Simply Curious

Here is what I ended up writing and creating for the course!  (This was not a course for historical accuracy, but I tried to be as accurate as I could!  I may have misunderstood a few things or not found enough information to be truly correct in the time I had.  If you have more data, links, or corrections I will be happy to make changes.)

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The town of Centreville was officially formed in 1792 by the former community of Newgate, which had been situated in the same location since approximately 1725.  The town got its name because of its central location at a crossroads.  Mountain Road, now called Braddock Road, is the blue line.  The red line is the Fauquier/Alexandria Turnpike, which is now Lee Highway, or Route 29.  It’s considered the halfway point for quite a few other towns, like Warrenton and Georgetown, Alexandria and Middleburg, Chantilly and Manassas, and Gainesville and Fairfax.

Many people passed through Centreville and stopped at one of its taverns, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.  The town remained small partly because it didn’t get railroad traffic when the rail lines (in grey) were built.

Click here to view an interactive Google Map detailing of some of the historic buildings in Centreville.  The yellow house markers are buildings, the green arrows are sites where buildings used to stand.  The brown square indicates the town boundaries as described in “Centreville Virginia, its History and Architecture,” by Eugenia B. Smith.  The blue line is where Braddock (or Mountain) Road used to run through the town.  Clicking on each marker will give you an image of the building, if available, and a link to web sites with a brief history.

An Ngram chart mapping out the use of the name Centreville between 1700 and 2000.  Use of the name spiked dramatically around the time of the Civil War.  Centreville became an important landmark in Civil War history due to three different battles that took place in its immediate vicinity:  The 1st and 2nd Battles of Manassas (or Bull Run) and the Battle of Chantilly.



Centreville was occupied by military forces three different times during the war.  Union General McDowell occupied it briefly before his defeat at the 1st Battle of Manassas in 1861.  A few months later, Confederate General Johnston securely fortified the town, and then left it in the Spring to follow Union forces to Yorktown.  The Union army eventually claimed it for their own and settled in for a while to try to deal with Mosby and his Raiders, and also participate in the 2nd Battle of Manassas in August of 1862, where they were again defeated but retained their position in the town.


This map outlines the approximate locations of the forts and earthworks surrounding the town.  Built by Confederate General Johnston and his men.  (Source: Centreville, Virginia: its History and Architecture by Eugenia B. Smith)

Because of the town’s strategic location at the crossroads, and its excellent vantage point on a ridge, Centreville was the ideal spot for defense.  Most of the defenses are gone now, although there are remnants of the earthworks still preserved off of Wharton Lane.  The site is marked by the top historic marker indicator.  Click here for an interactive map.

Johnston and 32,000 men settled in Centreville during the winter of 1861.  Besides the forts and earthworks, the soldiers built 1,500 log cabins.  Centreville had perhaps 3 dozen buildings in it, and an estimated population of about 250, and the sudden presence of so many soldiers was daunting.  Many of the residents fled for Alexandria, or sought refuge with distant relatives.

This is a wordle based on a narrative account of the 2nd battle of Manassas, or Bull Run, written by ‘Shotgun’ of www.civilwarhome.com.  You can see the generals who participated, some of the towns, some military maneuvers, and a few concerns, like the railroad.  Incidentally, Lee took one look at Centreville’s fortifications and decided that attacking it was not a good idea, which is why the 2nd battle took place west of the town.


This chart illustrates the number of people in the Centreville area in late August of 1862.  Just try to imagine a tiny little town that’s self supporting, minding its own business, and all of a sudden it has 112,000 additional people, all trying to kill each other.  Fortunately the tide of war eventually took the soldiers elsewhere, and Centreville saw no more major action after the Battle of Chantilly in September of 1862.


The town was devastated by the war.  Most of the trees had been cut down, the creeks were polluted, the roads ruined, many buildings and both churches destroyed, and most of the livestock and food supplies had been taken.  Centreville had a lot to recover from, and many believed that the town was dead.

Fortunately, Centreville did NOT die out, and once again it was due to what created the town in the first place – the roads.  Today there are four major highways that run through or near the town:  Route 50, Route 28, Route 29, and Route 66.  Centreville has the additional benefit of being only a few miles away from Dulles International Airport and a mere 30 miles from Washington, DC.  The battles that nearly wiped them out actually helped help to save them as tourists began visiting the battlegrounds.  Today, over 71,000 people live in Centreville, and take pride in their heritage.


Sources for presentation:
http://www.novahistory.org/Centreville_History.htm
Smith, Eugenia B.  “Centreville, Virginia: Its History And Architecture.” Fairfax County Office of Comprehensive Planning, in cooperation of the Fairfax County History Commission.  1973.

http://www.seln4u.com/Local-History

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/GMP/MG_CLRPRV_CH2TXT.pdf

http://www.genealogycenter.info/view_centreville.php

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/102904197/HISTORY-OF-CENTREVILLE-AND-VIRGINIA-RUN

http://nvrha.com/news/story10.htm

http://www.centrevilleva.org/index.cfm?action=a109&id=109

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centreville,_Virginia