonet.

Truth: Miss Ann didn’t die, she got married. Ann Fitzhugh married Charles R. Battaile, Esq. of Caroline county at Oak Hill on July 29, 1823. They lived in Culpeper, Virginia.


<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>
<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>

Here follows an excerpt from "The Oak Hill Kitchen Skirmish" written by Michael S. Mitchell and published on the Braddock Heritage website:

On the night of November 5, 1861, a shootout occurred between three Union scouts and four rebel cavalrymen at Oak Hill, the former home of David Fitzhugh that still stands as a private residence on Wakefield Chapel Road. One of the Union scouts, Private Edward Stewart Elder Newbury of the Third Regiment New Jersey Infantry, would later refer to this incident as the “kitchen skirmish,” because it happened in and around Oak Hill’s detached kitchen. The brief firefight can be reconstructed from several sources: a letter written by Newbury to the editor of the New Jersey Herald a few days after his adventure; an 1897 exchange of correspondence between Newbury and the former adjutant of the Confederate cavalry company; a 1906 letter included with Newbury’s pension application; and two sensationalized versions of the incident, written by the early Civil War historian, J. Madison Drake, that appeared in a book and newspaper article in 1908 and 1910, respectively. One can also find brief references to the incident in the diary of Corporal John S. Judd (Company G, Third Regiment N. J. Infantry) and the newspaper correspondence of Lieutenant John Roberts (Company A, Third Regiment N. J. Infantry). Additional sources provide background information on the purpose of the Confederates’ scouting expedition that ultimately brought the four rebel scouts to Oak Hill.

Edward S. E. Newbury was born in 1839 near Plymouth or Lake Phelps, in Washington County, North Carolina. His mother, Eliza Elder, a widow and native of New York had traveled to North Carolina to visit a friend’s plantation. During her visit she met its overseer, the widower Joseph Doctrine Newberry, whom she would marry in 1838. Edward was the oldest son of their marriage. Little else is known about his early life. A distant relative indicated that Newbury may have run away from home as early as age 16 (ca. 1855) to live with an uncle in Morris County, New Jersey, or possibly his grandparents in New York. Newbury claimed that he shared his mother’s Northern sentiments and felt that he could no longer live in the South after John Brown’s raid on the Federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in 1859. However, a register of Sussex County marriages shows Edward Newbury married Sarah Maring on November 14, 1858. In the 1860 federal census the couple is enumerated in Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey, where his occupation is listed as brickmaker. Regardless, Newbury’s sympathies belonged to the North prior to Lincoln’s election, the secession crisis, and Fort Sumter. In May, 1861, he joined the swell of Jerseymen who responded to President Lincoln’s call for volunteers and was mustered into Company D of the Third Infantry Regiment as a private. At the time of his enlistment, Newbury was recorded in the regiment’s descriptive book as a laborer from Andover Township of Sussex County, twenty-one years of age, five foot eleven inches, with a light complexion, light hair and hazel eyes. Soon after being mustered into the service, Newbury became “anxious to do something outside the line of regular duty in order to gain the confidence of his comrades who had regarded him with some suspicion.” In a post-war letter, Newbury revealed that he “had several times been called a traitor” because of his family relations in North Carolina. Drawing upon his experience as a night patrol man in North Carolina, he became a regimental scout, and before the regiment had left the state of New Jersey, Newbury had been designated a fifer and given a pass to go when and where he willed. His earliest known scout occurred during the Battle of First Manassas, when he said that he was sent ahead of the regiment towards the battlefield, while the rest of the regiment was held in reserve and guarded supply depots.

In August, Newbury had also volunteered to serve as a regular correspondent to the Sussex Register, a weekly newspaper, published in Newton, New Jersey. In his letters, he would often briefly describe his scouting activities or those of his scouting partner from Company D, Corporal Thomas P. Edwards, another resident of Sussex County. Edwards was a native of England who immigrated to the United States in 1855 after seeing considerable service with the British army in the Crimean War. On August 27, Newbury told the Register that he and Corporal Edwards were out scouting, and had gone with Colonel George W. Taylor, the commander of the Third, “to show him the battery which the enemy were constructing on Munson’s hill, on the Leesburgh [sic] pike.” On Saturday, August 31, he reported that “during the night, Corporal Edwards was called up to pilot a skirmishing party, (commanded by Col. Taylor,) toward the enemy’s lines,” and later, in the same letter, he added that he and Corporal Edwards “continue scouting as usual”, mentioning that on the night of September 7, they “slept in a wet marshy swamp inside of the rebel pickets which were thrown out around us,” which compelled them to stay all night until the pickets were withdrawn in the morning. One of the rebels fired a parting shot at the two Union scouts, who returned fire with three shots from their rifles.

Describing his scouting duties after the war, Newbury explained that he was absent from camp most of the time in enemy territory, where he slept mostly in the woods, but also in outhouses, cornfields, and in the center of corn shacks, and “was often wet for a week at a time.” He described his life as a scout “as one of the greatest excitement [sic] being often chased for miles through woods & swamp, for a price had been set on me dead or alive.”

By the end of September, General Joseph E. Johnston, commander of the Confederate Army of the Potomac, chose to consolidate the Southern army around Centerville and Manassas Junction, and his pickets, or sentries, were withdrawn from their advanced posts at Mason’s, Munson’s, and Upton’s Hills, as well as from the hill behind the farm of Col. Joseph Edsall (incidentally, a native of Sussex County, New Jersey), which overlooked the strategically important Orange and Alexandria Railroad and was only a short distance away from Springfield Station. The advanced picket post of the Third New Jersey was established at Edsall’s Farm with out-pickets as far forward as Ravensworth. Newbury now began to scout in the region surrounding the Orange and Alexandria Railroad from Springfield Station as far as Fairfax Station.

The pickets of the New Jersey Brigade, consisting of the First, Second, Third, and Fourth New Jersey Volunteers, complained of being fired upon on a nightly basis by a band of 40 or so rebel cavalry called the Loudoun County Scouts, who regularly patrolled the area between Fairfax Station and Springfield. “The murderous practice” of picket-firing, i.e. shooting at pickets, had been denounced by officers and men of both Northern and Southern armies during the early months of the conflict. One Union soldier wrote to his hometown newspaper that “it is nothing more than cold blooded murder to steal quietly up to the post of an out picket…and deliberately shoot down the sentry at the post.” Another Northern correspondent expressed his frustration with “this silly shooting of pickets” that “decides nothing and can be of no practical advantage to either side.” He went on further to explain that “the object of war is to decide something, but this, as before remarked, decides nothing at all.” Confederate soldier Harvey Davis opined in his diary that “such petty attacks hardly can be said to expedite the termination of a war, yet it is allways [sic] practiced, and many was the poor soldier who bit the dust while thus serving as the eye of the army by being stealthly [sic] approached in the dark and cut down before he knew of the danger.” Although agreements to “avoid the shooting of one another’s pickets, on the ground that it was a barbarous practice, not consistent with civilized warfare” were made between Union and Confederate officers, the problem continued. These acts had become so commonplace that General McClellan issued General Orders, Number 13, on September 16, declaring picket-firing to be “contrary to the usages of civilized warfare,” and directed his men not to fire on the rebel pickets unless it was necessary to resist an enemy advance. On November 5, Newbury and Corporal Edwards went to Oak Hill, located a mile or more outside the Union picket lines and west of Accotink Creek, about halfway between Little River Turnpike and Braddock Road, to gather information that might lead to the capture or destruction of the Loudoun Scouts.

