Liberia House: Survivor of the War, Part II

Taylor's line came to a halt some 300 yards short of Fort Beauregard. As the pressure of Hill's division began to curl about him, Taylor tried to extricate his command. Things quickly began to collapse. The Union troops began to fall back to the assumed safety of the bridge.

Around 11:00 a.m., the 4th New Jersey atop several knobs east of the bridge, received orders to pull back. Confusion and chaos reigned as the fleeing Jersey brigade retreated over Bull Run. Either at this moment or just before, Taylor received a mortal wound and was carried on a stretcher over the bridge.

Two supporting regiments, the 11th & 12th Ohio, had arrived at the east end of the bridge an hour after Taylor. The new arrivals were momentarily stunned by the stream of fleeing Jerseymen retreating from their encounter with the Confederates. The dying Taylor called out to Colonel E.P. Scammon to not let another Bull Run occur, and turned command over to the Ohio officer.

Despite the concentrated effort of the Buckeyes, the Rebel forces eventually flanked them out of their positions. The Union regiments pulled out and withdrew to the safety of Fairfax.

These actions on August 27th near Liberia House would be overshadowed by the offensive of Lee and Longstreet over Pope at the 2nd Battle of Manassas on August 28-30.

In November 1862, General Daniel E. Sickles, who commanded a federal division of the Third Corps, made Liberia House his headquarters while guarding the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, the Union Army's vital supply line.

After the War

The Weir family continued to own Liberia House until April 30, 1890, when it was bought by Robert Portner, a weathly Alexandria brewer. Portner added the property to his already large summer estate in Manassas and converted Liberia into his dairy farm. Alan Roseberry, a farm manager and caretaker of the Portner estate, lived in Liberia House as had caretakers before him.

On February 7, 1947, the Portner family descendants sold the estate to Manassas businessman I. J. Breeden and his wife, Hilda. The Breedens sold many parcels of land of the former Portner estate for development and lived in Liberia House until 1986.

In October 1978 Liberia was in danger of being commercialized as an extension of the Manassas Shopping Center. However, after negotiations between city officials and the Breedens, the property was placed on the national and state historic registers in January 1980.

A week later, it was announced that the Breedens would donate the mansion and five acres to the city in 1987. To create a buffer to protect Liberia from further development, the City of Manassas purchased an additional 13 acres of land from the Breedens.

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