Civil War Road Discovery Near George Mason University

PHOTO: Ken Atkins, an inspector with Virginia's Fairfax Department of Public Works and Environmental Services, looks into a trench, where county employees discovered what is believed to be a Civil War-era road. Fairfax County photo

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FAIRFAX, VA --Late last fall during excavation for a shoulder and sidewalk improvement on Ox Road near George Mason University, a county engineer discovered a lot of history — a hidden roadway made of cedar logs, Fairfax County's Government NewsCenter noted recently on its Web site. The site was assessed and staff discovered that a Civil War road had been unearthed.

“Corduroy roads were very commonly used in this area during the Civil War because this area was rural,” said Christopher Sperling, an archaeologist with the Park Authority.

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In the past, it was common to use logs as a road surface, in particular during the Civil War when high traffic in the area mucked up what had been dirt roads, according to the Fairfax County Park Authority.

The Fairfax County GIS department is processing high definition LiDAR data to create very fine topographic maps of the entire county, Sperling wrote on the Park Authority's Web site.

At the request of the Cultural Resource Management and Protection Branch, the GIS department processed the data in the vicinity of the project area, the wrote. This Imagery clearly shows the remains of a Civil War circular fort that had served to protect against enemy movement along the historic roadway. Combined with the information recovered about the log road and other, now long-gone, Civil War encampments and fortifications in the area, the hope is to virtually reconstruct the historic landscape of this area, providing a better understanding of Fairfax County’s Civil War history, Sperling wrote.

Watch a video below about the find: