Civil War Trails Marker

The Civil War Trails Marker at the entrance to the train station museum commemorates Clara Barton’s efforts here in late August – early September 1862. Over 3,000 wounded Union soldiers were brought to the train station from the battlefields of Bull Run (Manassas) and Ox Hill (Chantilly) to await rail transport to the hospitals in Alexandria and Washington. It took several days to load all of the wounded. Clara Barton became known as “The Angel of the Battlefield” for her aid to the wounded.

This was the second time she had come to aid the sick and wounded. Her first outing had been two weeks earlier on August 8-9 at the Cedar Mountain Battlefield just south of Culpeper. On September 17, 1862, a little more than two weeks after Fairfax Station, Clara Barton would be on to her third battlefield to aid the sick and wounded from the Battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg). From these three battlefields, she would go on to aid many more wounded during the Civil War. Several years later, she founded the American Red Cross.

Download the Fairfax Station’s Civil War Information Sheet (PDF)

See other Civil War Trails markers in Virginia.

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