Erroneous reports in Newspapers:
On Wednesday, November 6, H. C. Kelsey, the editor of the New Jersey Herald received a letter from a pseudonymous member of the Third New Jersey, in which it was claimed that a party returning from Burke’s Station on Sunday (November 3) reported that T. P. Edwards and E. S. Newbury had been shot and killed on Friday, December 1, while on a scout along the Orange and Alexandria Railroad towards Fairfax. The first details of the scouts’ visit to Oak Hill and the kitchen skirmish were written in response to this erroneous report of their death that appeared in the November 8 edition of the Sussex Register and November 9 edition of the New Jersey Herald (a notice of their deaths was also printed in the November 9 edition of the Trenton State Gazette).

Newbury’s complete letter to the editor of the New Jersey Herald is transcribed below in its entirety, and represents the source written closest to the actual event. It could be considered the most accurate account of the Oak Hill kitchen skirmish.

New Jersey Herald, November 16, 1861, vol. 33, No. 2, p. 3, column 2:

Fort Worth on the Potomac,
November 10, 1861.

Editor New Jersey Herald:
SIR—I noticed in your columns of last week a few lines signed “Sandyston,” stating that Corp. Edwards and Edward S. Newbury, whilst out on a scouting expedition, near Burke’s station, were fired upon and both killed. But thank God, Mr. Editor, I am here to speak for myself, and to let your informant know that he must be a base scoundrel who puts such a false report in circulation, and yet refuses to let his right name be known.

It is true that on the 1st inst., Corp. E. and myself went out on a scouting expedition, and at two o'clock at night we were within two hundred yards of the enemy at Fairfax station, where we saw two companies of dragoons and some infantry pickets. It was very dark at the time, the rain pouring down in torrents, but by the fires that were lighted in their sheds, we could plainly see their force. We did not get back until late in the evening of the next day, but both arrived in safety.

Since the date of your false informant's letter, we have had quite an adventurous scout, and one which proved somewhat dangerous -- We set out on the 5th, and getting outside our pickets, we were joined by a young man of the 16th N. York volunteers. We were about twelve miles from camp when we learned from a negro, who lived on a place deserted by its former owner, that a rebel had left there in the morning and was expected to return in the evening. We three, therefore, carefully awaited until day-light had vanished, when we secreted ourselves in the garden to await their arrival. He returned at eight o'clock in the evening in company with three others. After passing us they entered the house, when we advanced cautiously and got into the kitchen without being discovered. They had been in the house but a few minutes when they came out, three of them standing behind and one came in front of the kitchen. Corp. Edwards was standing between two open doors when the rebel suddenly fired into the door and then ran behind the kitchen, but as he passed the back door, our New York lad fired twice at him, when he cried out to the Lieut. that he was wounded, and that we were too hot for them. I then raised my Sharp's rifle to a level, and at the report I saw the Lieut. fall from his horse; this was followed with a deep hollow groan which has rung in my ear every moment since. Corp. E. being wounded and hearing the sounds of tramping, we tho't best to take care of ourselves, and make no further effort to capture the party as prisoners, which proved to be good advice, for they, with the aid of an alarm whistle procured reinforcements in a few minutes.

We traveled until eleven o'clock at night, and instead of getting toward our camp, we were approaching Fairfax Court-House. It rained all the rest of the night, and in the morning we traveled until 9 o'clock, when I got a cart and had the Corporal taken into Camp, where we arrived at four o'clock in the afternoon. Corp. E. being wounded in the arm and back by a shot which had traversed nearly twenty inches, he was exposed nearly twenty-four hours without his wounds being dressed. He is now in the hospital and doing well.

It is proper to add that after the rebel Lieutenant was shot off his horse they all left their horses, and took the wounded man toward the negro quarters before we left the dwelling. I am, with much respect, yours, Edward S. Newbury

It is interesting to note that the almost prophetic report of Edwards’ and Newbury’s demise was written with regard to an earlier scout that they made toward Fairfax that took place on the 1st, rather than their scout to Oak Hill. The identity of the “base scoundrel” who signed his name “Sandyston” (another town located in Sussex County) was never revealed.

Sergeant John S. Judd of the Third New Jersey Regiment of Volunteers, Company G was on picket at Edsall’s house when Newbury came in with Edwards. His diary entry simply reads:

Nov 6th Wednesday
Cop’l Edwards of Co. D shot while on a scout beyond Springfield. Came in from picket at Edsall’s. Rec’d shirts gloves &c from Home. Rec’d letter from Father one from Sister.

Their arrival at camp was noted by Lieutenant John Roberts of Company A, who had just signed off on his weekly correspondence to the Woodbury Constitution, when he added the following postscript:

A small wagon has just arrived from Fairfax Station with one of the privates of Company D wounded in three places. He was out in company with two others as scouts, and while in the vicinity of the Station, they were fired upon by four mounted men of the rebel army. His wounds are not dangerous.

Indeed, Edwards would eventually recover from his injuries and return to service, receiving a lieutenant’s commission in Company A late in 1863 and a promotion to captain of Company E on January 12, 1864. He went missing in action at Spotsylvania Court House on May 12, 1864, and though it was initially hoped that he had been captured, he was soon presumed dead.

Correspondence with Lieutenant Duncan:
More than thirty years later, Alexander McCrie Duncan, who had served during the war as a second lieutenant and adjutant of a cavalry company called the Georgia Hussars, opened a correspondence with Edward Newbury, in an attempt to enquire about a skirmish that occurred between their respective units near Oak Hill, along Braddock Road, on December 4, 1861. Duncan compiled their correspondence and published it in an appendix of Roll of Officers and Members of the Georgia Hussars and of the Cavalry Companies, of which the Hussars are a Continuation, with Historical Sketch Relating Facts Showing the Origin and Necessity of Rangers or Mounted Men in the Colony of Georgia from Date of its Founding (1906). After the night of November 5, Newbury assumed they had survived an encounter with the Loudoun County Scouts, and while Corporal Edwards convalesced in the Seminary Hospital, Private Newbury tirelessly scouted for information that could be used to exact punishment on the murderous band of rebel cavalry. Early in December, Newbury received reliable information from a slave who had accompanied his master inside the rebel lines at Centerville, about an intended foray by the Loudoun Scouts that was to occur on the night of December 4. He immediately returned to camp with the information, and his commander, Colonel George W. Taylor, was issued orders to take a detachment of the Third New Jersey Infantry, guided by Newbury, to set an ambush for the Scouts along a section of the Braddock Road that passed through a heavily wooded swamp. Upon their arrival, Newbury had two telegraph wires strung across the road for the purpose of unseating any rebel riders, and then the skirmish party concealed itself along the road and waited for something to turn up. Near midnight, twenty-four rebel cavalrymen rode into the trap and were fired upon by the Union soldiers hidden in the tree line, but instead of the Loudoun Scouts, the two dozen Confederate horsemen who had unwittingly ridden into the trap belonged to the Georgia Hussars of the Sixth Virginia Cavalry. The surprised Southerners returned fire with their shotguns as they desperately attempted to withdraw. In an attempt to cut off the rebels’ only route of escape, Newbury led a small party of eight men into the road at the western end of the swamp, but he received the full brunt of a shotgun blast in his left arm and side and was knocked out of the fight. The Confederates suffered five casualties and lost five horses, while the Federals had one killed, one captured, and one man (possibly two) wounded in addition to Newbury. Somehow, Duncan had learned of Newbury’s principal involvement in the skirmish and was interviewing the former Union scout for details about the ambush from the Northern perspective.

