Archeological Overview of Manassas National Battlefield Park
On the left: Excavating a Shovel Test at Chinn Ridge (Hazel Plain) at Manassas National Battlefield Park. On the right: Ceramic sherds from Pittsylvania site at Manassas National Battlefield Park.
Map of Civil War-era houses, roads, and wood lots on Manassas battlefield from 1861-1862.
NPS
Archeology has long been one of the tools used to better understand the Civil War battles fought at Manassas National Battlefield Park. But it also has much to reveal about those who lived on or owned the land before and after the Civil War, including the free and enslaved African American communities of the area, and the Native Americans who lived here long before European settlement. Archeological studies are still a part of ongoing efforts to better understand the park’s history. Here we highlight parts of a recent 4-year study of archeology at the park that summarizes what is known about the archeological record and history of the battlefield. The study’s results include significant deposits and features, the findings of metal detecting in areas of heavy fighting, living sites of enslaved people, and precontact Native American sites along Bull Run.
**It is important to note that unauthorized metal detection and digging is forbidden in all national parks and all other federal property. If you find an archeological item, please leave it in place and let a park employee know**
The study was focused on the properties and locations, present in the 1800s, where archeological investigations have been performed including: Brawner Farm, Pittsylvania Plantation, Hazel Plain (or Chinn Ridge), Avon/Van Pelt House, Mary Jane Dogan House, and Groveton.
Once the scene of fierce and bloody battle, the Brawner Farm today is a landmark in a quiet corner of the Manassas Battlefield.
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Brawner Farm
Located in the northwestern part of the park, the Brawner Farm is a farmstead that was caught in heavy fighting during the Second Battle of Manassas. Archeological materials from the land around the farm illuminated the Second Battle of Manassas, the lives of Euro-American farmers and enslaved African Americans, as well as a temporary camp used by ancient Native Americans . All in all, more than 27,000 artifacts were found in this area including pottery that spanned the whole history of the site. A storage pit near the chimney base was filled with trash and included many artifacts from the war. Bullets, musket balls, and a button from a Union officer’s jacket were found in the pit. It seems likely that the kitchen was damaged badly during the fighting and was torn down after the war with debris from the battle getting swept into the old storage pit. Based on finding dropped .58 caliber bullets, a firing line of the 19th Indiana can be traced out extending eastward. Visitors can line themselves up with the north wall of the house and imagine they are in line with the men from Indiana. Learn more about archeology at Brawner Farm
Early Archaic Points from Brawner Farm. Sharpening stone tools is an arduous and loud process. Ancient Native Americans often had a separate hunting station to work on tools away from where active hunting would take place.
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Ancient Native Americans at Brawner
An unexpected discovery at the Brawner Farm was that of a hunting station or camp used by ancient Native Americans. Archeological finds included 12 stone spear or dart points, eight other stone cutting tools, and 10 pieces of debitage (waste flakes from making or sharpening stone tools). Because of the high amount of debitage, this site was determined to be a hunting station, where tools were made or repaired, rather than a site where active hunting would take place. Four of the stone points found at Brawner farm were rare samples that would be extremely unusual to find at a “small precontact site.” All of them date between 9000 and 11,000 years ago. These may have been collected by someone in the 1800s, likely from fields in Virginia, and kept in a special box, perhaps on the mantle. This was a sign that modern people are not the first to care about the past, or collect artifacts made by people that came before them.
Colonoware from Brawner Farm. Colonoware is low-fired, hand-made (not thrown on a wheel) pottery that is found across Southern states wherever enslaved Africans lived.
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Pittsylvania Plantation
European colonists arriving in the 1600s began the settlement of northern Virginia. Sweet-scented tobacco was the Virginia colony’s key cash crop. The economy and society of the region developed into one dominated by large plantations, labored on by indentured servants and enslaved African Americans. By 1801, slavery had been entrenched in the Manassas area for 50 years.
The Carter family owned and operated the large Pittsylvania Plantation established in the 1750s. People enslaved on large plantations, such as Pittsylvania, lived for the most part in quarters that would make up a sort of small village. They did many kinds of work and brought their own inherited craft traditions with them or innovated new techniques. Archeological materials show a developed web of communication and contact amongst enslaved people within and between plantations. One piece of evidence of these relationships is the presence of colonoware pottery made by enslaved people, probably by a single potter or a family of potters. It was used by free and enslaved African Americans and is found at sites throughout the region. An almost ubiquitous late 1600s to late 1800s ware, colonoware can be used to explore a variety of topics including consumerism and local market participation, household-level craft production, dining styles and diet preferences, retention of folk traditions, and ritual or medicinal practices.
