Samuel and Henrietta Ankers lived here during the Civil War, and on the morning of February 22, 1864, about 160 of Confederate Lt. Col. John Singleton Mosby's horsemen ambushed 150 of Union Capt. J. Sewall Reed's cavalrymen just outside their front door. During the previous two days, Reed and his men, primarily the 16th New York Cavalry and Californians in the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry, had ridden west from Vienna through Middleburg and Rector's Crossroads hunting unsuccessfully for Mosby, and Reed was returning eastward along the Dranesville Turnpike, present-day U.S. Route 7, when Mosby sprang his trap. Mosby's men hid in a pine thicket south of the road below the ridge line of Bridges Hill near Ankers's blacksmith shop, and as the advance guard rode by, Mosby blew his whistle, his men opened fire, and then charged into the road. The Federals rallied, but the surprise and ferocity of the attack broke their column, and some fled to the nearby Potomac River. One Confederate was killed and 5 were wounded; Reed was killed, as were at least 12 other Federals, while 25 were wounded and more than 50 were captured. Some of the dead were buried in the Ankers family cemetery, some of the wounded were tended in the house, and later about 35 of the captured Union soldiers died of illness or disease at the prison camp at Andersonville, Georgia. Mosby and his men continued to harass the Federals until the war's end.
