The Fairfax County Courthouse Part 4

[47] Porter, _County Government_, p. 49, cites the _Calendar of State Papers_, I, 261, listing the numbers of justices in nearby counties as follows: Fauquier, 18; Prince William, 18; Loudoun, 17.

[48] Charles Sydnor, _American Revolutionaries In The Making_, (New York: Collier, 1962), p. 64.

[49] Hening, _Statutes_, I, 117.

[50] Hening, _Statutes_, I, 305.

[51] Hening, _Statutes_, II, 28, 280.

[52] Porter, _County Government_, p. 42.

[53] _Ibid._, pp. 27-28.

[54] Hening, _Statutes_, I, 330, 484.

[55] These rules included prohibitions against extortion of excessive fees, acting as lawyers in their own courts, falsifying revenue returns, multiple job-holding and the like. See Hening, _Statutes_, I, 265, 297, 330, 333, 465, 523; II, 163, 291. Porter, _County Government_, 68, comments that "the office of sheriff, judging from the number of acts which the a.s.sembly found it necessary to pa.s.s, was the problem child of ... [the 18th century], not only in regard to the duties of the office, but also in the method of appointment."

[56] Shepherd, _Laws of Virginia_, I, 367.

[57] _Calendar of State Papers_, IV, 416.

[58] Hening, _Statutes_, XI, 352.

[59] Hening, _Statutes_, IV, 350.

[60] Hening, _Statutes_, II, 419; IV, 350.

[61] Hening, _Statutes_, IX, 351.

[62] Hening, _Statutes_, XII, 243.

[63] John Wayland, _History of Rockingham County, Virginia_, (Dayton, Virginia: Ruebush-Elkins, 1912), pp. 424-425.

[64] Porter, _County Government_, p. 109, citing _Calendar of State Papers_, IV, 170.

[65] Sydnor, _American Revolutionaries_, pp. 77-78.

[66] As a result law books were the property of the court rather than the individual justices, and on the death or resignation of a justice his law books were surrendered to the court and divided among the remaining members of the court. Hening, _Statutes_, IV, 437.

[67] In unusual circ.u.mstances, such as an outbreak of smallpox, the sheriff might chose an alternate site. H. R. McIlwaine (ed), _Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1742-49_, (Richmond, 1909), p. 292.

[68] Douglas S. Freeman, _George Was.h.i.+ngton: A Biography: Young Was.h.i.+ngton_, (New York: Scribner, 1948), II, 146, notes that Was.h.i.+ngton became involved in an election-day brawl at the election of members of the House of Burgesses in December 1755. The contest between John West, George William Fairfax, and William Ellzey was very close, and Was.h.i.+ngton (supporting Fairfax) met William Payne (who opposed Fairfax). Angry words led to blows, and Payne knocked Was.h.i.+ngton down with a stick. There was talk of a duel, but the next day Was.h.i.+ngton apologized for what he had said, and friendly relations were restored.

[69] Sydnor, _American Revolutionaries_, p. 53.

[70] Nicholas Cresswell, _The Journals of Nicholas Cresswell, 1774-1777_, (Pt. Was.h.i.+ngton, N. Y.: Kennikat Press, 1968), pp. 27-28.

[71] Hening, _Statutes_, III, 243.

[72] "b.u.mbo" was an eighteenth century slang term for rum. Sydnor, _American Revolutionaries_, p. 53.

[73] William C. Rives, _History of the Life and Times of James Madison_, (Boston: Little, Brown, 1873), I, 180-81.

[74] Porter, _County Government_, p. 107.

[75] Calendar of State Papers, IV, 337.

[76] Hening, _Statutes_, X, 198; XI, 432; XII, 273, 573; Shepherd, _Laws_, I, 114.

[77] Hening, _Statutes_, X, 385 (orphans); XII, 199 (mental health).

[78] The district court's jurisdiction included civil cases of a value of 30 or 2,000 lbs of tobacco, all criminal cases, and appeals from the county court in criminal cases. Hening, _Statutes_, XII, 730 et seq.

[79] Virginia, _Code of 1819_, I, 226.

