Last updated: February 1, 2023
Place
Auto Tour Stop #5: Sudley
NPS / Hassler
Quick Facts
Location:
Manassas, Virginia
Significance:
Left Flank of Jackson's Confederate Line at Second Manassas
Designation:
National Battlefield Park
Amenities
3 listed
Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Parking - Auto, Trailhead
Before being defined as a battlefield, this landscape existed as the crossroads hamlet of Sudley Springs. Although it consisted of fewer than a dozen households in 1860, three features distinguished Sudley Springs from neighboring communities - a prosperous mill, a prominent church, and a popular mineral spring.
As early as the 1770s, wealthy planters constructed a mill on Catharpin Run to grind wheat into flour. The mill complex attracted auxiliary craftsmen - blacksmiths, wheelrights, and carpenters. A Methodist congregation erected the first of three church buildings here around 1822. The area also boasted a hotel for those attracted to the mineral waters of a nearby spring. Although Sudley Springs recovered from the scars of war, its economy faltered after the mill closed and the hotel burned in the early 1900s. Only Sudley Church remains as a vestige of times past.
During the Second Battle of Manassas, on August 29, 1862, Federal tropos repeatedly attacked Stonewall Jackson's left flank - Gen. Maxcy Gregg's South Carolina brigade - in this vicinity. Exhausted, their ammunition depleted, Gregg's troops were driven back by the late afternoon assault of Gen. Philip Kearney's Union division. Only darkness prevented a fatal collapse of the Confederates.
As early as the 1770s, wealthy planters constructed a mill on Catharpin Run to grind wheat into flour. The mill complex attracted auxiliary craftsmen - blacksmiths, wheelrights, and carpenters. A Methodist congregation erected the first of three church buildings here around 1822. The area also boasted a hotel for those attracted to the mineral waters of a nearby spring. Although Sudley Springs recovered from the scars of war, its economy faltered after the mill closed and the hotel burned in the early 1900s. Only Sudley Church remains as a vestige of times past.
During the Second Battle of Manassas, on August 29, 1862, Federal tropos repeatedly attacked Stonewall Jackson's left flank - Gen. Maxcy Gregg's South Carolina brigade - in this vicinity. Exhausted, their ammunition depleted, Gregg's troops were driven back by the late afternoon assault of Gen. Philip Kearney's Union division. Only darkness prevented a fatal collapse of the Confederates.