In relating the events that led up to the skirmish, a serendipitous moment occurred when Duncan informed Newbury that members of a scouting party led by the Hussar’s captain, Joseph Frederick Waring, were attacked at a deserted home around November 4, by an unknown number of Yankees who were occupying a detached kitchen! He rhetorically asked Newbury “Is it not likely that the occupants of the kitchen on this occasion were Newbury and Edwards?” Newbury had never known the identity of their assailants until his correspondence with Duncan revealed that the four rebels who rode up to the house were Captain Joseph Frederick Waring, First Lieutenant David Waldhauer, Corporal Robert C. Guerard, and Private Lochlin H. Clemens of the Georgia Hussars. Ironically, Newbury had successfully exacted punishment on the men who had attacked him and wounded Edwards at Oak Hill, but did not know it for over thirty-five years!

The Georgia Hussars were a historic cavalry organization from the city of Savannah, dating their organization to 1736. In mid-September of 1861, they furnished their own transportation to Virginia and offered their services to the Confederate government, which gave them their choice of assignment to one of the two incomplete Virginia cavalry regiments that were encamped at Centerville. They elected to become Company E of the Sixth Virginia Cavalry, under the experienced command of Colonel Charles W. Field, which belonged to Major General Earl Van Dorn’s Division.

There are two slightly conflicting explanations for the exact purpose of Waring’s scouting party that visited Oak Hill on the night of November 5, though both versions agree that Waring’s orders to conduct a reconnaissance were received on October 30, after Governor Letcher’s review of the Commonwealth’s regiments near Centerville. Following the review and presentation of colors to the regiments, General Van Dorn and his staff repaired to the headquarters of Colonel Field for refreshments. A few days beforehand, Van Dorn had approached General Joseph E. Johnston, commander of the Confederate Army of the Potomac (not yet the Army of Northern Virginia) with information that Union General Heintzelman’s division had moved so far in advance of the Federal lines on the road to Occoquan that he believed it could be overwhelmed by a prompt attack. While Johnston doubted the veracity of Van Dorn’s information, he gave permission for a scouting expedition to be organized for determining its true value, because he knew that one of the Confederacy’s best scouts belonged to Van Dorn’s division. According to Duncan, Van Dorn asked Colonel Field to “ascertain [whether] any considerable force of the enemy [were] so far removed from support as to prevent prompt succor”. Field immediately sent for Captain Waring to task him with the assignment and the four riders departed a few nights later. Slightly contrasting Duncan’s explanation, Second Lieutenant William Washington Gordon wrote in a letter to his wife a day after the December skirmish that Captain Waring had been asked to develop “a scheme of attacking and trying to capture the Yankee Pickets at Annandale”. If Gordon was correct, Waring’s party was out gathering information that would eventually be used by a detachment of the Sixth Virginia Cavalry to surprise the Union pickets at Annandale on December 2.

Duncan said that “on their way out toward the line of the enemy they espied a lot of turkeys at roost in the premises of an abandoned homestead,” which was probably Oak Hill, and they “determined to take them on their return trip.” Having reportedly gone as far as Alexandria, Waring’s scouting party stopped at Oak Hill as they returned from their reconnaissance to secure the turkeys. Duncan offered a slightly different—though secondhand—account of the kitchen skirmish from the Confederate point-of-view in his August 30, 1897 letter that was reprinted on page 487 of the Appendix:

Private Clemens dismounting passed over the fence into the enclosure and approached the kitchen. On opening the door of the same he was fired upon. One of the shots aimed at Clemens glancing from the fence or passing through a panel of the same, struck Captain Waring on the outside of his thigh with the force of a spent ball, whereupon Waring sung out, thinking that Clemens was shooting at the turkeys: “Look out! ‘Lach,’ you’re shooting me.” To which “Lach” replied, being at the moment engaged in the interchange of shots with some one or more persons in the kitchen: “Captain, there are several of us shooting here.” Immediately after he regained his horse and the party retired from the inhospitable household. In his subsequent relation of the circumstances, Clemens expressed himself of the belief that the kitchen was full of Yankees. Is it not likely that the occupants of the kitchen on this occasion were Newbury and Edwards?

Newbury had included in an earlier correspondence with Duncan his recollections of that night, which are given in his July 23, 1897 letter, appearing on page 479. He wrote:

On the 4th or 5th day of November, 1861, I took with me, of my company, J. [sic] Edwards, a young Englishman, and we went to the house of David Fitzhugh, who had left home with his family. There was a negro woman in a nearby cabin, whose son was dying and she told us that Fitzhugh was coming that night. We waited until midnight, when five men appeared on horseback. We were in the garden, but followed their movements. It was quite dark and we entered a vacant kitchen to get all the information we could. We were attacked by them. Edwards was badly wounded. I fired at the horsemen and feel sure that I did some execution.

The first disparity between the 1861 and 1897 version of the kitchen skirmish is the total absence of the unidentified soldier of the 16th New York Volunteers. One can only speculate why this soldier was forgotten. In the 1861 letter, the New Yorker is never again mentioned directly after he fired twice at Clemens. The reader would assume that Newbury was referring to the three of them in the remainder of the 1861 letter, from the time when he says “we tho’t best to take care of ourselves,” but the ease with which Newbury has forgotten the New Yorker by the time he penned the 1897 letters suggests that the New Yorker may have parted company with Newbury when they left the kitchen. It is hard to imagine that Newbury would have forgotten the company of the New Yorker if he had helped carry the wounded Edwards back to Union lines.

Now David Fitzhugh is mentioned as the owner of the abandoned home and it is he, rather than “a rebel” who “was coming that night.” The timing of the skirmish also changed along with the number of riders: instead of four men returning to the house at 8 o’clock, Newbury now claimed that “five men appeared on horseback” at midnight. Additional details—some of which are at variance with his 1861 account—emerged in his next letter (p. 493), dated September 2, 1897:

Now as we lay in the garden of D. Fitzhugh, one stood guard while the other slept, (we had taken a mattress and covers from the house to the garden)….There were undoubtedly (memory) five horsemen, four military and one citizen. They rode in and back of the house to where the negress and sick boy were, and conversed several minutes. Then coming back near the kitchen one dismounted and instead of coming to the back door where he dismounted, he jumped the rail fence at one end of the house and went to the front door. Now Edwards stood at the door with the door open held with his left hand, his Navy in his right, his right foot extended and pistol cocked and arm extended all ready to fire, (but we were there for information and would not show our hand unless forced) so when the soldier came to the door, pistol in hand, he must have seen Edwards between the doors and holding the front door and instantly fired. Ball entered Edwards’ arm above the elbow, came out six inches above, then struck in the back about eight inches from the spine and lodged almost against the spinal column.

Now, if you will place yourself as I have described Edwards’ position, you will see how this one shot could have made this double wound. Clements (if it was he) then jumped the rail fence at the other end of the house and as he came near the back door I fired at him with my Sharp rifle. At that Edwards fearing that he might fall in your hands, left the kitchen for the woods and left me alone. I loaded my Sharp in a second and then I fired at the four horsemen and thought by the little I could see that I had emptied one saddle. Clements went for his horse and a retreat was made by the Cavalry and all was over.

