Fort Schneider
Purdy's Farm, Annandale, VA
by Debbie Robison
January 24, 2014
During the Civil War, Annandale Virginia was fortified to help protect Washington, D.C. from Confederate guerrilla attack. A stockade-type fort was constructed in the summer of 1864 adjacent to the Little River Turnpike on a rise east of Accotink Creek. The fort was named Fort Schneider after Joseph Schneider, Captain in the 16th New York Cavalry and commander of the stockade.[1]

 

 

This street, now an access road, was an original section of the Little River Turnpike. Union troops spent the winter of 1864 at Fort Schneider, which was located on this land.
DEFENSIVE STRATEGY
The fort was proposed by Colonel H. M. Lazelle, 16th New York Cavalry, Commanding Brigade, on July 19, 1864 after his force was reduced when the Second Massachusetts Regiment Cavalry departed for Washington City. Lazelle, who was responsible for overseeing observations of the enemy’s movements up to the eastern side of the mountains, recommended a new defensive strategy that was better adapted to his available strength (i.e. number of troops). His scheme was to construct two defensible stockade forts, one at Annandale and one near Lewinsville. The Annandale stockade would control the Little River Turnpike and the Lewinsville stockade would guard two nearby turnpikes. Three companies (one of which would be mounted) would be assigned to each stockade. The remaining force, placed in a defensible camp near Falls Church to control Falls Church village and the railroad, would constantly patrol between the camp and the two forts.[2]

 

Lazelle’s plan also employed the use of a “secret picket line” of 100 men that would patrol an area two to five miles out and that would extend from the Potomac to Braddock Road. Parties of from 6 to 12 troops picketed in concealed locations best calculated to guard the roads and paths leading toward the Union line. The positions were constantly changed to keep Confederate troops unaware of their location. The men were instructed to interfere with no one other than guerrillas, such as John Singleton Mosby’s men who lived in the region as farmers yet were quickly assembled into raiding parties. The expressed purpose of the secret ambuscade line was to adopt Mosby’s tactics of moving at night in small parties to gain information that could be used to capture the guerrillas.[3]

 

 

Portion of McDowell’s 1862 map of n. eastern Virginia and vicinity of Washington annotated with a star depicting the approximate location of Fort Schneider, Courtesy Library of Congress.
PURDY’S FARM
Fort Schneider was located on the land of James S. Purdy, a northern man who was one of four who voted in his precinct against Virginia’s Ordinance of Secession.[4] Purdy’s family and property suffered during the war due to the strategic location of his 318-acre farm. Purdy described his losses in a claim filed with the Southern Claims Commission. Purdy stated that at the beginning of the war, he furnished Union General Mansfield, the U.S. Provost Marshall at Alexandria, and the Captain of nearby cavalry pickets with information on the movement of Confederate soldiers. Knowing that Purdy was for the Union, the Confederates searched his house and tried to capture him but he escaped to Washington. He was threatened that if caught he would be killed rather than taken to Richmond.[5]

 

After the Battle of First Manassas/Bull Run, Purdy took an officer to Washington (and his horses were impressed to carry the wounded) but he was refused a pass to return home. He was absent from his family for 3 1/2 months during which time Confederates seized all of his personal property they could lay their hands on by order of Confederate authorities. Purdy and his family were in Washington during the winters of 1861 and 1862 since his house was then outside Union lines. A few days before Christmas 1861, the 4th New York cavalry burned one of his houses down because they said it made a hiding place for the enemy and could shelter enemy scouts. Upon his family’s return, Purdy repaired another dwelling that had been fired by not destroyed. After the Battle of Second Manassas/Bull Run, his house was filled with wounded soldiers most of the time. He, his wife, and daughter nursed the wounded.[6]

 

Prior to encampment and construction of the fort on the farm, the property was used for parade drilling, driving cattle and horses to water, making roads in every direction, and cutting many ditches (estimated to have been a mile of ditches). When within the Union lines, the farm was almost constantly occupied by government trains (probably wagons and mules) and cattle. Purdy’s fences were daily torn down by passing troops and teams and also used for fuel. Portions of his house were seized by U.S. officers, during the presence of the family, for their own use.[7]

 

 

James S. Purdy Farm Plat, Southern Claims Commission Record

 

 

After a number of attempts had been made for Purdy’s capture by Confederate troops, he and his family were compelled to move in the fall of 1863. Demolition of his dwelling was soon after commenced by Baker’s Rangers who were encamped within a few hundred yards.[8] Colonel Lafayette C. Baker, then U.S. Provost-Marshal stationed in Washington, had command. Company D, numbering 140 men under the command of Lieutenant Howe, arrived in Annandale at the end of October 1863 and remained until January 27, 1864. Baker’s Rangers engaged in information gathering, scouting, and engagements with Confederate guerrillas. Baker was later promoted to head the Union’s Intelligence Service.[9]

 

 

Lafayette C. Baker            
About 3,000 trees, averaging 10” in diameter, were felled on Purdy’s property by the 16th NY Cavalry for use in construction of the stockade and abatis.[10] An abatis was constructed at this site prior to construction of the stockade. Construction of the fort began in July 1864.[11] It likely encircled Purdy’s barn, which was used by the 16th NY Company C as a stable for sick horses.[12] On September 1, 1864, after an unsuccessful Confederate artillery attack, Captain Schneider requested assistance with completing his stockade and abatis.[13] That winter, additional timber was cut from Purdy’s farm for the construction of winter cabins.[14] The barn was pulled down for use in making sheds for horses and for use by a detachment of the 5th Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery for building winter quarters.[15] The entire occupation embraced an area on Purdy’s farm of about 15 acres.[16]

 

 