Blacksmith's Tools from Pittsylvania Plantation
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Pittsylvania was extensively explored during the most recent study, using ground penetrating radar (a kind of subsurface imaging done without digging, drilling, or probing) and excavation tactics. On the main plantation site, artifact density (the amount of artifacts found in a specific area) was low, which shows that the yard around the main house was kept clean of trash. A handful of artifacts were found in the depression behind the main house that had been identified as the kitchen. Investigation closer to the mansion house proved more productive, with finds including black smith’s pincers, a saw blade, and a knife blade. Tools like these are rare finds since people were generally careful with tools of their trade.
Hazel Plain (Chinn Ridge or Chinn House)
Thanks to the intersection of two key roads, Sudley Road (north-south) and the Fauquier and Alexandria Turnpike (east-west), new developments and plantations sprung up in the area that is now the park. The largest of the new plantations from the 1800s was Hazel Plain, established in 1812. Today, the site is often called Chinn Ridge or Chinn House, after the occupants of the house during the Civil War. Hazel Plain was one of the first sites at Manassas to receive attention from archeologists in the 1930s. During the most recent study, rather few artifacts were found, showing that the yard around the house was kept clean of trash. The artifacts that were found dated mostly to the 1810-1860 period. Artifacts included pearlware, a ceramic that often includes decorated dining wares such as plates, cups, and platters. The structural features located included a stone wall, a well, and a cistern (a container built to store water, that may have been spring-fed or filled by rainwater).
Spring Hill/ Henry House
Another new farm that sprung up in the park during the 1800s was Henry House. Known as Spring Hill and built around 1812, the house was largely destroyed during the battle of First Manassas. The post-Civil War Henry House had a small archeological dig done in 1991 preceding an extensive restoration. Archeologists recovered artifacts such as colonoware, glass, and Civil War materials. Further excavations in 2001 revealed a large quantity of colonoware and ceramics, and the distribution of the sherds indicated minimal post-depositional movement, meaning that after the sherds found their way into the ground, they weren’t disturbed very much. It seems that while colonoware was replaced by professionally made, European-style pottery in most places in the South, someone in the Manassas area kept making this colonoware at least through the 1840s. Despite extensive searching, the workshop of these potters has not been found.
Robinson House Site at Manassas. Archeological excavations at the Robinson House site were performed in 1995 and 1996, and focused around and within the existing house foundations and in the outlying yard areas.
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The Robinson House
The Robinson family opens an interesting window into antebellum Black and White residents of the region. Born free, James Robinson’s mother was African American and his father was White. His father was likely a member of the Carter family, and according to Robinson family oral tradition, Robinson’s father was Landon Carter Jr. of Pittsylvania Plantation. There is very little known about Robinson’s mother. Given that Robinson was born free, it is possible that his mother at one time had been enslaved by the Carters but had gained her freedom prior to Robinson’s birth in 1799. Although legally free, Robinson worked in an indentured capacity to support himself until he came of age. He settled near his family after purchasing 170 acres of land in 1840. Robinson had created wealth and influence by negotiating successful relationships with his White neighbors and profitable business deals (such as operation of a toll road connecting Warrenton to Alexandria). By the time of the 1850 census, Robinson was the head of his household and had eight other individuals living with him. Although they were driven from their home during both battles due to the fighting and destruction, the Robinsons always returned and rebuilt. When James Robinson died, the property was split into seven shares for his wife and children, and the Robinsons retained ownership of the property into the 1900s. During the excavations, more than 12,000 artifacts were recovered, representing the whole span of the sites occupation. Overall, the collection was what one would expect from any prosperous farm family of the period. The Robinsons had a wide variety of decorative ceramics as well as individual matched sets for dining and serving tea. The Robinsons’ desire to assemble sets of matching wares may be indicative of their social aspiration, since some archeologists suggest that the rights of citizenship were symbolically associated with position in society. These collections of ceramics may have been a method the Robinsons used to negotiate their position in society and in their community.
Thornberry House in 1862. From around 1868 to 1904, Thornberry House operated as the Sudley Post Office. After that, the property was leased to the African American Davis family from the 1910s-1920s. The property went through two more owners before the NPS acquired it in 1966.
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Sudley Post Office/ Thornberry House
Sometimes called the Sudley Post Office, Thornberry House was built around 1843 as the residence of a wheelwright (a person who makes or repairs wooden wheels) who worked in a nearby shop. The Thornberry family purchased the house and 4 acres of land in 1860. The house was probably used to harbor wounded Union soldiers during First Manassas.
Archeologists recovered thousands of artifacts relating to daily life, mostly dating to the late 1800s to early 1900s. They include glass, ceramics, animal bones, buttons, clay tobacco pipes, and toys such as marbles and fragments of a tiny tea set. Several precontact artifacts were also found including two Late Archaic-period quartz Halifax points (named for the Late Archaic era Halifax people, the most common group found in Northern Virginia) from an area of land 250 ft. southwest of the house and two rhyolite points-- one Late Woodland triangle and one side-notched point.
