The Battle of Vienna, Virginia was a minor engagement between Union and Confederate forces on June 17, 1861, during the early days of the American Civil War.
The Union was trying to protect the areas of Virginia opposite Washington, D.C., and established a camp at Vienna, at the end of a 15-mile (24.1 km) railroad to Alexandria. As Union Brig. Gen. Robert C. Schenck was transporting the 1st Ohio Infantry to Vienna by train, they were overheard by Confederate scouts led by Colonel Maxcy Gregg, who set up an ambush. They hit the train with two cannon shots, inflicting casualties of eight killed and four wounded, before the Union men escaped into the woods. The engineer had fled with the locomotive, so the Union force had to retreat on foot. The Confederates briefly attempted a pursuit in the dark, but it was called off.
Compared with later operations, the battle involved only small numbers, with the Union fielding 274 infantry, and the Confederates about 750 of infantry, cavalry and artillery. But it was widely reported by an eager press, and it worried the government, whose 90-day regiments were due to be disbanded.
In the early morning of May 24, the day after the secession of Virginia from the Union was ratified by popular vote, Union forces occupied Alexandria, Virginia and Arlington, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. Union troops occupied the area up to distances of about 5 miles (8.0 km) from the river. On June 1, a small U. S. Regular Army patrol on a scout as far as 8 miles (13 km) from their post at Camp Union in Falls Church, Virginia rode into Fairfax Court House, Virginia and fought a small and brief battle with part of a company of Virginia militia (soon to be Confederate Army infantry) at the Battle of Fairfax Court House. The patrol brought back to the Union Army commanders an exaggerated estimate of Confederate strength at Fairfax Court House. Together with an even smaller affair the same night at a Union outpost in Arlington, the Battle of Arlington Mills, the Fairfax Court House engagement made Union commanders hesitate to extend their bridgehead into Virginia.
On June 16, a Union force of Connecticut infantry under Brig. Gen. Daniel Tyler rode over about 17 miles (27 km) of the Alexandria, Loudon and Hampshire Railroad line between Alexandria, Virginia and two miles (3 km) past Vienna, Virginia. They reported the line clear, although one soldier had been wounded by a shot from ambush. Confederate forces were in the area, however, and it was apparent to Union Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell who was in charge of the department that the railroad would not remain safe without a guard force, especially because he had received information that the Confederates planned to obstruct it. On June 17, McDowell sent Brig. Gen. Schenck with the 1st Ohio Infantry under the immediate command of Col. Alexander McDowell McCook to expand the Union position in Fairfax County. Schenck took six companies over the Alexandria, Loudon and Hampshire Railroad line, dropping off detachments to guard railroad bridges between Alexandria, Virginia and Vienna, Virginia. As the train approached Vienna, about 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Fairfax Court House and 15 miles (24 km) from Alexandria, 271 officers and men remained with the train.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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