Fearing that the four would surround the kitchen and send for assistance I made my way to the woods and laid for one hour at the gate in the woods hoping to get one more shot. While thus waiting I heard a noise at the fence and saw a person climbing over. I turned my rifle on him and heard him groan as he got over. Then my mind was on Edwards, and calling found it was he, to my great joy. I got lost that night: not a star was visible and the wind changing I could not hear the roar of the creek. So getting in a corn field I counted the rows to what I thought was the center, and pulling up corn stalks I laid Edwards down. He was delirious for water and I afraid if I left him I would never find him. Now he must have water and all I had was a monogram cup taken from the D. Fitzhugh house as a memento. (I had taken three sheets of music) I took the cup and by keeping account of the corn rows both ways I finally found water and relieved him by constantly supplying him.

At 4 o’clock the wind change, I heard the welcome sound of the creek, but Edwards could not stand, the ball in his back had partially paralyzed his lower limbs.

I took him on my back and carried him, but the agony was intense—he could only hold to me with one hand. When we got to the creek we had to cross on a log and when we reached the opposite side I slipped and we fell headlong over the stump to the ground.

Edwards shrieked with pain and I jumped to put my hand over his mouth to stifle his cries. I reached camp with him at 7 o’clock p. m. that day. It had drizzled from 2 o’clock that morning until after Edwards was in Hospital, wet, tired and hungry.

Newbury revealed that they took turns sleeping on a featherbed mattress while they waited in the garden. This was the first indication that the Union scouts had entered Oak Hill. In contrast to the wartime account, neither 1897 letter indicated that the Confederates entered the house; instead, Newbury remembered that “they rode in and back of the house,” to where the woman and her sick boy were and conversed for a few minutes, while Newbury and Edwards (and presumably the forgotten New Yorker) watched their movements from the garden. At that time, the Federals decided to enter the vacant kitchen. “Then coming back near the kitchen one [Confederate] dismounted and instead of coming to the back door where he dismounted, he jumped the rail fence at one end of the house and went to the front door.”

The circumstances and severity of Edwards’ wounding was also revealed in the letter for the first time. The single shot fired by Clemens hit Edwards’ arm above the elbow and came out six inches above, continuing into his side and traversing eight inches across his back to lodge against the spinal column. Fearing that the Confederates might surround the kitchen and capture them, the wounded Edwards fled the kitchen for the woods, leaving Newbury alone to his fate. Contrary to Newbury’s memory, Edwards did not abandon his comrade, because the New Yorker was present; furthermore, according to the 1861 letter, it was the forgotten “New York lad” who fired and possibly wounded Clemens as the latter dashed to his horse, but in 1897, it was Newbury who now claimed to have fired his Sharp’s Rifle at Clemens as he passed the back door, without finding his target.

Newbury ‘s breech-loading rifle was quickly reloaded and he fired at the four horsemen (emphasis added) and felt sure—from the little that he could see in the darkness—that he did some execution; emptying one saddle. He never explained what happened to the fifth rider. Clemens mounted his horse and the four riders retreated into the darkness and all was over. Newbury does not mention the horsemen stopping and dismounting to help their injured “lieutenant” into the slave quarters, nor does he mention that one of them blew on an alarm whistle to call reinforcements.

While the 1861 letter gave the impression that the three immediately departed Oak Hill, Newbury’s second account of 1897 indicated that he lingered at Oak Hill for about an hour after the rebels left. It could have been during this interlude that the New Yorker parted ways with the Jersey scout. Fearing that the four (author’s emphasis) would surround the kitchen and send for reinforcements, Newbury wrote that he displaced from the kitchen and made his way to the woods, where he laid for one hour at a gate, hoping to get one more shot, should the rebels return. While thus situated, he was reunited with Edwards, whom it was seen required immediate medical attention.

Newbury’s correspondence with Duncan offered the first glimpse of the ordeal endured by the two Jersey scouts after the kitchen skirmish, as Newbury decided to carry his wounded comrade back to camp, rather than leaving him to fetch help. After the war, Newbury’s comrades described him as a modest man, so when Newbury stated that he alone carried Edwards back to the Union lines, it is reasonable to assume that Newbury told the truth and was not claiming undue credit. As discussed above, it is possible to conclude that the New Yorker left in the time between the conclusion of the kitchen skirmish and Newbury’s reunion with Edwards at the fence, and was not present during the long, memorable ordeal of carrying the wounded corporal to the picket post at Edsall’s Hill.

Newbury still admitted that he got lost that night when he was unable to see the stars in the sky or hear the roar [sic] of the creek (presumably referring to Accotink Creek and not Long Branch). This admission should be kept in mind when the 1908 and 1910 versions of the kitchen skirmish are discussed. The original letter suggested that the Union scouts had gone some distance from Oak Hill before they realized that they were traveling closer to the rebel lines. Therefore, their location is not evident when Edwards became delirious with thirst and was hidden by Newbury at the center of a cornfield. Newbury also does not explain the reason why he had to use the stolen monogram cup when he went in search of water. Explanations for how each man had lost their canteen would be provided in one of the future works.

Newbury told Duncan that the wind changed around 4 o’clock in the morning, so that “the welcome sound of the creek” could be heard. Unfortunately, Edwards could not stand because the ball in his back had partially paralyzed his lower limbs. Newbury’s statement could suggest that Edwards may have had some sensation in his lower extremities prior to this point. After all, Edwards ran out of the kitchen after he was shot, but it is not specified whether he walked, crawled or dragged himself to the fence at Oak Hill to be reunited with Newbury. It is only certain from the cornfield onward that Newbury carried Edwards on his back. Reaching the banks of Accotink Creek, Newbury simply stated in this account that they “had to cross on a log,” and that upon reaching the opposite side he slipped and fell to the ground with Edwards. They finally reached camp—referring to the hospital at Camp Seminary—at 7 o’clock in the evening, which was about three hours later than he reported in his 1861 letter.

Snippet from Newbury’s pension application:
In a January 29, 1906 letter accompanying an application for an increase in pension, Newbury cites this episode as the cause for the rheumatism of his back:

It happened in this wise – Two of our co. while on scout duty was attactece [sic] & my comerade [sic] was wounded. It was 1 [o’clock] at night and I had to carry the comerade in, on my back, to the picket line some eight miles. It was about the 5 of Nov/61 – it rained all night and all next day and we were both wet to the skin in verry [sic] cold weather, and no food for 24 hours. I caught a heavy cold and I date my rheumatism from that date.

“Gallant Union Scout”
In 1908, James Madison Drake, former publisher of the True Democrat newspaper in Trenton, New Jersey, a Medal of Honor winner and early Civil War historian, published a collection of historical anecdotes titled Historical Sketches of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. The Civil War stories included in the book were supposedly based on interviews with surviving veterans. Newbury’s memory of the Oak Hill skirmish, as told to Duncan in 1897, is clearly recognizable in Drake’s version of the kitchen skirmish, titled “Gallant Union Scout,” but received a few noticeable tweaks. Unfortunately, it is not possible to determine whether the changes represent Newbury’s evolving memory of the events or Drake’s artistic license. However, it can easily be seen that Newbury’s account did not change to reflect any of the information shared by Lieutenant Duncan of the Georgia Hussars.

Drake began his story by erroneously claiming that Newbury was appointed a scout by General Philip Kearny. Kearny did not take command of the brigade until August, and Newbury said that his designation as a fifer was directly related to his becoming a scout. His compiled military service record clearly indicates that Newbury was designated as a fifer before the regiment had left New Jersey.

The New Yorker remained forgotten and so Drake told the story as though Newbury and Edwards were the only two Union scouts that visited Oak Hill that night. From Fitzhugh’s slave they learned that “Mas’r Fitzhugh and some gentlemen would arrive shortly.” Therefore, what started as a single rebel expected to return in Newbury’s 1861 letter, became Fitzhugh in 1897 and had turned into Fitzhugh and “some gentlemen” by 1908.

