Devereux Station, constructed in 1863 on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, stood nearby on a siding named for U.S. Military Railroad superintendent John Henry Devereux and supplied wood to fuel Orange and Alexandria locomotives. After the Confederate army withdrew from northern Virginia toward Richmond in March 1862, the U.S. Military Railroad took control of railways in Federal territory. The Orange and Alexandria Railroad became the Union army’s lifeline, moving provisions, equipment, and men from Alexandria into central Virginia. Confederate partisan units, including the Chinquapin Rangers and Mosby’s Rangers, often attacked the line, its workers, and Federal troops, and with support from pro-Confederate local residents they disrupted Union railroad operations. In 1863, General George G. Meade issued a July 30 proclamation warning residents within ten miles of the railroad that they would be held responsible for damage done to the road, trains, depots, or stations by citizens, guerrillas, or disguised persons, and that if attacks continued, the population along the railroad could be put across the lines and their property taken for government use. That threat was not carried out, though individuals were periodically detained. On November 25, 1863, the Chinquapin Rangers conducted a raid near Devereux Station, and in retaliation Union soldiers rounded up local residents considered suspicious, including John Kincheloe IV, father of Captain James C. Kincheloe and Sergeant William S. Kincheloe of the Chinquapin Rangers; the Kincheloe plantation stood about a mile south.