Guilford Signal Station
Tracking the Confederates
During the Civil War, signal stations served as early warning posts, observation points, and communication centers. On June 19, 1863, 10,000-15,000 Union troops commanded by Gen. John Fullerton Reynolds, I Corps, Army of the Potomac, marched along the Alexandria, Loudoun & Hampsire Railroad from Herndon here to Guilford Station. Reynolds made his headquarters at the Lanesville house, erected a signal station on the northwestern portion of the property – at 442 feet, one of the highest points between Washington, D.C. and Leesburg – and ran a telegraph wire to Fairfax Court House. The signal officer here constantly communicated with nearby signal stations attempting to locate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Gunfire echoed from the west as Confederate cavalry chief Gen. J.E.B. Stuart screened Lee’s infantry from probing Federal cavalry at Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville. Lee slipped through the Blue Ridge Mountain gaps to the safety of the Shenandoah Valley, but U.S. Signal Corps nonetheless detected him as he began his second invasion of the North. On June 24, Reynolds’ corps decamped in pursuit. The two armies met on July 1 in the little college town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where Reynolds died in the first day’s fighting.
To reach the Guilford Signal Station site, follow the Little Stoney Mountain Trail (the White-Blazed Trail) behind the Visitor Center. Reynolds’ headquarters still stands to the east just off the old Vestal’s Gap Road.
Marker can be reached from Old Vestal's Gap Road.
Courtesy hmdb.org