Oak Hill’s notable boxwood hedges, which lead up to the house and are still viewable today from Braeburn Drive, are mentioned in Drake’s account. He wrote that Newbury and Edwards hid in the garden located “behind a heavy row of boxwood.” Around midnight, they were awakened by the sound of hoof beats on the frozen road between Braddock Road and the house. This time, five men dismounted in front of the house, but unlike in the 1861 letter, Private Clemens remained outside to care for the animals, while Captain Waring, Lieutenant Waldhauer, Corporal Guerard and supposedly Fitzhugh entered the home and kindled a fire in one of the two fireplaces.

Newbury and Edwards tried to make their way to the detached log kitchen unobserved, where they felt that they “could gain information and be in a better position for defense,” but Drake hypothesized that their movement was detected by Clemens. From inside the kitchen, Edwards saw Clemens approaching the front door of the kitchen and he gave Newbury a signal of danger. Clemens peered anxiously within the kitchen before he discharged his weapon point blank at Edwards’ breast and fled, sounding the alarm. The other four men came pouring out of the house, which conflicts with both of Newbury’s earlier accounts, where the other rebels were already outside when Clemens investigated the kitchen.

Drake wrote that Newbury opened fire on the Confederates with carbine and revolver and winged one of the rebels, though Newbury said that he was equipped with a Sharp’s rifle and not a carbine. Originally, Clemens was winged by shots fired from the revolver of the New Yorker; then, because he had apparently forgot about the New Yorker, Newbury told Duncan that he must have been the one who took the shot at Clemens; now, rather than Clemens, Drake wrote that Newbury winged one of the four men exiting the house, who declared that the kitchen was filled with Yankees—a statement originally attributed to Clemens—and then “mounting in great haste, the five men galloped rapidly away.”

As before, Newbury is reunited with the wounded corporal at the fence and they begin their journey toward Union lines, but Newbury does not become lost in Drake’s stories. From the beginning, he knew the direction he must travel, but their progress was slowed because Edwards was “helpless.” Leaving Oak Hill, he carried, lugged, and dragged Edwards into a cornfield, where he left “the inanimate and blood-covered form of his companion” to seek the water that would quench the corporal’s constant thirst. In 1897, Newbury admitted to Duncan that he got lost because he could not hear Accotink Creek until the wind had shifted late in the pre-dawn morning. Therefore, Drake’s story clearly appears to be exaggerated when it had Newbury make repeated trips to Accotink Creek, located only a quarter of a mile away (actually closer to three quarters of a mile away). Newbury never clarified where he eventually found water. Drake also explained that the small tin cup that Edwards had shoved into his haversack had to be used to retrieve the water because Newbury had left his canteen in the garden.

In the September 1897 letter, Newbury remembered finally hearing the creek around 4 o’clock A.M., but Drake had them resume their journey almost three hours later at dawn. On November 6 in the Washington area, sunrise is at approximately 6:40 A.M. and twilight starts about a half an hour earlier.

Reaching the banks of Accotink Creek, Drake said that Newbury had to cross on the fallen tree because the water was too deep to ford. Newbury quickly dismissed the idea of attempting to reach a strongly guarded bridge that was “several miles downstream,” which might have been the Orange & Alexandria Railroad trestle. Instead, he shouldered his burden and crossed the creek on the rain-slickened trunk. “In descending the trunk, somewhat elevated from the wet ground, he missed his precarious footing, and fell in the mud, carrying Edwards with him.” Edwards’ shrieks of agony echoed through the woods and Newbury not only leapt to his side to smother his cries, but was also compelled to gag the corporal for a time.

After a journey of nearly sixteen hours, Drake wrote that Newbury reached the picket post at Edsall’s Hill at seven o’clock P.M., where the Union pickets rushed to his assistance and “ministered to his necessities,” conveying him and Edwards to the hospital. The time is ten hours later than what Newbury reported in his 1861 letter, and the same time that Newbury’s September 2, 1897 letter to Duncan claimed that the pair concluded their ordeal at Camp Seminary.

The Spy Who Was Trapped Inside Enemy Lines:
Two years later, Drake republished the story as part of series of “Civil War Remembrances,” that appeared in a New Jersey newspaper (possibly the Elizabeth Daily Journal). The story, entitled “The Spy Who Was Trapped Inside the Lines,” was syndicated and appeared in newspapers nationwide. By and large, it duplicated “Gallant Union Scout,” with additions that were probably meant to heighten the drama but potentially fictionalized some of the details. As with the 1908 version, the story’s primary fault is that Newbury’s memory served as its foundation, which meant that Drake’s tweaks potentially changed inaccuracies into outright falsehoods.

In his exchange of letters with Duncan, Newbury explained that he and Edwards were trying to get information about the Loudoun County Scouts, the enigmatic band of cavalry that had been shooting at the pickets of the New Jersey Brigade, but Drake would have the reader believe that Newbury and Edwards left Camp Seminary on the evening of November 4 (a day early) with orders to get “word of the plans and disposition” of General Joseph E. Johnston’s Confederate Army of the Potomac, whose size “was a matter of wild conjecture” and whose swift descent on McClellan’s Union Army of the Potomac was feared. Drake also wrote that it was Edwards who suggested going to “the home of Mr. Fitzhugh, a wealthy planter, who was known to be influential at Richmond” in expectation that he would be “fully informed of the Confederate plans, and would be most unlikely to suspect the presence of lurking scouts.” Edwards had an idea to hide on the premises and either intercept a messenger or eavesdrop on conversation that would put them on the track of information. Previously, Drake did not say when the Union scouts arrived at Oak Hill, but for the 1910 newspaper story, he placed their arrival around nine o’clock in the evening on a moonless night, “with a raw wind and low hung clouds” that promised rain. Newbury’s original letter indicated that the kitchen skirmish had probably already concluded by that time, since he said that the rebels arrived at eight and were only in the house for a few minutes before they exited and approached the kitchen. The scouts found the house “dark and apparently deserted” and when they spoke to Fitzhugh’s slave, Drake has her saying that her master had moved the family to Richmond several days before and was expected to return in a few hours with some friends to close the house. It is worth iterating that while Newbury and Edwards may have been unaware that Oak Hill was “deserted by its former owner” prior to their visit, it is plainly stated in the 1861 letter that they stayed to await the return of the single rebel who had been at Oak Hill in the morning, and not Fitzhugh. Furthermore, Newbury reported to the New Jersey Herald and to others that they were attacked by four rebel riders. There is no mention of a citizen until 1897, and that citizen does not become Fitzhugh until 1908.

The claim that Fitzhugh had influence in Richmond may entirely be artistic license on the part of Drake. There is no evidence that Fitzhugh was anything more to the Confederacy than an ordinary farmer, whose value was in providing forage for the army. Vouchers in the Confederate Citizens’ Files indicate that the “Black Horse Troop” purchased 8000 pounds of hay from Fitzhugh on September 24, 1861 and he redeemed the voucher in Centerville for $60 payment on November 20. He also sold a wagon load of corn tops to the 11th Alabama Infantry Regiment on October 15 for $1. Those two receipts suggest that if Fitzhugh had deserted Oak Hill, it may have only been a temporary relocation to the relative safety of the Confederate lines at Centerville. He may have returned home upon the Confederate’s withdrawal from Centerville, in March 1862, when his farm was firmly located in Union-controlled territory, rather than in the neutral ground between armies. Later, it is known that he was arrested on his farm in August of 1862, by Union soldiers, and jailed in the Old Capitol Prison in Washington; probably on the pretense of disloyalty.

