Orange and Alexandria RR Strategic Target (Historical Marker)

Here follows an inscription of the text written on this roadside historical marker:

Orange and Alexandria RR
Strategic Target

The Lake Accotink access road here lies atop the original road bed of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, chartered in 1849 to link the port city of Alexandria with Gordonsville in central Virginia. After the war began in 1861, railroads became strategically important for the transportation of troops and supplies. Since this part of the Orange and Alexandria fell under Union control early in the war, the Confederates targeted it to disrupt the movement of Federal forces. During Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart’s December 28, 1862, raid on nearby Burke Station, he tore up rails and cut telegraph lines. He also dispatched twelve men under Gen. Fitzhugh Lee (Robert E. Lee’s nephew) to burn the wooden trestle over Accotink Creek. The trestle was repaired and carried Union supplies for the duration of the war. Maj. John S. Mosby’s Rangers and Confederate civilians continued to make nighttime raids, however, tearing up tracks and attempting to derail trains. The raiders often concealed themselves in drainage culverts beneath the rail bed while waiting to sabotage passing trains. After a derailment attempt failed on July 26, 1863, Union Gen. George G. Meade ordered civilian saboteurs severely punished. To protect the railroad, the 155th New York and 4th Delaware Regiments camped along the tracks here.

(Sidebar)
The longest continuous stretch of surviving Orange and Alexandria Railroad bed in Fairfax County runs through Lake Accotink Park. The park occupies land that was originally part of the 22,000-acre Ravensworth tract that William Fitzhugh purchased in 1685. The Fitzhugh’s were related to the Lees, who often visited Ravensworth. In 1829, Robert E. Lee’s mother died there. Two years later, Robert E. Lee married Mary Randolph Custis, and the couple honeymooned at Ravensworth. Mary Custis Lee inherited Ravensworth after the war and moved there after Robert E. Lee died in 1870. The Lees’ second son, William Henry Fitzhugh “Rooney” Lee, inherited the tract on her death in 1874. The house, built about 1796, burned in 1926.

After his December 28, 1862, raid, Stuart and his men stopped at Sully Plantation in Western Fairfax County. To learn more about Sully’s role in the war, please visit the Sully Civil War Trails site.

Marker Erected by Virginia Civil War Trails.


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Fairfax County replaced this marker with one including different text. Here is the inscription on the marker as of 2022:

After the Civil War began in 1861, railroads became strategically important to transport troops and supplies. Beneath Lake Accotink Park access road, where you are now, lies the original Orange and Alexandria Railroad bed. It was chartered in 1849 and connected the port city of Alexandria with Gordonsville in Central Virginia. This part of the railroad fell under Union control early in the war, and the Confederates targeted it to disrupt the Union troop movements.

On Dec. 28, 1862, Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart and his troops raided nearby Burke Station, tearing up rails and cutting telegraph lines. Stuart also dispatched twelve men under Gen. Fitzhugh Lee (Robert E. Lee's nephew) to burn the wooden train trestle over Accotink Creek. The trestle was repaired and carried Union supplies for the duration of the war.

Confederate Maj. John S. Mosby's Rangers and civilian sympathizers continued to conduct nighttime raids. They often concealed themselves in drainage culverts beneath the railbed while waiting to sabotage passing trains. After a derailment attempt failed on July 26, 1863, Union Gen. George G. Meade ordered civilian saboteurs severely punished. To protect the railroad, the Union's 155th New York and 4th Delaware Regiments camped along the tracks here.

After his December 28, 1862, raid, Stuart, and his men stopped at Sully Plantation in western Fairfax County, now Sully Historic Site.

[Sidebar:]
Ravensworth
The longest continuous stretch of surviving Orange and Alexandria Railroad bed in Fairfax County runs through Lake Accotink Park. The park occupies land that was originally part of the 22,000-acre Ravensworth tract that William Fitzhugh purchased in 1685. The Fitzhughs were related to the Lees, who often visited Ravensworth. Robert E. Lee's mother died there in 1829. Two years later, Robert E. Lee married Mary Randolph Custis, and the couple honeymooned at Ravensworth. Mary Custis Lee inherited Ravensworth after the war and moved there after her husband, Robert E. Lee, died in 1870. The couple's second son, William Henry Fitzhugh "Rooney" Lee, inherited the tract on his mother's death in 1874. The house, built about 1796, burned in 1926.

