Fort Loudoun

“ The remains of all remain largely in place, useful only as local monuments to Loudoun's most tragic era.
The principal engagement in the county between the hostile armies took place in the first year of the war. Soon after the first battle of Manassas (Bull Run) the Leesburg neighborhood was held for the Confederates by Brigadier General Nathan G. Evans and his 7th Brigade made up of the 8th Virginia Infantry under Colonel Eppa Hunton; the 13th Mississippi, under Colonel William Barksdale ”

“ In less than five minutes the boat, distinctly visible, with those salient points of color, the red coat and the white flag against the silver-gray water, had rounded the bend; every Indian runner was out of sight; and the line of warriors had relapsed into their silent staring at the fort, where the garrison dragged out three hours of such poignant suspense as seldom falls to the lot of even unhappy men. ”

“ As Odalie turned, the interior of the fort was before her; the broad parade, the lines of barracks, the heavy, looming block-houses, the great red-clay wall encircling all, and the high, strong palisades that even surmounted the rampart. It gave her momentarily the sensation, as she stood in its shadow, of being down in a populous and very secure well. There was a pervasive sentiment of good cheer; here and there the flicker of firelight fluctuated from an open door. Supper was either in progress or just over, and savory odors gushed out into the air. ”

“ On the 16th August, 1864, General Grant, determining to end the menace, sent the following order to Major General Sheridan:
"If you can possibly spare a division of Cavalry, send them through Loudoun County to destroy and carry off the crops, animals, negroes and all men under fifty years of age capable of bearing arms. In this way you will get many of Mosby's men. All male citizens under fifty can fairly be held as prisoners of war, and not as citizen prisoners. If not already soldiers, they will be made so the moment the rebel army gets hold of them." ”

“ Presently the moon would shed her bland benediction over all the scene, and the palisades would draw sharp-pointed shadows on the dark interior slope, and beside each cannon the similitude of another great gun would be mounted; a pearly glister would intimate where the river ran between the dense glossy foliage of the primeval woods, and only the voice of the chanting cicada, or the long dull drone of the frogs, or the hooting of an owl, would come from the deserted village, lying there so still and silent, guarded by the guns of the fort. ”

“ At the outbreak of the war Loudoun was, as it now again has come to be, one of the most fertile, prosperous and best farmed counties in all Virginia. When the fighting was fairly under way, it, from its position as border territory, was dominated by one side after the other but at almost all times was overrun by scouts and raiding parties from both armies. Her farms and their abundant livestock and produce offered constant, if unwilling, invitation to these soldiers to replenish their need of horses, cattle, hogs, grain and forage ”

“ For his own mission, although Fort Loudon could be held some space longer, in which time reënforcements, which he had reason to think were on the march, might come to its relief, the officers had agreed that the sufferings of the garrison were such that they were not justified in prolonging their distress, provided such terms of capitulation could be had as would warrant the surrender of the fort. ”

“ The march was far swifter now than the rate that the settlers had maintained before the Indians had joined the party, and the little girl was added to the burden of one of the packhorses, but Odalie, light, active, with her native energy tense in every nerve, and with every pulse fired by the thought that each moment carried her nearer to the cannon of Fort Loudon and safety, kept step valiantly with the pedestrians. ”

“ I shall always see you very clear, for I know your heart. Your ways are strange; you come from a far place; but I know you well, for I know your heart."
He laid his hand for a moment on the broad chest of the red coat of the tall, blond officer, then stepped into the canoe, and the little craft shoved off to join a very fleet of canoes, so full was the shining surface of the river of Indians who had come from the towns above to the celebration of the "big Sunday" [D] at the fort.
Captain Stuart felt relieved that all had gone off so well and that they were rid of the Cherokees for the day. ”

“ That the fort, great guns, powder, ball, and spare arms, be delivered to the Indians without fraud or further delay on the day appointed for the march of the troops."
These terms of capitulation were signed by Paul Demeré, Oconostota, and Cunigacatgoah, and great was the joy the news awoke among the garrison of Fort Loudon. The sick arose from their beds; the lame walked, and were ready to march; almost immediately, in the open space beneath the terrible great guns, were men,—settlers, soldiers, and Indians,—trying the paces of horses, and chaffering over the terms of sale. ”

“ The choice of these two men was evidently specially judicious, and after the mysterious disappearance of each, being smuggled out of the fort in dead silence and the darkest hour of the deep night, the garrison settled down to a regular routine, to wear away the time till they might wake some morning to hear the crack of Montgomery's musketry on the horizon, or the hissing of his grenades burning out their fuses and bursting among the dense jungles, where the Cherokees lay in ambush and blockaded Fort Loudon. ”

“ The military occupation made the fort a coercion and menace to the Cherokee people, and they requested him to take away the soldiers and relinquish the fort with its twelve great guns and other munitions of war to the Cherokee nation,—to which suggestion the Earl of Loudon had seemed to turn a deaf ear. ”

“ Had he knowledge of forces now on the march in the expectation of raising the siege of Fort Loudon? Oconostota pointed out the desirability of telling the truth, with a feeling allusion to the Great Spirit, the folly of seeking to deceive the omniscient Indian, as the discovery of the powder sufficiently illustrated, and the discomforts that would ensue to Captain Stuart, should it be found necessary to punish him for lying, by burning him alive in his own chimney-place, admirably adapted for the purpose. ”

“ So it came about that the lusty infant became the namesake of a man whose fame, so far as Virginia and the other American Colonies were concerned, was highly ephemeral. On the 17th February, 1756, in the winter following Braddock's defeat, John Campbell, fourth Earl of Loudoun, had been appointed Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of Virginia and, on the 20th of the month following, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in America. He seems to have owed his selection to his own and his family's influence with Court and ministry ”