Drake now said that with the news of Fitzhugh’s imminent return the two scouts took their leave and assured the woman “that they would return upon their errand the next day.” Yet, in the next sentence, Drake wrote that Edwards and Newbury entered the house through a window and cast about for a place to hide, but could not find a place to Newbury’s satisfaction. This is not surprising, since the original manor was a four room, two story structure with one room on either side of a central hallway. It probably offered few, if any, places to hide.

After dragging the mattress out to the garden beyond the boxwood hedge, they soon both fell asleep and were awakened after midnight by the tramp of hoofs on the frozen road. They crept through the hedge and watched five men ride up to the house and dismount. As in the previous version, four went inside and the fifth cared for the horses. This time, the Union scouts crawled to the rear of the house, but feared that they had aroused suspicion when the conversation inside the house suddenly ceased. Communicating in whispers, Newbury and Edwards agreed to occupy the nearby vacant kitchen, where they took up their respective positions at the back and front door.

Peering out into the darkness, Edwards glimpsed a dim figure slowly and silently approaching the kitchen’s front entrance and gave Newbury the signal of danger. Drake would have us envision Edwards backing gently away from the door into the kitchen’s interior as Clemens advanced and eventually blocked the doorway of the cabin, “where again he stood, listening and watching.”

“The scouts stilled their breathing.” Drake describes Edwards twice raising his carbine to cover Clemens, close enough to where he could have touched him with the barrel of the gun and could easily have shot him dead. In both the 1897 letter and 1908 version, Edwards was holding a Navy revolver. In fact, Newbury indicates in the former letter that the manner in which Edwards was holding the pistol in his right hand with his arm extended, contributed to the nature of his wounding.

Drake added details to the kitchen encounter, saying that “suddenly there was a sharp exclamation from the figure in the doorway and the darkness was split by a bright flash. The roar of the explosion was followed by a yell of pain from the Corporal, who, wounded as he was, charged upon his assailant, believing that the only hope lay in breaking through the ring of their enemies.” As before, Clemens also fled into the night, raising the alarm as he ran, while Edwards sprang through the hedge for the relative safety of the woods.

Newbury was left in the kitchen, unaware that Edwards had run for the woods and confused by the shot and the uproar. He called to Edwards repeatedly and—receiving no answer—began to grope about the floor, expecting to find his companion killed. There was a crackle of shots outside and Newbury’s attention turned toward the rebels who had been in the house, but who now made a rush on the kitchen’s front door.

Drake’s readers are told that Newbury blazed away with carbine and revolver, emptying the chambers as fast as he could whirl the cylinder. One of the attackers howled, “I’m down, Fitzhugh!” and had to be dragged away by the other four, who rode away into the night. Again, it should be emphasized that while Newbury’s memory thirty-six (1897) to forty-nine (1910) years after the incident claims that Fitzhugh arrived with Waring’s scouting party, the evidence from Newbury’s own 1861 letter, Roberts’ postscript and Duncan’s understanding of the shootout as it was related to him, does not support Fitzhugh’s presence at Oak Hill that evening.

When Edwards crawled back to Newbury at the fence and was lifted on to the Carolinian’s back, Drake provided the only physical description of the Englishman, a miner before the war, who was heavily built and about twenty pounds heavier than Newbury, though seven inches shorter than the fifer.

In the 1910 version, they had traveled only a short distance away from the Oak Hill plantation, into a “neglected field of standing corn” when the suffering Edwards begged Newbury to put him down and gasped, “for God’s sake, get me water . . . . My wound’s fevered and I’m burning with thirst.” Newbury reached for his canteen but found that he must have lost it in the darkness, whereas in the book version he realized that he had left it in the Oak Hill garden. A new fact, if true, is that Edwards supposedly lost his canteen somewhere in the cornfield, which would finally explain why he was also without his canteen. In the 1910 account, the haversack containing the tin cup is not with them in the cornfield, but has been left back at the fence where the two scouts were reunited.

Retrieving the cup, Newbury’s first thought was to get water at the plantation, but he feared another encounter with Waring’s party, who would probably return to Oak Hill reinforced, so he went off in search of Accotink Creek and found it a quarter of a mile away. Making repeated trips to the creek during the night, Drake adds personal drama upon one of his return trips to the cornfield, where he found Edwards “sobbing with weakness and discouragement,” having made up his mind that Newbury had deserted him.

After dawn broke, Newbury fashioned a rudimentary sling from their belts to carry Edwards on his back. He discarded all unnecessary weight, except for his pistol, which he thrust into his pocket, and his carbine (which was actually a Sharp rifle), which he used as a clumsy staff, and the two began their journey.

Finding the Accotink too deep and swift to risk a crossing, Newbury looked in vain for a boat. The bridge downstream was dismissed, because it was closely watched by the Confederates, so the fallen tree, “which was rooted on the opposite shore,” was their only alternative. “It had snapped high and lay before him at a dangerous upward slant,” so Newbury draped Edwards over the trunk in front of him and pushed him along one inch at a time. This is easier to believe than the 1908 image of Newbury walking across with Edwards on his back. At the other side, some five feet above the ground he was preparing to lower Edwards, when a sudden movement of the Corporal flung Newbury’s weight to the side. The private made a desperate snatch for the trunk, but was unable to regain his hold and the two men fell heavily to the ground. Edwards’ unexpected shift of weight rather than Newbury’s footing in the 1908 version becomes responsible for their fall to earth.

Edwards now began to slip in and out of consciousness while Newbury continued to struggle with his load throughout the day, keeping “away from the roads and from dwellings, laboring through fields and coverts,” moving no more than a few yards at a time before throwing himself down with his burden to regain his strength, before scrambling up to his feet and pressing on. “Once he crouched in a clump of bushes while a detail of Confederates marched by within fifty feet of him,” which is depicted in the illustration accompanying the newspaper story.

Newbury says in his 1861 letter that he made it to the picket post at Edsall’s Hill by 9 o’clock in the morning, but in Drake’s 1910 version, he was still struggling with his burden in the early part of the afternoon. On one occasion, he fell as he was trying to raise the Corporal, and for a while remained on the ground and fitfully dozed. He was tempted to give up but awoke with a start and with a self-reprimand he picked up Edwards and trudged onward, finally reaching the Union picket post at seven o’clock in the evening; ten hours later than the true time of his arrival. The pickets “started up with leveled rifles at a dim shape that came crawling and trundling slowly over the ground toward them. It gave no answer to their hails, and cautiously they came out to meet it, thinking to find some injured animal or they knew not what.”

Drake continues, writing that “as they came up they saw that it was a man. He was creeping on all fours and on his back was strapped the body of another. They called to him, but he did not answer, only crept on and on. Then pitying hands took hold of him, and as they relieved him of his burden he scrambled to his feet, stared about him wildly and then collapsed. Private Newbury needed as close attention as did Corporal Edwards that night.”

