Fort Schneider Purdy's Farm, Annandale, VA
http://www.novahistory.org/FortSchneider/FortSchneider.htm

During the Civil War, Annandale Virginia was fortified to help protect Washington, D.C. from Confederate guerrilla attack. A stockade-type fort was constructed in the summer of 1864 adjacent to the Little River Turnpike on a rise east of Accotink Creek. The fort was named Fort Schneider after Joseph Schneider, Captain in the 16th New York Cavalry and commander of the stockade
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DEFENSIVE STRATEGY

The fort was proposed by Colonel H. M. Lazelle, 16th New York Cavalry, Commanding Brigade, on July 19, 1864 after his force was reduced when the Second Massachusetts Regiment Cavalry departed for Washington City. Lazelle, who was responsible for overseeing observations of the enemy’s movements up to the eastern side of the mountains, recommended a new defensive strategy that was better adapted to his available strength (i.e. number of troops). His scheme was to construct two defensible stockade forts, one at Annandale and one near Lewinsville. The Annandale stockade would control the Little River Turnpike and the Lewinsville stockade would guard two nearby turnpikes. Three companies (one of which would be mounted) would be assigned to each stockade. The remaining force, placed in a defensible camp near Falls Church to control Falls Church village and the railroad, would constantly patrol between the camp and the two forts.

Lazelle’s plan also employed the use of a “secret picket line” of 100 men that would patrol an area two to five miles out and that would extend from the Potomac to Braddock Road. Parties of from 6 to 12 troops picketed in concealed locations best calculated to guard the roads and paths leading toward the Union line. The positions were constantly changed to keep Confederate troops unaware of their location. The men were instructed to interfere with no one other than guerrillas, such as John Singleton Mosby’s men who lived in the region as farmers yet were quickly assembled into raiding parties. The expressed purpose of the secret ambuscade line was to adopt Mosby’s tactics of moving at night in small parties to gain information that could be used to capture the guerrillas

Portion of McDowell’s 1862 map of n. eastern Virginia and vicinity of Washington annotated with a star depicting the approximate location of Fort Schneider, Courtesy Library of Congress.
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PURDY’S FARM



Fort Schneider was located on the land of James S. Purdy, a northern man who was one of four who voted in his precinct against Virginia’s Ordinance of Secession.[4] Purdy’s family and property suffered during the war due to the strategic location of his 318-acre farm. Purdy described his losses in a claim filed with the Southern Claims Commission. Purdy stated that at the beginning of the war, he furnished Union General Mansfield, the U.S. Provost Marshall at Alexandria, and the Captain of nearby cavalry pickets with information on the movement of Confederate soldiers. Knowing that Purdy was for the Union, the Confederates searched his house and tried to capture him but he escaped to Washington. He was threatened that if caught he would be killed rather than taken to Richmond.

After the Battle of First Manassas/Bull Run, Purdy took an officer to Washington (and his horses were impressed to carry the wounded) but he was refused a pass to return home. He was absent from his family for 3 1/2 months during which time Confederates seized all of his personal property they could lay their hands on by order of Confederate authorities. Purdy and his family were in Washington during the winters of 1861 and 1862 since his house was then outside Union lines. A few days before Christmas 1861, the 4th New York cavalry burned one of his houses down because they said it made a hiding place for the enemy and could shelter enemy scouts. Upon his family’s return, Purdy repaired another dwelling that had been fired by not destroyed. After the Battle of Second Manassas/Bull Run, his house was filled with wounded soldiers most of the time. He, his wife, and daughter nursed the wounded.

Prior to encampment and construction of the fort on the farm, the property was used for parade drilling, driving cattle and horses to water, making roads in every direction, and cutting many ditches (estimated to have been a mile of ditches). When within the Union lines, the farm was almost constantly occupied by government trains (probably wagons and mules) and cattle. Purdy’s fences were daily torn down by passing troops and teams and also used for fuel. Portions of his house were seized by U.S. officers, during the presence of the family, for their own use.
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After a number of attempts had been made for Purdy’s capture by Confederate troops, he and his family were compelled to move in the fall of 1863. Demolition of his dwelling was soon after commenced by Baker’s Rangers who were encamped within a few hundred yards.[8] Colonel Lafayette C. Baker, then U.S. Provost-Marshal stationed in Washington, had command. Company D, numbering 140 men under the command of Lieutenant Howe, arrived in Annandale at the end of October 1863 and remained until January 27, 1864. Baker’s Rangers engaged in information gathering, scouting, and engagements with Confederate guerrillas. Baker was later promoted to head the Union’s Intelligence Service.

Lafayette C. Baker
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Fort Schneider, also known as Annandale Stockade, may have been constructed in a manner similar to this stockade built in Alexandria. Photo Courtesy Library of Congress.
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Thank you for posting this.

Shore is purdy.

Pretty cool, I went to the link and read the rest of it. Never knew this about the area.