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While the Confederates were in Stafford, General Joseph Hooker’s Federal Division spent the winter of 1861-1862 across from Stafford in Maryland.

Sergeant John William Watson, born in the Brooke area about 1831, was in Company “I”(3), (“Stafford Guards”), 47th Virginia Infantry. He had married a Falmouth girl, Margaret Garner, in 1854 and they had three children. Enlisting in 1861, he was a corporal by July or August. Present on all muster-rolls through December 1862, Watson was…

Toward the end of the winter of 1862, it had become increasingly clear that the Southern positions in northern Virginia would be at strategic risk and could not be defended. The 40th Virginia Infantry, commanded by Col. John Mercer Brockenbrough, fought at Mathias Point (June 27, 1861). In September-October 1861, the regiment was assigned to…

Good behavior by Confederate soldiers “in their own country” was by no means assured, as evidenced by this letter chiding “certain bad men” from Brig. Gen. Holmes’s headquarters in August 1861: Head Quarters Dept. of Fred’sburg, Brooks [sic – Brooke] Station, August 2nd, 1861. Special Order No. 85. The Commanding Officer is pained and mortified…

Companies “A” and “B” were from Stafford County. Company “I”(3) transferred to the 47th from the 30th Virginia Infantry in September 1861. The original regimental flag, captured in July 1863 at Falling Waters, MD, bore the battle honors: Seven Pines, Mechanicsville, Gaines’s Mill, and Frazier’s Farm in the Virginia Peninsula (summer 1862); Cedar Run, 2nd…

Known non-Virginia troop units which served in Stafford during the April 1861-April 1862 “Confederate Year” included: Texas Brigade 1st North Carolina Infantry Regiment 2nd North Carolina Infantry Regiment 3rd North Carolina Infantry Regiment 22nd North Carolina Infantry Regiment 1st Tennessee Infantry Regiment (1st Confederate Infantry) 2nd Tennessee Infantry Regiment (“Bate’s”) (attached Virginia Purcell Artillery Battery)…

Soldiers from other Confederate states also trained, camped and defended in the Quantico-Stafford sector. The Texans fought a skirmish on April 2, 1862, with General Sickles’s New York troops. Texans also faced illness and disease during the first months of their tour on the Potomac River. Texas Brigade, forces near Dumfries [Whiting’s Command], Second Corps,…

Lieutenant Hugh Adie’s sawed-off shotgun went to war with him. Four years’ later, it returned with him to Stafford. Within a short time, it was stolen and disappeared. In the 1990s it was discovered in a Civil War collector’s show, purchased, and added to the collection of Stafford’s White Oak Civil War Museum and Research…

Colonel Thomas Conway Waller of North Stafford, initially Captain, Company “A” (“Stafford Rangers”), 9th Virginia Cavalry — later regimental major and lieutenant colonel – led the Leedstown cavalry raid in Westmoreland County (December 2, 1862) and rose to colonel of that regiment. Waller was Stafford’s highest ranking Confederate officer.  He lived where Stafford Marketplace is…

First Sergeant (later Lieutenant) Hugh Adie of North Stafford, Company “A” (“Stafford Rangers”), 9th Virginia Cavalry became one of the area’s Confederate officers.

About 1,000 of Stafford’s Confederates (41 % of the white males) served primarily in the 9th Virginia Cavalry and the 30th, 40th, 47th, and 55th Virginia Infantry Regiments, as well as the Fredericksburg Artillery and the Stafford Light Artillery. These units all served in Stafford during the Confederate Year of April 1861-April 1862 as part…

The combination of shore artillery bombardment, mines, and infantry, artillery and cavalry units along the Potomac effectively “blockaded” Washington in the early months of the war. The subsequent movement of Confederate forces below the Rappahannock promoted growth of the Federal Potomac Flotilla and its capability to patrol the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers out into the…