Wolf Run Shoals Camp (Site)

These coordinates mark the exact spot where the camp once stood. No visible remains exist.


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

Wolf Run Shoals was of great importance during the first two years of the Civil War as a good fording place across the Occoquan River. (According to historian Fairfax Harrison, this was also probably the crossing spot used for the baggage and cattle of George Washington's army as it moved toward Yorktown in 1781.) Confederate troops built a fort on the south side of the river which they occupied for a time, and the Union troops guarded the ford from their encampment on the northern side. Accounts vary as to how livable the camp was, as conditions depended so much on the weather. The history of the Vermont Brigade indicates that winter at Wolf Run Shoals Camp was quite miserable. The weather was cold and wet, and the men suffered from pneumonia, measles, dysentery, smallpox, and typhoid fever. Many lives were lost that winter.

Photographs document the manner in which the camp was constructed. Roofless huts of cut trees were built in rows, and A-shaped tents placed on top of them. Split trees and branches served as flooring. Mud, stone, and stick fireplaces were built, usually outside the structure. Though scant, some evidence does remain of this camp and of its earthworks and rifle pits. The camp at Wolf Run Shoals was part of the line of the defenses of Washington which ran through Occoquan, Wolf Run Shoals, Manassas Junction, Centreville, Frying Pan Church, and Dranesville. It was this line that General J. E. B. Stuart penetrated in his famous raid on Dumfries and Fairfax Station. Although the bold General successfully escaped via Vienna and Frying Pan Church, Union brigades stationed at Occoquan, Wolf Run Shoals, Union Mills, Fairfax Court House, and Annandale had blocked his retreat in those areas.

The camp of Wolf Run Shoals was occupied by Union troops until later in the war when action was centered to the north in Pennsylvania.