Unrecognized Heroism:
Newbury believed that he began to suffer back trouble from that day forward and that it contributed to his inability to perform manual labor after the war. The Department of the Interior disagreed, believing that there was insufficient evidence to prove that his “alleged rheumatism” was of service origin and it rejected his application for an additional pension. There was no hospital records indicating that he had received treatment during the war and the surgeons who had attended him had all passed away. Newbury wrote that on one occasion, Dr. Trescott, an assistant surgeon of the Third New Jersey Infantry, “got such [liniment] as he thought best and rubbed me when I had [attacks,] which only lasted a few days at a time.” In his own words, Newbury explained “I was no hospital bum and my desire for the activity of Scouting and the excitement of such life—and the demands of the service for my time prompted me to do all in my power” to stay in the field and help destroy the rebels who were making night forays on the Union picket lines and kept the out-pickets in constant dread of being picked off. Therefore, Newbury chose to try and hide his indisposition from back trouble during the war, from fear that he would be mustered out of service. On the Union side, there was no one living who could verify Newbury’s story of the Oak Hill kitchen skirmish or his heroic feat in carrying Edwards back to Union lines: even if the scout of the 16th New York had been remembered, his identity was an enduring mystery and Corporal Edwards had been killed during the war. His regimental commander, Colonel George W. Taylor, was mortally wounded at Second Manassas, and his brigade commander, General Philip W. Kearny—who praised Newbury’s scouting ability and gave him the sobriquet, “The Jersey Scout”—had been killed at Ox Hill, so those whom he submitted his scouting reports to were unavailable. Corporal John Judd, the non-commissioned officer in command of the picket post at Edsall’s Hill, who witnessed Newbury carry Edwards in, had also died during the war. Lieutenant John Roberts, who recorded the wounded scouts’ arrival at the Seminary in his correspondence to the Woodbury Constitution, was later an affiant in Newbury’s pension application, but only provided testimony of the wounds Newbury received in the December skirmish. All Confederate participants in the Oak Hill skirmish were deceased by the time Duncan’s and Drake’s accounts were published: Corporal Robert Guerard died soon after the war, in 1868; Captain Waring died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1876; Private Lochlin Clemens, who fired the shot that wounded Edwards, had died in 1883; Lieutenant David Waldhauer passed away in 1886; and David Fitzhugh, if he was indeed present at his home that night, died suddenly at the residence of his sister, in Warrenton, on February 11, 1868.

The Oak Hill kitchen skirmish is known today primarily because of the letters and recollections of Private Edward S. E. Newbury, a fifer and regimental scout of the Third New Jersey Regiment of Volunteer Infantry. His experience at Oak Hill on the night of November 5 motivated him to gather the intelligence which directly led to the December 4 Midnight Ambuscade on Braddock Road. The First New Jersey Brigade credits that ambush with ending the murderous practice of picket-firing in Northern Virginia during the first year of the war.


<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>
<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>

Here follows an excerpt from "The Story of Ravensworth" website as prepared by John Browne:

Fitzhugh Family
Richard Fitzhugh built Oak Hill for his personal residence circa 1790 on his inherited 2524-acre share of Ravensworth, Parcel 1.1.4. He raised a family of eight children and lived at Oak Hill until his death in 1821.

The original house was built in the late Georgian style: center hall, two stories, four rooms – two downstairs and two up. Outbuildings contained the kitchen and other household services.

Thomas Jefferson’s personal account books record at least four overnight visits to Oak Hill, when President, on trips between Washington, DC and his Monticello home near Charlottesville, VA, including April 1-2, 1804 – arranged in this exchange of letters.1

After the death of Richard Fitzhugh’s widow, Suzannah (Meade) Fitzhugh, circa 1857, Oak Hill passed by inheritance three times within 23 years to:

their son David Fitzhugh with 345 acres (1857) – During his tenure in the Civil War, the house was the site of a skirmish
Oak Hill: Civil War Skirmish (A Look Back At Braddock)
their daughter Ann (Fitzhugh) Battaile (1868)
Ann’s daughter Ann Battaile with 60 acres (1880)
Enslaved People At Oak Hill
Slaves at Oak Hill 1821 – 1856

From Slave to Landowner. After the Civil War, at least three former slaves bought and lived on small parcels of Oak Hill land.

Newman, John H. (c.1850-1894)
Newman, Oscar (1852-aft.1900)
Newman, Richard P. (c.1841-1891)

An undocumented slave cemetery, discovered in 2005 on former Oak Hill land, is described in this short video by Fairfax County Channel 16:

The history of Oak Hill is well documented. The house is one of three mansions built in the 18th century on the enormous Ravensworth estate. William H. Fitzhugh, an Englishman, turned approximately 22,000 acres of wilderness into one of the largest tobacco plantations in Virginia. In the late 1600s, it extended from the Engineers Proving Ground south of Springfield all the way over to Lake Barcroft on Columbia Pike and all the way to the Fairfax Courthouse in Fairfax City. Today Oak Hill Mansion is one of only three grand buildings from the Fitzhugh estate to have survived. It was saved from development in 2004 when the county purchased an historic easement on the manor house and land for preservation because of its history. John Browne maps changes that divided up Oak Hill and Ravensworth land through generations of inheritance and sale. Maddie McCoy, developer and curator of Fairfax County slavery inventory database shares insights from her research of the lives of Ravensworth slaves, former slaves, and free blacks. Together the speakers present what is known of a now lost African-American community that developed in the late 1800s on former Oak Hill land. On Braddock Road, the Fitzhugh family built three major plantation houses over time on the property. One was the Ravensworth Mansion, a 22,000 acre plantation, a huge parcel of land acquired in 1685 by William Fitzhugh. A second one was Ossian Hall that was a bit off of Ravensworth Road between Braddock Road and Little River Turnpike (Route 236) in the Annandale area and the third one was Oak Hill and was the residence of Richard Fitzhugh who was three generations removed from the original William, but in the fourth generation of occupation of Ravensworth and he has at any point in time between 30 and 60 slaves, let's say starting in 1800, going through to about 1840, so that's kind of interesting about this Oak Hill story is that all of a sudden you start looking at the neighborhood around Oak Hill and we start realizing that there are people who are enumerated as black or as mulatto that are based around the Oak Hill home. What it came down to is that all of a sudden we realized that we had this community just down the road from Oak Hill further down towards Braddock Road off of Wakefield Chapel Road, that was it had just been lost to time. More of Oak Hill's rich history was revealed when an undocumented slave cemetery was discovered on a nearby plot of land. At the cemetery there was only one headstone that had a name carved into it. The other grave markers were just rough cut field stones with no inscriptions. In the summer of 2005, Maddie McCoy began researching to try and identify individuals buried in the cemetery on Guinea Road. We had oral history from an African-American family for decades saying we have kin buried on the corner of Little River Turnpike and Guinea Road. The land that these individuals were interred on was owned by the Fitzhugh family starting in 1685. Archaeologists did go in and though the burials were excavated, they were reinterred further down the road, but they did a very precise and very systematic archaeological dig and they were able to identify a number of remains and these were all individuals of African descent. They were also able to determine how old the burials were and when these people were buried there so we knew that they were in the middle of the 1800s because of the discovery of the Guinea Road Cemetery.
Maddie developed a slave inventory database from her research into the lives of the Ravensworth former slaves and free blacks so the slavery inventory database is really a genealogical database which I hope to be able to put online soon. That recording and identifying enslaved individuals that lived here by first and by last name so if somebody wants to research their African-American genealogy and their African-American Heritage. It's very difficult to find these records, you sort of get to this wall of slavery, the first thing that you need to do is get a pad, some pencils, and an accordion file, and then start talking to your relatives. That's the first and foremost and just start writing it down: dates, places you know. Sometimes it doesn't necessarily make sense at first but it usually will and then come to a place like the Virginia Room at the Fairfax City Public Library where there are genealogical resources to learn more about the history of African-American families in Fairfax County as well as the history of Oak Hill. Visit the Virginia Room at the City of Fairfax Regional Library located at 10360 North Street.

