Battle of Fairfax Court House (1861)

Coordinates: 38°50′46″N 77°18′25″W



Fairfax Court House, Virginia by Matthew Brady
From U.S. National Archives

Date: June 1, 1861
Location:
Fairfax Court House, Virginia
Fairfax County, Virginia
38°50′46″N 77°18′25″W
Result: Inconclusive

The Battle of Fairfax Court House was the first land engagement of the American Civil War with fatal casualties. On June 1, 1861, a Union scouting party clashed with the local militia in the village of Fairfax, Virginia, resulting in the first deaths in action, and the first wounding of a field-grade officer.

The Union had sent a regular cavalry patrol under Lieutenant Charles H. Tompkins to estimate enemy numbers in the area. At Fairfax Court House, they surprised a small Confederate rifle company under Captain John Q. Marr, and took some prisoners. Marr rallied his unit, but was killed, and command was taken over by a civilian ex-governor of Virginia, William Smith, who forced the Union to retreat.

The engagement is judged to have been inconclusive. The Union did not gain the intelligence it was seeking, and had to delay its drive on Richmond, thus enabling the Confederates to build up their strength at Manassas in advance of the much-bigger battle there, the following month. Tompkins was criticized for exceeding his orders, although they had been somewhat imprecise.

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John Quincy Marr

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Aftermath



Marr's grave in the Warrenton Cemetery

Captain Marr's body arrived in Warrenton that evening. The following afternoon a large crowd attended a ceremony in the clerk's office yard before his burial in the Warrenton Cemetery.

Charles Henry Tompkins received the Medal of Honor for his actions at the 1861 battle. His was the first action of a Union Army officer in the American Civil War for which a Medal of Honor was awarded, though not until 1893. His citation reads: "Twice charged through the enemy's lines and, taking a carbine from an enlisted man, shot the enemy's captain." No other account referenced on this page states that Tompkins personally shot Captain Marr.

A monument to Captain Marr was erected on June 1, 1904, near the entrance of the Historic Fairfax County Courthouse, which was moved October 2020 to the Stuart-Mosby Civil War Cavalry Museum in Centreville, VA. The monument reads: "This stone marks the scene of the opening conflict of the war of 1861–1865, when John Q. Marr, captain of the Warrenton Rifles, who was the first soldier killed in action, fell 800 feet south, 46 degrees West of the spot. June 1, 1861. Erected by the Marr Camp, C.V., June 1, 1904."

First Confederate casualty

Various authors have claimed that Private Henry Lawson Wyatt of the 1st North Carolina Volunteers (later the 11th North Carolina Infantry Regiment), the only Confederate soldier to die at the Battle of Big Bethel, Virginia on June 10, 1861, was the first Confederate soldier killed in Civil War combat. This claim stands only insofar as a distinction is made between the first officer killed, Captain John Quincy Marr, and the first enlisted man killed, which Private Wyatt appears to have been.

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