Qualla: Battle of Vienna, Virginia

Battle of Vienna, Virginia: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cohee, CC BY-SA 4.0. An old farmer ran down the tracks waving his arms. He had seen the Confederate cannons swing into position around the curve just east of Vienna, hidden behind the brush along the Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire Railroad. He was a Union sympathizer. He understood what was coming. The men on the slow-moving train, two hundred and seventy-four Ohio infantry riding in open gondola cars and on platforms, mostly waved him off. They were tired. The sun was setting on June 17, 1861. Their officers had been told the line was clear. The train continued around the bend. The first cannonball came through it like paper.

Image: Cohee | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Vienna, Virginia: A New Way to Move Troops

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit creator:Frank Leslie, Public domain. The Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire Railroad ran fifteen miles west from Alexandria out into the Virginia countryside, ending at a small farming town called Vienna. By June 1861, Union forces controlled the eastern end of the line, the Confederates controlled the country beyond...

Image: creator:Frank Leslie | Public domain

Battle of Vienna, Virginia: The Trap at the Curve

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Aurbanski, CC BY 3.0. Confederate Colonel Maxcy Gregg had been out scouting with the 1st South Carolina Infantry, roughly seven hundred and fifty men with two cannon. As they made their way back toward Fairfax Court House, they heard a train whistle. Gregg had time to think. He positioned his guns at ...

Image: Aurbanski | CC BY 3.0

Battle of Vienna, Virginia: Into the Woods

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Aurbanski, CC BY 3.0. Schenck did what could be done. He pulled the survivors of the 1st Ohio off the open cars and into the woods south of the tracks. Eight of his men were dead. Four were wounded. The cars themselves had become a target, and so they were abandoned. Gregg's cavalry tried briefly to p...

Image: Aurbanski | CC BY 3.0

Battle of Vienna, Virginia: Bigger Echoes

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Aurbanski, CC BY 3.0. By the standards of what was coming, Vienna was nothing. The casualties combined would not have made a footnote at Antietam fifteen months later. But in June 1861 the war had barely begun, the press was hungry for stories, and the 90-day enlistments of the volunteer regiments wer...

Image: Aurbanski | CC BY 3.0

Battle of Vienna, Virginia: What the Trail Remembers

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Aurbanski, CC BY 3.0. The Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire eventually became the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad. The W&OD ran trains through Vienna until 1968, when the line was abandoned. The tracks were pulled up, the right-of-way was paved, and today it is the Washington and Old Dominion Tra...

Image: Aurbanski | CC BY 3.0