In mid-August 1862, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee concentrated the Army of Northern Virginia on the western bank of the Rappahannock River near Jeffersonton, about 10 miles east of here, while Union Gen. John Pope’s Army of Virginia held the eastern side. Seeking to strike Pope before Union Gen. George B. McClellan could bring reinforcements from the returning Army of the Potomac, Lee sent Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s corps on August 25 on a 5-mile circuitous march west and north around Pope’s right flank. Jackson left Jeffersonton early that morning, passed through Amissville on the Rappahannock Turnpike, and was followed a day later by Lee and Gen. James Longstreet’s corps. About 70,000 men marched west to Hinson’s Ford Road, turned north, and passed Oak Shade, the Amiss house. Hinson’s Ford, the first large ford on the Rappahannock River above Waterloo Bridge, lay across the highway at the end of Route 643. Jackson’s movement placed him in Pope’s rear at Bristoe Station on August 26, where he destroyed Union supply trains there and at Manassas Junction on August 27 before marching to just west of Groveton. One day later, an attack on a Union column marching north from Warrenton initiated the Second Battle of Manassas. Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart also led his cavalry across Hinson’s Ford while riding north during the Gettysburg Campaign in June 1863. As a boy sitting on a fence at Oak Shade, John Amiss Walter directed Jackson to drinking water near Hinson’s Ford Road.