Ox Hill is the last remnant of Fairfax County’s only major Civil War battlefield, where the Battle of Ox Hill, also known as the Battle of Chantilly, lasted a few hours on the afternoon of September 1, 1862. About 6,000 Union troops encountered and attacked about 17,000 Confederates under General Stonewall Jackson in a ferocious thunderstorm, in what was called a “beastly, comfortless conflict.” When darkness ended the fighting, hundreds of soldiers were dead and more than a thousand were wounded or missing, including Union generals Isaac Stevens and Philip Kearny. The bloody stalemate frustrated the Confederate attempt to intercept and destroy General John Pope’s Union army as it retreated toward Washington after the Battle of Second Manassas.
