George Mason

The Fairfax Independent Company: Washington’s Alexandria Volunteers, 1774–1775

The Fairfax Independent Company was organized in Fairfax County in September 1774, seven months before the fighting at Lexington and Concord. Its members, men of Alexandria and the surrounding county, called themselves the Fairfax Independent Company of Volunteers, and they trained in blue coats faced with buff. George Washington was their patron. He reviewed them … Read more

The Sad Fate of The New York Volunteers!

“I have seen Him in the Watch-fires of a Hundred Circling Camps!” On the afternoon of June 9, 1863, the Fort Lyon explosion tore through the north powder magazine of one of the largest forts guarding Washington, killing twenty-three men of the 3rd New York Battalion of Heavy Artillery and throwing debris more than half … Read more