Military Railroad Terminus

Half a mile west is the terminus of the Centreville Military Railroad, the first railroad in the world constructed exclusively for military purposes. Built by the Confederate army late in 1861 because of impassible roads, it supplied the soldiers in their winter camps at Centreville. Trains from Manassas Junction ran here until March 1862 when Confederate forces withdrew southward. Nearby on 9 Dec. 1862, Privates Michael O'Brien and Dennis Corcoran of Maj. Chatham R. Wheat's "Louisiana Tigers" were court-martialed for mutiny, executed by a firing squad from their own company, and buried. In 1979 their remains were reinterred at St. John's Episcopal Church cemetery in Centreville. Department of Historic Resources, 1996