Watt Family Farm
In 1889, William Watt purchased Oak Hill with 50 acres for $900. The property remained a working farm in the Watt family until 1935, when William’s son Egbert and his wife Grace sold it. Two of their daughters related memories of their childhood at Oak Hill in the 1930s in oral interviews in the A Look Back at Braddock history project.

From Farmhouse To Mansion
Washington, D.C. lawyer Edward Howrey and his wife Jane bought Oak Hill in 1935. The Howreys renovated and expanded the house in the Colonial Revival Style, adding a front portico with columns, additional rooms and modern plumbing and appliances. Mrs. Howrey documented a myth connected with the house, which is recounted in:

Truth or Myth: The Legend of Miss Ann and Captain Hawkins – by Debbie Robison
Oak Hill, Fairfax County, Virginia
December 18, 2014

A legend is told in the communities surrounding Oak Hill about Miss Ann Fitzhugh who died protecting her English love, Captain Charles Hawkins. Oak Hill, commonly called “Miss Ann’s Mansion,” is located near Annandale, VA. The story was documented by Mrs. Edward F. Howrey and published in the Historical Society of Fairfax Yearbook in 1961. The Howreys owned Oak Hill from 1935 to 1968.

Names of the nearby streets of Miss Anne Lane and Captain Hawkins Court were derived from the legend. The legend dates back to at least 1941 when the Fairfax Garden Club sponsored tours of Oak Hill. Visitors were told of the “tragic ghost ‘Miss Annie’ Fitzhugh.”

The tale goes like this.

Mr. Fitzhugh went back to England on business and took his daughter Ann. While there, Ann fell in love with Captain Charles Hawkins. Mr. Fitzhugh and Ann returned to the “Colonies” when the trouble began. Charlie was sent to America to put down the rebellion. He landed at Dumfries and visited Ann several times at Oak Hill.

Federal troops got wind of his visits and surrounded the house. Ann hid Charlie in a secret room over the dining room reached by a trap door. Upon leaving, one soldier poked a sabre or bayonet through the trap killing Ann. Charlie jumped through a fan light in the attic and escaped. Ann haunts Oak Hill with plaintive cries for “Charlie.”

So is there any truth to the legend?
Myth: The legend states that Ann Fitzhugh and Captain Charles Hawkins met when the area was part of the British colonies. Therefore, according to the legend, they would have met prior the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Truth: Miss Ann Fitzhugh did live at Oak Hill. She was the daughter of Richard Fitzhugh, who built Oak Hill. However, Ann was born ca. 1805, which was 29 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence and 16 years after adoption of the United States Constitution.

Myth: Englishman Captain Charles Hawkins was sent to America to put down a rebellion. Ann hid him at Oak Hill.

Truth: Oak Hill was constructed ca. 1793 after Ann’s father, Richard Fitzhugh, inherited the property from his father. A plat of the property prepared for the land division in December 1792, indicates a number of dwellings; however, Oak Hill is not one of them, thus suggesting that the house wasn't constructed yet. Richard Fitzhugh moved to Fairfax County in 1793. Ann could not have hidden Hawkins at Oak Hill during the Revolutionary war since the house didn’t exist at that time. If the rebellion referred to in the legend was the War of 1812, which resulted in British soldiers in the region in 1814, then Ann would have been only 9 years old.

Myth: Captain Charles Hawkins was Miss Ann’s lover.

Truth: It is unknown if there was a British Captain Charles Hawkins; however, the Alexandria Gazette mentions a Captain Charles Hawkins in 1842. He was an officer of the Alexandria Sharp-Shooters. There isn’t any evidence found to date to show that Captain Charles Hawkins of Alexandria knew Miss Ann Fitzhugh.

Myth: Miss Ann was killed by a soldier using a sabre or bayonet.

Truth: Miss Ann didn’t die, she got married. Ann Fitzhugh married Charles R. Battaile, Esq. of Caroline county at Oak Hill on July 29, 1823. They lived in Culpeper, Virginia.

Encroaching Development
In 1968, the Howreys sold the property to the Vienna Development Corporation, which built subdivision houses on the land and reduced the Oak Hill lot to less than three acres.

Today
Today, Oak Hill is a privately owned residence, which Fairfax County has protected through an historic easement. The easement requires that the property be available for public viewing four times annually.

Fitzhugh, Richard (c.1765-1821)
Role in Ravensworth: Owner Parcel 1.1.4

Richard was one of fourteen children born to Henry (Colonel) and Sarah (Battaile) Fitzhugh. He married Susannah Meade (?-c.1857), daughter of Andrew Meade in 1790. Sources differ on how many children they had; however, there were at least eight:

1. Ann F. Fitzhugh (c. 1805-1880)
2. Andrew Fitzhugh (?-1850), appointed a U.S. Navy midshipman in 1811, served in War of 1812 and Mexican War, rose to the rank of Captain in 1843 (Naval Captain Andrew Fitzhugh of Oakhill – by Debbie Robison, Northern Virginia History Notes)
3. Harriet Fitzhugh (1800-1871), married Berkeley Ward (1789-1860), inherited her uncle Giles Fitzhugh’s property near her home in Warrenton, Virginia
4. Meade Fitzhugh (c. 1793-1845), worked as a federal clerk for the Superintendent of Indian Trade in 1816, annual salary $700, and the Treasury Department’s Commissioner of General Land Revenue in 1835 at salary of $1150, died at Oak Hill2
5. Caroline Battaile Fitzhugh (dates unknown), married (1) Horatio C. Withers in 1835 and (2) H. A. White in 1846
6. David H. Fitzhugh (1808-1868)
7. Richard Henry Fitzhugh (dates unknown)
8. Maria M. Fitzhugh (?-C.1862/3)

Richard Fitzhugh established his residence, Oak Hill, on his Ravensworth property, a plantation which he operated with slave labor. The 1820 federal census recorded 50 slaves in his household, equally divided between male and female.

President Thomas Jefferson a Friend
He counted President Thomas Jefferson a friend and sometime visitor. Letters exchanged with Jefferson give insight into Richard’s interests and what appears to be a life dedicated to agriculture. Jefferson credited Richard Fitzhugh as a known ornithologist.

Jefferson’s personal account books record at least four overnight stays at Richard Fitzhugh’s home, while President, on trips between Washington, DC and his Monticello home near Charlottesville, VA. The first of these stays – Jefferson’s April 1-2, 1804 visit – was arranged in Jefferson’s exchange of letters with Nicholas Fitzhugh that also reveal something about local roads and travel challenges at that time. The fourth and final stay, on March 14, 1809, was on Jefferson’s final trip home at the end of his presidency.

During his lifetime, Richard Fitzhugh sold one small portion – about 120 acres, Parcel 1.1.4.1. The remainder passed to his widow Susannah in 1821. His will did not specify the exact division among heirs. Therefore, after her death c.1857, the Fairfax County Court divided it among four living children, the estate of a fifth child and a grandson, William Marbury Fitzhugh.

ABOUT ME

Award-winning local historian and tour guide in Franconia and the greater Alexandria area of Virginia.

  • Facebook
  • X
  • LinkedIn
  • Amazon

ADDRESS

Nathaniel Lee

c/o Franconia Museum

6121 Franconia Road

Alexandria, VA 22310

franconiahistory@gmail.com

SUBSCRIBE FOR EMAILS

Thanks for submitting!

© 2025 by Franconia History L.L.C.

bottom of page