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Book Reviews These are some reviews from a recent issue of
The Civil War News:
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A Virginia Village Goes to War: Falls Church During the Civil War
by Bradley E. Gernand.
Illustrated, notes, appendices, bibliography, 271 pp., 2002. Village Preservation and Improvement Society, c/o Bradley E. Gernand, 1204 Seaton Lane, Falls Church, VA 22046-3819, $35 plus shipping.
Few places in America can claim the unfortunate distinction of having suffered through combat and occupation by armies during times of war. Falls Church, in northern Virginia, is one of those places. Located in Fairfax County, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., Falls Church became, during the Civil War, a battleground over which Union and Confederate forces ranged at will. Consequently, the residents of Falls Church also suffered through a protracted guerilla war. Bradley Gernand, a manager of library and information services for the Institute for Defense Analyses, tells this story in A Virginia Village Goes to War, a larger-format “coffee-table” book. At the outset of the Civil War, Falls Church and surrounding Fairfax were very different places from their modern incarnations. Gernand notes that one observer called Fairfax “a virtual ‘Eden’” (p. 10), a pastoral setting of forests and farms, in the middle of which sat the small but prosperous village of Falls Church, home to a largely Northern-born population. This interesting dynamic made Falls Church similar to Virginia’s capital, Richmond, as recounted by Gregg Kimball in American City, Southern Place: A Cultural History of Antebellum Richmond (2000). In the 1860 Presidential election, the voters of Falls Church followed much of the rest of Virginia in siding with Constitutional Union candidate John Bell, but of the 24 votes Abraham Lincoln received in all of Fairfax County, 19 were tallied in Falls Church. The fact that Lincoln was even on the ballot there was reflective of the ambivalence of many localities in the upper South during the secession crisis. Fairfax County’s delegate to the Virginia secession convention was an avowed Unionist but returned from the convention supporting secession in the interests of state unity. Fairfax residents voted 942-288 to secede, but that seemingly decisive result is misleading. Many of the smaller precinct votes were heavily against secession, and militia units and pro-Confederates gathered votes for secession with a systematic campaign of intimidation around polling locations. Once hostilities began, Falls Church served as a point of contact between Union and Confederate forces in northern Virginia. Union troops built Camp Tyler and Confederates encamped at nearby Fairfax Courthouse. After the Confederate victory at Manassas, withdrawing Union troops ceded control of the area to the rebel army, which remained posted there until Joseph E. Johnston withdrew southward in the late winter of 1862 to counter Union advances elsewhere in Virginia. Union infantry and cavalry occupied the area for the remainder of the war. They became targets of a vicious guerilla conflict that lasted until the surrender at Appomattox, much of it carried out under the command of the Confederacy’s “Gray Ghost,” Col. John S. Mosby. The author adds to our understanding of Mosby’s campaigns by detailing many of the little-known actions that his raiders carried out in Falls Church. A Virginia Village Goes to War is lavishly illustrated with period and modern photographs, maps and woodcuts. Indeed, the illustrations form an integral part of the story, allowing the reader to compare history with the present day. This book is highly recommended for Civil Warriors living in northern Virginia, and for anyone interested in Civil War local history and genealogy. It is a treasure-trove of information and images, and a welcome effort to stem the tide of the obliteration of the Civil War history right in our backyards.
Maj. Charles R. Bowery Jr.
Charles R. Bowery Jr. is a native Virginian and graduate of the College of William and Mary. After serving in command and staff positions as an AH-64 Apache pilot from 1992-1999, he taught military history at the U.S. Military Academy and attended graduat
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