Erected 2022 by Fairfax County Park Authority.


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Additional Information - Not on the marker: ​One of the men in the group ordered to burn the bridge at Accotink was John Fontaine, who had been appointed assistant surgeon of the Volunteer Forces of Virginia in 1861 when he was 21 years old. He also served as a dentist to the Confedrates and as a veterinarian to their horses. In May 1864, he was one of the doctors who attended to Gen. J.E.B. Stuart who had been mortally wounded at the Battle of Yellow Tavern. Fontaine was killed four months later during the siege of Petersburg. Information attributed to Mary Lipsey, Fairfax County History Commission and Jon Vrana, Burke Historical Society​.


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Here follows an excerpt about the railroad from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Orange and Alexandria Railroad (O&A) was a railroad in Virginia, United States. Chartered in 1848, it eventually extended from Alexandria to Gordonsville, with another section from Charlottesville to Lynchburg. The road played a crucial role in the American Civil War, saw the first of many mergers in 1867, and eventually became an important part of the modern-day Norfolk Southern rail system.

Antebellum period:
The Virginia General Assembly issued a charter to the O&A on May 28, 1848, to run from Alexandria to Gordonsville. Construction began in 1850 and was completed in April 1854, when it connected with the Virginia Central Railroad in Orange County. Its longtime president was John S. Barbour Jr., a Virginia lawyer, part-time delegate and son of U.S. Representative John Strode Barbour.

In 1854, the General Assembly granted the O&A the right to build southward from Charlottesville to Lynchburg. O&A paid for trackage rights over Virginia Central tracks from Gordonsville to Charlottesville. In 1860, the southern extension was completed, including lucrative connections to the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad and the South Side Railroad. The O&A also connected with the Manassas Gap Railroad (chartered in 1850), at Tudor Hall (today named Manassas for this junction) which gave it access to the Shenandoah Valley.

The railroad boosted Virginia commerce. Farmers from Virginia's Piedmont region, and later, the Shenandoah Valley could more cheaply ship their products, produce, and goods to the markets of Washington, D.C., and Richmond, and to ocean-going vessels berthed at the Potomac River port of Alexandria. Alexandria, Richmond, and Lynchburg also became manufacturing centers. Passengers could travel from Washington to Lynchburg in eight hours instead of enduring a three-day stagecoach journey.

American Civil War:
The O&A was strategically important during the Civil War (1861–1865) and was repeatedly fought over and wrecked. In connection with the Virginia Central, it was the only rail link between the belligerents' capitals at Washington and Richmond. An 1861 Union Army attempt to gain control of Manassas Junction led to the First Battle of Bull Run, and the junction traded hands numerous times during the war. Confederate Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson attacked it in the Battle of Manassas Station Operations to draw the Union into the 1862 Second Battle of Bull Run. The 1863 Battle of Brandy Station and Second Battle of Rappahannock Station were also fought near the railroad line.

Reconstruction:
The railroad entered Reconstruction in dire shape, with much of its track ripped up and most of its rolling stock destroyed. However, Barbour rebuilt the railroad with the help of various politically connected financiers and his brother-in-law J.S.B. Thompson. In 1867, the O&A merged with the Manassas Gap Railroad (led by Edward Carrington Marshall) to become the Orange, Alexandria and Manassas Railroad.

After the Panic of 1873, the railroad was consolidated into the Virginia Midland Railway, which was controlled by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. It later became part of the Richmond and Danville Railroad, which went bankrupt in the Panic of 1893. The following year it was merged into the Southern Railway.

A cutoff between Orange and Charlottesville was incorporated in 1876 as the Charlottesville and Rapidan Railroad and opened in 1880. The Southern Railway acquired the line in 1914.

Modern Times:
Most of the O&A right-of-way is now the Washington District line of the Norfolk Southern Railway. The main exceptions are a short segment between Orange and Gordonsville, which is part of the similarly named Washington Subdivision of the Buckingham Branch Railroad; and the easternmost portion that traveled through Old Town Alexandria to its waterfront, which no longer exists aside from the Hoofs Run Bridge and the Wilkes Street Tunnel.

Parts of the former O&A right-of-way are also used by Amtrak and Virginia Railway Express (VRE).