The Stone Bridge

Originally built of native sandstone in 1825, the turnpike bridge over Bull Run became an important landmark in the Civil War battles at Manassas. Union Brig. Gen. Daniel Tyler's division feigned an attack on Col. Nathan G. Evans's brigade guarding the bridge as the First Battle of Manassas began on the morning of 21 July 1861. When the confederates withdrew from the region, they blew up the bridge on 9 Mar. 1862. The rear guard of Maj. Gen. John Pope's retreating army, defeated at the Second Battle of Manassas on 30 Aug. 1862, destroyed a replacement military bridge at the site. Fully reconstructed after the war, it remained in use into the 1920s.