The Old Church from a war-time Photograph
In May, 1861, the Union troops moved into Virginia and occupied Arlington Heights and Alexandria. On June 1 an engagement at Fairfax Court House between a company of Union cavalry and Confederate troops resulted in the loss of six Union and twenty Confederate soldiers. The Union forces under General McDowell occupied the town of Fairfax about the middle of July, inaugurating the first Bull Run Campaign. The battle of Bull Run was fought July 21, 1861.
After the first battle of Bull Run, a systematic plan for the defense of the National Capital began to take shape. At that time the commanding heights four miles west of Alexandria and six miles from Washington were occupied by the Confederates, Falls Church being the headquarters of General Longstreet.
In October, 1861, the hills were again taken possession of by the Union troops. The system of works for the defense of Washington on the south began with Fort Willard below Alexandria, and terminated with Fort Smith opposite Georgetown, comprising in all twenty-nine forts and eleven supporting batteries, besides Forts Ethan Allen and Marcy at the Virginia end of Chain Bridge, with their five batteries of field guns.
Mr. Charles A. Marshall
Falls Church was the most advanced post of General McDowell's corps, when on August 3, 1861, a correspondent of Harper's Weekly writing from here to that paper described the old Church as it appeared at the beginning of the Civil war as follows: