Last updated: May 18, 2023
Place
Information Panel: Invaded Farmland
NPS / Claire Hassler
Spring Hill Farm - now simply known as Henry Hill - lay fallow and overgrown in the summer of 1861. A small vegetable garden and orchard surrounded the frame house. Inside the home, 84-year-old Judith Henry remained bedridden, too old to work the land that had been in her family for more than a century. She shared the home with her daughter Ellen. A hired teenage slave, Lucy Griffith, assisted with domestic chores.
The Battle of Bull Run cilminated on the Henry property. Unaware of civilians inside the home, Federal artillery fired on the dwelling to drive away Confederate sharpshooters. The cannon fire crashed throgh the house, mortally wounding the widow Henry, the battle's only known civilian fatality. By day's end the family matriarch was dead, the house in ruin, and the surrounding landscape forever redefined by the events of July 21, 1861.
The Battle of Bull Run cilminated on the Henry property. Unaware of civilians inside the home, Federal artillery fired on the dwelling to drive away Confederate sharpshooters. The cannon fire crashed throgh the house, mortally wounding the widow Henry, the battle's only known civilian fatality. By day's end the family matriarch was dead, the house in ruin, and the surrounding landscape forever redefined by the events of July 21, 1861.