Established in 1936 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966, this park in Prince William County preserves the ground where two of the Civil War's most significant battles took place. The First Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861 was the war's first major engagement, and it was here on Henry House Hill that Thomas J. Jackson earned the immortal nickname "Stonewall" for his brigade's unyielding stand against Union assault. A bronze monument on Henry Hill marks the spot today. The Henry Hill Visitor Center offers Civil War-era uniforms, weapons, and field gear, along with an electronic battle map and the orientation film "Manassas: End of Innocence."

Walk the park and you walk among ruins layered with stories. The Stone House near the intersection of Sudley Road and Lee Highway served as a field hospital during both battles, its stone walls absorbing the screams of wounded men in 1861 and again in 1862. Surgeons worked by candlelight while cannon fire shook the walls. The Stone Bridge, where the Union army fled in disorder after the second battle, still crosses Bull Run at the Fairfax-Prince William County line. At Groveton, an extinct Civil War-era village, only the small frame house of Lucinda Dogan remains standing. A Confederate cemetery lies nearby, its quiet rows a stark contrast to the violence that filled these fields. The Robinson House, home of free Black man James Robinson, stood for more than a century after the war until arson destroyed it in 1993. Only the stone foundation remains, accessible solely by foot along the Henry Hill Loop Trail, a reminder that the war's destruction did not end in 1865.

Some of the park's most powerful sites relate to the Second Battle of Bull Run in August 1862. The Unfinished Railroad Grade, where Jackson deployed his troops after capturing Pope's supply depot, remains carved into the landscape. The Deep Cut, a ravine along the grade, witnessed some of the battle's most savage fighting, as Union General John Pope launched the bulk of his attacks against Jackson's entrenched defenders. At Brawner's Farm on the park's western edge, a museum now tells the story of the second battle's brutal opening phase. Chinn Ridge preserves the ground where General James Longstreet unleashed his massive counterattack. A trail leads to a boulder marking where Union Colonel Fletcher Webster, son of the famous orator Daniel Webster, was killed trying to repulse the Confederate advance.

Today, more than 700,000 people visit the battlefield annually, walking trails that wind past monuments, ruins, and quiet meadows that once thundered with cannon fire. The New York Monuments mark where the 5th New York Zouaves, wearing their distinctive bright red and blue uniforms, lost 123 men in just five minutes during the advance of Hood's Texans. At Portici, the ruins of the Francis Lewis plantation that served as Confederate headquarters during the first battle crumble quietly among the fields. At Hazel Plain, only the foundation of the Chinn family's plantation survives, directly across from the visitor center. In 1911, veterans from both sides returned for the Manassas Peace Jubilee, shaking hands where they had once tried to kill each other. The park continues that work of reconciliation and remembrance, each of its sites a chapter in a story that Americans have been reckoning with for more than 160 years.