Munson’s Hill takes its name from Daniel O. Munson, who moved to a 180-acre farm on the hill in 1851 and opened an extensive nursery, later called Munson Hill Nurseries, which operated into the mid-1900s. Munson was joined on his farm by his father, Timothy Bishop Munson, and they built a fine home on the south side of the Leesburg Pike, at the crook where it curves around the summit of Munson’s Hill. The home was demolished 100 years later, in 1962, to make way for a large apartment building, Munson Hill Apartments (now Munson Hill Towers), which still stands on the site at 6129 Leesburg Pike.
In 1955 the summit of Munson’s Hill was bulldozed and flattened to create more land on which to build single-family homes. The hill as it appears today is somewhat shorter than before, but you can ascend to the remnants of the hilltop travelling along Apex Circle when you are visiting this cache.
Munson’s Hill overlooks the broad, flat plain that is Bailey’s Crossroads. During the Civil War Confederate Army officers and Southern journalists visited frequently and never failed to remark upon the view, which included much of Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia.
The hill rocketed to fame during the American Civil War, when it made international news headlines repeatedly. After the war opened in South Carolina, events quickly moved to Northern Virginia. A calamitous loss suffered at the First Battle of Manassas by the Union Army in July 1861 caused it to withdraw almost completely from Northern Virginia. Confederate Army troops quickly occupied Munson’s, Upton’s and Mason’s hills, from which they had commanding views of the plain of Bailey’s Crossroads and all the way into the federal capital.
At the same time, Washingtonians could also see a massive Confederate flag fluttering in the breeze from high atop the hill, and area residents grew increasingly concerned that the Confederacy would launch an attack from Falls Church and its hills via the river bridges. Observers at the U.S. Capitol, using “looking glasses” (telescopes), could see fearsome-looking Confederate cannon mounted in emplacements all across Munson’s Hill. The village of Falls Church, just 1.4 miles away, hosted the local Confederate headquarters.
The area became a deathtrap during this time as Confederate sharpshooters, with their commanding view of Bailey’s Crossroads, shot and killed as many Union army soldiers as they could. During one particularly intense firefight very close to the Munson home, Daniel Munson mounted his horse and attempted to flee toward Union army lines. As he exited his gate onto the Leesburg Turnpike, Confederate sharpshooters shot his horse out from under him. He got up and ran across the fields towards Bailey’s Crossroads and escaped capture, eventually making it to the protection of Union lines. .
This all changed during the night of September 28, 1861 when the Confederate Army silently withdrew from Falls Church and Munson’s, Mason’s and Upton’s hills, and retreated to Centreville. The Union Army, to its extreme embarrassment, discovered the fearsome-looking cannon to be “Quaker guns” – logs painted black. The army was the subject of ridicule throughout the North, where confounded citizens pondered how their army was kept at bay for two months with "nothing more than what Mother Nature grew in her own foundry!"
(Taken from the longer Wikipedia article about Munson Hill that is linked on the related web page above.)
There is a carefully folded "George Bow" in the cache for the FTF.