Manassas Battlefield Park, where the battles of First and Second Manassas (or Bull Run) took place, is just about six miles from the city of Centreville, Virginia. But whereas the National Park Service has many markers in Manassas about those battles, in Centreville, a critical crossroads early in the Civil War, tbere are very few indications of the impact of the conflict.
Below are four relatively-new markers, signposts telling the reader what happened in that area. Appropriately, the signs are on the grounds of the Centreville Public Library, where the Bull Run Civil War Round Table has its monthly meetings (second Thursday of the month at 7 PM). (You can see the library in the background of the first picture).
I am speaking to this group, of which I am proud to be a member, on February 14 about the Union command controversy and the Maryland campaign. The latter was, as we all know, an offshoot of what happened at Second Manassas. Enjoy!
GENE SCHMIEL, CIVIL WAR HISTORIAN, AUTHOR, AND LECTURER 