Purdy’s land boundary as shown over a 1949 aerial photo. The start depicts the approximate location of the fort.
ATTACK ON FORT SCHNEIDER
Early on the morning of Wednesday, August 24, 1864, the camp at the Annandale stockade heard three warning shots fired by the picket on the Little River Turnpike in advance of a Confederate attack. The fort, which was positioned on a knoll, first came into view by the Confederates when they were at the top of a hill about half a mile to the west. A valley was situated between the Confederates and the fort.[17] About 100 Confederates charged towards the entrance of the fort, but swerved to the south and east when then were met be a volley. At the time, the stockade held 170 northern troops of the cavalry battalion.[18] A flag of truce was brought forward by the Confederates with a demand for surrender in the name of Colonel Mosby. Under the flag of truce, they advanced two field artillery pieces within 300 or 400 yards of the camp, one on the southwest and one on the northwest. When the surrender was rejected, they began to fire shell and grape shot into the fort. Two more requests for surrender, also issued under flags of truce, were rejected. The last time a flag of truce was sent, the bearer was informed that if they sent a flag of truce again they would be fired upon.[19] The attack lasted almost one and one half hours during which time the Confederates fired from thirty to forty cannon shots. Union troops were reported to have taken refuge in their bomb-proofs.[20] The Confederate attack was unsuccessful, they claimed, due to the poor angle they had for firing into the fort. They wounded two horses, but for the most part their shots were ineffective. At the conclusion of the attack they retreated down the turnpike toward Fairfax Courthouse.[21]

 

 

Fort Schneider, also known as Annandale Stockade, may have been constructed in a manner similar to this stockade built in Alexandria. Photo Courtesy Library of Congress.
IN THE END
James Purdy moved to New York an impoverished man. William H. Gooding, who owned the land that is now the Annandale Campus of the Northern Virginia Community College, sold the stockade and abattis for $150 in July 1865.[22] Purdy sold his farm in 1871.[23] He was successful in obtaining some of the funds he requested from the Southern Claims Commission as compensation for war-time losses, though he had difficulty proving portions of his claim due to his difficulty in obtaining accounts caused by the imperfect language skills of the German troops stationed on his property.[24]
ENDNOTES

[1] Boston Evening Transcript, August 16, 1864, p4; New York Times, August 16, 1864.

[2] United States War Department, “Report of Brig. Gen. John Newton, U. S. Army,” The war of the rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies, as viewed on http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu (Hereinafter referred to as Official Records), Chapter XLIX, July 19, 1864, pp. 387-390.

[3] Official Records, Report of H. M. Lazelle, Colonel Sixteenth New York Cav., Comdg. Brig to Lieut. Col. J. H. Taylor, Chief of Staff and Assistant Adjutant-General, Chapter XLIX, July 19, 1864, pp. 387-390.

[4] Southern Claims Commission, Claim of James Purdy; Records of the Ordinance of Secession, Fairfax County Circuit Court Archives, Fairfax, VA; Federal Census of 1860 for James S. Purdy.

[5] Southern Claims Commission, Claim of James Purdy, as viewed on ancestry.com

[6] Southern Claims Commission, Claim of James Purdy, as viewed on ancestry.com

[7] Southern Claims Commission, Claim of James Purdy, as viewed on ancestry.com

[8] Southern Claims Commission, Claim of James Purdy, as viewed on ancestry.com

[9] Lafayette C. Baker, History of the United States Secret Service, published by L. C. Baker, Philadelphia, 1867, pp. 197-200.

[10] Southern Claims Commission, Claim of James Purdy, as viewed on ancestry.com.

[11] Official Records, Correspondence of H. M. Lazelle, Colonel Sixteenth New York Cav., Comdg. Brig., to Lieut. Col. J. H. Taylor, Chief of Staff and Assistant Adjutant-General, Chapter XLIX, July 28, 1864, pp. 481-2.

[12] Official Records, Report of Capt. Joseph Schneider, Sixteenth New York Cavalry, Chapter LV, August 25, 1864, p. 638. Also Southern Claims Commission, Claim of James Purdy, as viewed on ancestry.com.

[13] Official Records, Correspondence of J. Schneider, Capt. Sixteenth New York volunteer Cavalry, Comdg. Stockade to First Lieut. Edwin Y. Lansing, Actg. Asst. Adjt. Gen., Cavalry Brigade, Fort Buffalo, Va., Chapter LV, September 1, 1864, p. 4.

[14] Southern Claims Commission, Claim of James Purdy, as viewed on ancestry.com

[15] Southern Claims Commission, Claim of James Purdy, as viewed on ancestry.com

[16] Southern Claims Commission, Claim of James Purdy, as viewed on ancestry.com

[17] James Joseph Williamson, Mosby’s Rangers, Second Edition, Sturgis & Walton Company, New York, 1909, pp. 218-221.

[18] Official Records, Report of G. A. De Russy, Brigadier-General of Volunteers, Chapter LV, August 24, 1864, p. 900.

[19] Official Records, Report of H. H. Wells, Lieutenant-Colonel and Provost-Marshal-General, August, 24, 1864, pp. 637-638

[20] James Joseph Williamson, Mosby’s Rangers, Second Edition, Sturgis & Walton Company, New York, 1909, pp. 218-221.

[21] Official Records, Report of Capt. Joseph Schneider, Sixteenth New York Cavalry, Chapter LV, August 25, 1864, pp. 638-639.

[22] Southern Claims Commission, Claim of James Purdy, as viewed on ancestry.com

[23] Fairfax County Deed Book M4(91)270, James S. Purdy to Christian Seaman, March 22, 1871.

[24] Southern Claims Commission, Claim of James Purdy, as viewed on ancestry.com