I live in the Washington, D.C. area now which means I get to exercise my passion for the Civil War and visit many of that conflict's most famous battlefields on an almost weekly basis. I ventured about 30 miles south of my present location to the Manassas/Bull Run battlefield and visited and area associated with the Second Battle of Bull Run called Brawner's Farm.

It was there, on August 28, 1862, that the Battle of Second Bull Run began when Stonewall Jackson's 35,000 men ambushed Brigadier General Rufus King's division as it advanced towards Centreville on the Warrenton Turnpike. Among the brigades in that division was a relatively green one consisting of the 2nd, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin, as well as the 19th Indiana. This unit would eventually go down in history as the best singular fighting unit in the Union Army ("The Iron Brigade").

On August 28, 1862, they would earn their reputation by going toe-to-toe with the Stonewall Brigade at the Brawner Farm. For two full hours in the gathering darkness, Stonewall Jackson would try unsuccessfully to dislodge the Iron Brigade from its position some 80-100 yards away from the main Confederate line. The two sides would exchange volleys from this distance for the full two hours, neither side gaining ground, until darkness brought the fighting to a halt.

In that two hour fight, more than 2,000 men on both sides fell killed and wounded. Jackson lost two of his division commanders (Richard Ewell and William Taliaferro) to serious injury and was forced to fall back to an unfinished railroad bed where his wing of the Army of Northern Virginia would fight for the remainder of the battle.

When I visited the Brawner Farm this past week, it was late in the afternoon and I couldn't help but feel a presence as I walked the ground where those men fought in the late-summer Virginia air. Standing there, alone, it was one of the few times I have walked a battlefield where I felt I could actually "see" and "hear" the fighting that took place all of those years ago. It was haunting, to say the least.

If any of you are ever in the area, I highly recommend a visit to that spot. There are few markers or interpretative signs, so you kind of have to know what went down in that field. If you have that story in your mind, and you find yourself alone out in that field, by damned if you can't almost see the battle.