Battle of First Manassas
In connection with the battle of First Manassas, archeological work on Henry Hill has been a source of frustration. Henry Hill, from 1865 to the present, has been the center of battlefield tourism and no doubt visitors took away thousands of bullets and other artifacts. In 1936, the military staged a major reenactment of the battle which left thousands of blank cartridges littering the site. Recent efforts have recovered Civil War artifacts from Henry Hill, but they are badly outnumbered by the artifacts from the reenactments and other modern material. However, work on Matthews Hill (north of Henry Hill across the Warrenton Turnpike) has proven more productive. Recovered artifacts included hundreds of bullets and artillery shell fragments and many other artifacts. Clusters of these artifacts provide evidence for troop movements. One concentration of artifacts may show where Union soldiers crashed through the dense underbrush on the edge of a wood lot to deploy in an open field beyond. Other concentrations of artifacts show where soldiers formed firing lines, and where they came under artillery fire. A group of .69 caliber bullets may trace the movements of the 1st Minnesota, the only regiment known to have used that caliber of ammunition.
Bullets from the Deep Cut
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Second Battle of Manassas/ Deep Cut
Metal detecting at the Deep Cut, and around the monument, revealed large numbers of Civil War artifacts, especially unfired bullets. These findings spurred archeologists to perform more extensive surveys of the concentration. Most of the Union approach was blocked from Confederate view and did not become visible to them until they were within a few yards. A large concentration of dropped .58 caliber bullets, including 18 behind one rock, was identified south of the monument along slopes that were hidden from Confederate view. This must be the spot where the advancing Union soldiers took shelter until the Confederate artillery found the range and drove them to retreat.Archeologists found that metal detecting seemed to be more effective after a controlled burn of the area, rather than when vegetation was present. It also seems that at least this part of the battlefield had received little attention from authorized metal detectorists before, in part because the property was heavily wooded with dense underbrush before NPS acquired it. Metal detection during this study did not produce new information that will change the interpretation of the Battle of Second Manassas. In fact, the findings agree very well with the documentary accounts of the battle at the Deep Cut, aligning with eyewitness accounts.
Effects on the landscape
All the fighting from both the First and Second Battles of Manassas had a devastating effect on the landscape. Most of the houses sustained damage, and many were destroyed. The Stone House and Portici were both damaged after the first battle, and Portici was burnt by Union troops. The Henry House was also heavily damaged in the first battle and subsequently dismantled, probably by Confederate forces. The main house at Pittsylvania and the John Dogan House were destroyed in 1862, and Brawner Farm was so badly damaged that the house was apparently torn down and replaced. James Robinson documented losses such as livestock, agriculture, and food stores that were either taken or destroyed during the battles. Other locals experienced losses, from sheds and fences to fields of grain. The damage was catastrophic for the community. Some local residents remembered intense grief over the losses, with one saying that “it was like hell had broken through the crust of the earth,” and another feeling like “the Day of Judgement had come.”
Prince William County’s population fell in the late 1860s due to the flight of people from devastated parts of the landscape after the war. But where there is loss, there will be reconstruction. Many new houses were built across the park, and old ones were rebuilt; Pittsylvania II is one example, and the rebuilt Henry House is another. Brawner Farm was also rebuilt.
Groveton and the African American Experience
By 1902, the Virginia Constitution discriminated against Black Virginians by disenfranchising nearly ninety percent of the Black men who had voted at the beginning of the 1900s. The number of eligible African American voters plunged from about 147,000 in 1901 to less than 10,000 between 1904 and 1905. Under the “White-dominated” economic and political structure, African Americans suffered substantial decreases in wages, restricted property ownership, reduced school funding, substandard public facilities, and state-enforced segregation. Despite these oppressive conditions, the African American community remained central to the economy and society of the park and archeologists have found and investigated several of their residences.
The small community of Groveton, which developed around the intersection of the Alexandria and Fauquier Turnpike and Sudley-Groveton Road, was a place that was home to several buildings and prominent enough that some writers of the era referred to Second Manassas as the Battle of Groveton. The community existed before the Civil War, but most of the evidence about the site, both historical and archeological, dates to during or after the war. An 1878 map sketch of Groveton shows two structures on the southwest corner: a blacksmith shop and the residence of Andrew Redman. Redman was a well-respected African American blacksmith, and evidence suggests that he was operating his shop in Groveton before the war and continued until sometime in the early 1900s (by the time a photo was taken of Groveton in 1904, there was no sign of Redman’s shop). Ground penetrating radar study of the site clearly shows Redman’s shop; however, evidence of his house was obscured by a later house built on about the same spot.
