Burke's Station

During the Civil War, African American laborers chopped wood and conveyed it to Burke’s Station, a major Federal timber transportation point on the Orange & Alexandria Railroad. To supply the Union army and engineers with timber for railroad ties, bridge trusses, stockades, and firewood, wood choppers cut down thousands of acres of woodland along the railroad in Fairfax County, and the wood was then transported by rail to Alexandria. In 1863, the U.S. Military Construction Corps built an additional siding here to facilitate loading wood onto railroad cars. Wood choppers moved up to 1,000 cords of lumber a month in the Burke area alone, and army teamsters hauled the wood there in mule-drawn wagons, with as many as 100 wagons in the wagon master’s brigade at Burke’s Station. Many of the wood choppers and teamsters were escaped slaves called contrabands who had fled to Alexandria. Because they risked capture and reenslavement by working there outside Union lines, Federal cavalry and infantry camped nearby to protect both the contrabands and the wood stockpiles. On October 28, 1863, Confederate guerillas captured about 25 mules, a wagon master, and several contrabands at work near there, but when they ordered the wagon master to lead them to the station guard, one of the contrabands escaped to warn the garrison, which fired a volley as the Confederates approached, drove them off, and rescued the wagon master, contrabands, and mules.

Burke, Virginia · United States