Auburn Battlefield

Auburn Battlefield is a rural district in Fauquier County, Virginia, about four miles southeast of Warrenton, spread across the Cedar Run watershed around the crossroads village of Auburn. Several of northern Virginia's oldest roads, including Rogues (Carolina) Road and Dumfries Road, meet here. In the eighteenth century George Neavil's ordinary and mill helped start the settlement, and in the early nineteenth century Stephen McCormick manufactured an award-winning plow in the village. Auburn later sat between Union and Confederate lines, and on October 13 and 14, 1863, armies fought across its fields and ridges. The district is significant for those engagements and for the terrain on which they unfolded, including the wooded heights of Chichester Hill and the road network that guided troop movements. Most land is still farmed or wooded, and the landscape keeps a high degree of integrity, although suburban growth and road work present pressures near Casanova, Catlett and Route 605.