[80] Hening, _Statutes_, XIII, 758.

[81] Hening, _Statutes_, XII, 174.

[82] In the late eighteenth century, Virginia millers and warehous.e.m.e.n were major sources of grain and flour for New England, the West Indies and Mediterranean. The House of Burgesses, and later the General a.s.sembly, enacted comprehensive laws regulating the quality, grading and marking of these products. See, Lloyd Payne, _The Miller in Eighteenth Century Virginia_, (Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg, 1963) and Charles Kuhlman, _The Development of the Flour-Milling Industry in the United States_, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1929), pp.

27-33, 47-54.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fairfax County Courthouse, June 1863. Photo by T. H.

O'Sullivan. Copy from the Library of Congress.]

CHAPTER IV

THE WAR YEARS: 1861-1865

As events in the winter of 1860 and the spring of 1861 carried the nation into the crisis of civil war, Fairfax County aligned itself with Richmond rather than Was.h.i.+ngton. Thus, at the State's convention on secession in May 1861, the Fairfax County delegation voted to ratify the secession ordinance.[83] The consequences of this action were prompt in coming and far-reaching in their effects, for with the commencement of military operations in Northern Virginia it became impossible to carry on the normal processes of county government.

Fairfax Court House (the Town of Providence) was outside the ring of fortifications which were built on the Virginia side of the Potomac to protect the National Capital. Inside this line, stretching in a great arc from Alexandria, through the vicinity of The Falls Church, to Chain Bridge, Union Army commanders exercised military authority and administered justice through provost courts.[84] Outside this area the authority of the General a.s.sembly of Virginia nominally remained in effect, and the justices of the courts and the sheriffs of the county continued to hold their positions under the laws of the seceded state.

Serious difficulties in the transaction of public business soon appeared throughout Fairfax County, where patrolling and skirmis.h.i.+ng outside the ring of permanent fortified positions were daily occurrences. This was recognized in an ordinance adopted by the Secession Convention providing that when the court of any county failed to meet for the transaction of business or the public was prevented from attending the court "by reason of the public enemy", the court of the adjoining county where such obstructions did not exist had jurisdiction of all matters referrable to the court or the clerk of the court where normal business had ceased.[85]

As Virginia armed, troops of the Confederacy placed themselves in positions to repel invaders, and in May 1861, a company of the Warrenton Rifles established a camp at Fairfax Court House. On the morning of June 1, 1861, a body of Union cavalry rode through the town, and in the confused exchange of fire which followed, a Captain of the Rifles, John Quincy Marr, became the first officer casualty of the war.[86]

A month later, the tide of Union forces under McDowell swept past the courthouse on the way to its rendezvous at Bull Run, and back again to the safety of the fortified positions along the Potomac. In the wake of their victory at Bull Run, troops of the Confederacy established an outpost at Fairfax Court House to watch for signs that the Union Army might resume the offensive by moving against the Confederate earthworks near Centreville.

This outpost did not see any fighting for the time being, but it provided the site for what later was regarded as one of the decisive moments of the war. In September 1861, General Beauregard had established his headquarters at Fairfax Court House, and urgently pressed the newly-formed government of Confederate President Jefferson Davis for reinforcements with which to sweep into Pennsylvania and Maryland and, hopefully, to carry the Federal capital itself. A meeting was arranged at Beauregard's headquarters in which Davis, Generals Beauregard and J. J. Johnston, and certain of their trusted staff officers considered this plan. Their decision was to adopt a defensive posture and protect the borders of Virginia rather than take the offensive and invade the North. As events turned out, this decision had consequences of the greatest effect, for it was not until Lee marched out of the Valley on the road to Gettysburg in 1863 that there was another opportunity for the Confederacy to carry the war to the soil of the northern states.[87]

In the spring of 1862, the Confederate army retired from Fairfax Court House, and soon after that its line of fortifications at Centreville--the most extensive system of field fortifications in military history up to that time--was abandoned. As the Union armies took the initiative in their repeated efforts to reach Richmond, the crossroads at Fairfax Court House had key importance in the communication and supply systems of these forces.