Wilmer McLean was an unwilling eyewitness to what his
fellow Southerners called the War for State’s Rights. He
was a retired grocer who just wanted to live quietly at
Yorkshire, his Manassas Junction estate. But one of the
first shots in what would become the first major battle of
the war was fired at Yorkshire. Casualties were tended in
his barn. McLean had had enough of the war and when
the Confederates finally left his property, he moved 300
kilometers (200 mi) south to a little village known as
Appomattox Court House (pictured above). Two years
later, McLean’s home was again in the center of a
Confederate army, this one helmed by Robert E. Lee. And
in April 1865, history—though thankfully not a cannonball
—landed in McLean’s parlor as Lee surrendered his
legendary Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant,
essentially ending the war.
The Whole Bushel
Wilmer McLean was born in 1814 in Alexandria County,
which, at the time, was in the District of Columbia instead
of Virginia. McLean was a successful wholesale grocer in
Alexandria until he married the wealthy widow Virginia
Hooe Mason in 1853. The new Mrs. McLean had three
daughters and owned the Yorkshire plantation near
Manassas Junction, Virginia. The five of them moved to
Yorkshire, and Wilmer retired his grocery to become a
country squire and supervise the estate and its 14 slaves.
The McLeans had two more children by 1857, the same
year that Wilmer’s youngest stepdaughter, Sarah died.
The Yorkshire estate was 1,200 acres in size and several
roads ran through or near the property. Some of them
crossed Bull Run Creek, and one was named McLean Ford
after the owners. Others led to the railroad junction for
which the nearby town was named. One of the additions
Wilmer made to his property was a massive stone barn.
When war consumed the nation, Wilmer was 46, too old
to join the Confederate Army. So the Confederate Army
came to Wilmer. In May 1861, General P.G.T. Beauregard
formed his army along Bull Run to check any Yankee
advance on Richmond. Several regiments camped on or
near Yorkshire and Camp Wigfall was built on the
southern portion of the property. General J.R. Jones
constructed earthworks to protect McLean Ford east of
Yorkshire’s main house. General James Longstreet
protected Blackburn’s Ford due north of the house.
The Yankees marched straight at Beauregard’s army and
when they arrived at Bull Run on July 18, 1861, they
probed the Confederate defenses at Blackburn’s Ford.
Beauregard commandeered McLean’s house as his
headquarters, and the Yankees could see him riding
around Yorkshire. They decided to lob a cannonball at the
HQ. The ball struck McLean’s chimney and fell down it
into the kitchen fireplace. The McLean’s were preparing
lunch for General Beauregard when the cannonball landed
in a kettle of stew, splattering it everywhere. “The comical
effect of this artillery fight,” Beauregard wrote in his diary,
“was the destruction of the dinner of myself and staff.”
Casualties from the Blackburn’s Ford skirmish were
treated in McLean’s barn and Beauregard draped a yellow
hospital flag on the side of the barn to deter further
cannonballs from flying their way. Whether they didn’t see
the flag or mistook it for a Confederate flag, the Blue
Bellies shelled the barn and the wounded had to be
moved.
Three days later, the entire Union army came across Bull
Run Creek striking Beauregard’s left flank. With the help
of reinforcements who arrived in the nick of time,
Beauregard beat and humiliated the Yankees in the first
large-scale battle of the war: the First Battle of Bull Run or
Manassas.
After the battle, the Confederates remained on the
property and used the barn as a hospital and the house
and outbuildings used as quarters for the surgeons and
staff. Mrs. McLean and the kids left to live elsewhere, but
Wilmer stayed behind, working as a civilian for the
Confederate Quartermaster. Using his contacts and
experience as a grocer, he expedited foodstuffs to the
troops at Manassas.
By early 1862, however, Wilmer was disillusioned with the
Confederates. The soldiers were constantly damaging his
property. When the army finally moved out in March,
Wilmer rejoined his family. He had had enough of the war.
And, when the two sides again fought over turf near
Yorkshire in the Second Battle of Bull Run or Manassas in
August 1862, it was clear that if they stayed near
Manassas Junction, the war would keep coming to their
doorstep. So they decided to move 300 kilometers (200
mi) south to a property at a quiet crossroad village named
Appomattox Court House in 1863.
For two years, the McLeans didn’t hear the thump of
cannon or smell the stench of wounded men. Then on
April 9, 1865, Wilmer again found himself among the
soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia, now
commanded by General Robert E. Lee. For seven days,
Lee and his great army had been running west, chased by
Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant. Grant had
finally surrounded Lee at Appomattox Court House.
That morning, one of Lee’s aides approached Wilmer and
asked him if he knew of a building with a large meeting
room. Wilmer showed him a vacated home, but the aide
rejected it because it did not have furniture. Wilmer then,
reluctantly, offered his own parlor.
Lee arrived at the McLean house at 1:00 PM in a crisp,
clean uniform. Grant arrived a short time later, still in his
muddy, wrinkled blues. The two generals talked for 25
minutes in McLean’s parlor before they discussed the
terms of Lee’s surrender. A few minutes later, the terms
were signed and the war was all but over.
As soon as the generals rode away, the McLeans were
offered money for the desks and chairs used in the
historical moment. When he refused, the furniture was
taken anyway. Even a rag doll owned by one of the
McLean daughters was whisked away as a souvenir.
Upholstery was shredded and sold.
Wilmer supposedly told reporters that “the war started in
my front yard and ended in my parlor.”
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