Camp Alger

In May 1898, the Spanish-American War came to Northern Virginia with the establishment of Camp Russell A. Alger on the 1,400-acre former Woodburn Manor farm south of this location. Some 23,000 soldiers from 16 states trained there, though most never saw combat because the United States signed a peace treaty with Spain in December and the war ended. In July 1898, Pvt. George B. Thayer of the First Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, Company K, wrote home that the camp stood on a treeless thirty-acre lot covered with weeds, corn stubble, and two inches of fine dust, making cleanliness nearly impossible as soldiers returned from drills covered with sweat and dust. He said he liked the camp because it was comparatively free of bad rum and mean women, and because its rough conditions were the nearest thing to real war that the soldiers had seen.

Dunn Loring, Virginia · United States