Qualla: Ox Hill Battlefield Park

Ox Hill Battlefield Park: Introduction

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Clindberg, CC BY 2.5. Two Union generals died at Ox Hill on September 1, 1862, in a Virginia thunderstorm so heavy that some of the soldiers' powder would not fire. Brigadier General Isaac Stevens picked up the fallen colors of the 79th New York Highlanders, shouted Highlanders, my Highlanders, follow your general, and led a charge into Confederate lines in the woods. He was shot through the head within seconds. About an hour later, Major General Philip Kearny - one-armed since the Mexican-American War, the most respected combat commander in the Army of the Potomac - rode through a cornfield to investigate a reported gap in the Union line. He came face to face with Georgia infantry. They told him to halt. He ignored them and turned to ride away. A musket volley brought him down. The 4.8-acre park that preserves the spot where this happened is now bordered by a Fairfax County shopping center.

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Image: Clindberg | CC BY 2.5

Ox Hill Battlefield Park: Lee's Attempt to Cut Off the Retreat

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Slowking4, CC BY-SA 3.0. After winning the Second Battle of Bull Run on August 30, 1862, Robert E. Lee tried to finish the work. The defeated Union army was retreating toward the Washington defenses. Lee sent Stonewall Jackson with 20,000 men on a wide loop north and then east along the Little River Turn...

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Image: Slowking4 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ox Hill Battlefield Park: Stevens's Charge

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Phil, CC BY 2.0. Isaac Stevens had been governor of Washington Territory before the war and a railroad surveyor before that. He led one of the two Union divisions onto the field. The 79th New York Highlanders - many of them Scottish immigrants, wearing kilts on parade but trousers in combat - cha...

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Image: Phil | CC BY 2.0

Ox Hill Battlefield Park: Kearny's Refusal

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Slowking4, CC BY-SA 3.0. Philip Kearny was 47 years old, wealthy by inheritance, a graduate of the cavalry school at Saumur in France, a veteran of the Mexican-American War and the French campaigns in Italy where he had served with the French Imperial Guard and earned the Legion of Honor. He had lost his...

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Image: Slowking4 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ox Hill Battlefield Park: Neither Side Broke Through

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Clindberg, CC BY 2.5. The Confederate attempt to cut off the Union retreat failed. Neither side broke through. Total Union casualties came to about 1,300; Confederate losses about 800. By nightfall both armies disengaged, the Union force continuing its retreat toward Washington and the Confederates pu...

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Image: Clindberg | CC BY 2.5

Ox Hill Battlefield Park: The Postage-Stamp Park

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Clindberg, CC BY 3.0. John N. Ballard, a Confederate cavalryman who had lost a leg serving under John S. Mosby, married the heiress Mary Reid Thrift and ended up owning much of the battlefield in the 1870s. On July 7, 1915, Ballard and his wife deeded a small plot near the site of Stevens's death to s...

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Image: Clindberg | CC BY 3.0