“ The very fact that such reserves had been provided put new heart into the soldiers and roused afresh the confidence of the settlers, who had begun to quake at the idea of standing a siege so suddenly begun, without warning or preparation, save indeed for the forethought for all emergencies manifested by the senior officers. Both Demeré and Stuart became doubly popular, and when there was a call for volunteers to run the blockade and severally carry dispatches to Colonel Montgomery, they had but to choose among all the men in the fort. ”

“ In 1730 a grant of 10,000 acres on the Shenandoah River was made to one Stover for settlement by Germans who began to pour south from Pennsylvania and Maryland and soon the Valley was taking on that perceptible Teutonic colour with which it is still dyed.
In 1731 there came to the present Loudoun the first colony of Germans from the Valley. Of all the early settling it is doubtful if any was more intelligently planned or more reasonably could anticipate success. ”

“ The recruiting of soldiers began among the Confederates, to be followed in due course by the Union men. "The 56th Virginia Militia" writes Goodhart "commanded by Col. William Giddings, was called out and about 60 percent of the regiment that lived east of the Catoctin Mountain responded." [153] Many of those who thus reported for duty were put to work, it is said, building the fortifications around Leesburg, while a number of their former comrades abruptly left Loudoun for the quieter atmosphere of Maryland. [154] But the demand for men far surpassed the resources of the organized militia. ”

“ The defenses consisted of a rampart of clay, eight feet high, surmounted by a strong stockade, forming a square with a bastion at each angle; four small cannon were [172] mounted on each bastion, and a deep ditch surrounded the whole; there was a natural glacis where the ground fell away on two sides of the quadrangle and on the others a strong abatis had been constructed at a short distance from the crest of the counterscarp. Within the fort were two block-houses and barracks for a garrison of one hundred men. ”

“ Brown, with their children, spend each summer at Rockland. The 419 acres of the present estate border for a long distance on the Potomac and are regarded as equalling in fertility any land in the county. During the War Between the States the old house witnessed the alternate passing and repassing of the armies of the North and South in front of it along the old Carolina Road. Hospitality and gracious living have long been synonymous in Loudoun with the very name of Rockland. ”

“ When the American Colonies joined issue with Great Britain in the controversy which was to result in American independence, Loudoun's population, beginning with a thin trickle of adventurers, had been growing for over fifty years, during which time, save for the short period before and after Braddock's defeat, her sure but steady development and increase of people had received no serious reversal. ”

“ From such a sombre picture we may turn with relief to the spectacle of Loudoun in gala attire indulging in the greatest and gayest county-wide celebration her history affords.
Of all those who, from abroad, came to help the American [191] Colonies in their revolt, none so wholly captured the affections of her people as the French Marquis de Lafayette and as the years after the war passed by, that affection remained steadfast. ”

“ In the following year he enlisted in a provincial regiment mustered to join the British regulars sent again by General Amherst to the relief of the Carolina frontier; for the difficulties in Canada being set at rest, troops could be put in the field in the south, and vengeance for the tragedy of Fort Loudon became a menace to the Cherokees, who had grown arrogant and aggressive, stimulated to further cruelties by their triumphs and immunity. Nevertheless, Atta-Kulla-Kulla went forth to meet the invaders, and earnestly attempted to negotiate a treaty. ”

“ Inasmuch as fate had made it a border county, it was inevitable that intense factional bitterness should exist and that much fighting should take place within its boundaries; but no major engagements occurred there. Loudoun at least was spared the terrible slaughter that destiny staged in Tidewater, the Valley and north of the Potomac. ”

“ We are so closely beleaguered that it has proved impossible to get an express through that cordon of savages to the country beyond. To communicate with Colonel Montgomery as early as practicable is the only hope of saving our lives. Mrs. MacLeod's sorties from the fort are a part of our scheme—the essential part. You may yet come to think the dearest boon that fate could have given her would have been a ball through her brain as she stood on the escarp—so little her chances are worth! ”

“ We have mentioned in the foregoing pages that an unusual feature in the settlement of these Stafford or Prince William backwoods, soon to be known as Loudoun, was not only the diversity of origin of the new population but that it came almost simultaneously from the north and the south and the west as well as from the Tidewater east. As the falls of the Potomac and Rappahannock blocked continuous water transport from the older settlements, the pioneers all were forced to come through the woodland trails and these trails or roads, if they could be then so called, now demand our attention. ”

“ With her early diversity of population, it might well be expected that the county's inhabitants would be divided in their attitude as to the wisdom of war with England. There seems, however, to have been practically a solid front, save for the Quakers who, because of their oppugnance to all war, opposed the Revolution in Loudoun as elsewhere and suffered bitterly in consequence as later will be related. ”

“ He learned to respect the dearly bought and superior knowledge of Indian fighting traits possessed by the provincials and wished to follow their recommendations that to Braddock, with his unbounded confidence in iron discipline, simply savoured of colonial ignorance and lack of military courage. Loudoun should remember Halkett not only as the commander of the march through her domain but as a brave and devoted soldier as well. ”

“ Along its route the first church in Loudoun, Aubrey's little log "Chapel of Ease," was erected at the Big Spring; and later many of the mansions of the Loudoun gentlefolk, such as the Noland House, Rockland, Springwood, Selma, Raspberry Plain, Morven, Rokeby, Oatlands, Oak Hill, and others in due time came to be built and historic "Ordinaries" or taverns such as that known as West's and later as Lacey's and towns such as Leesburg and the nearby Aldie grew up. ”