This location was once the Yorkshire Plantation owned by Col. Richard Blackburn. In 1854 the land was acquired by Wilmer McLean a retired Virginia militia major and wholesale grocer primarily dealing with buying and selling sugar.
As luck would have it on July 21, 1861 the First Battle of Bull Run (if you were part of the Union forces) or the First Battle of Manassas (if you were part of the Confederate forces) began on Yorkshire Plantation. At the time the McLean house and barn were “borrowed” as the headquarters for Confederate Brigadier General P.G. T. Beauregard. The barn was used as a hospital. On the first day of battle a Union cannonball came through the kitchen fireplace. Apparently this was the straw that broke the camel’s back and McLean moved his family from northern to central Virginia motivated by a desire to protect his family from a repetition of their combat experience. They eventually settled in a house at Appomattox Court House. General Beauregard obviously had a difference opinion of this incident as he has been quoted as saying, “A comical effect of this artillery fight was the destruction of the dinner of myself and staff by a Federal shell that fell into the fireplace of my headquarters at the McLean House.”
For four years the McLeans lived peacefully until on April 9, 1865 Confederate General Robert E. Lee sent a messenger to Appomattox Court House to find a place for him to meet with Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant to surrender. When the messenger knocked on McLean’s door he reluctantly agreed to allow the generals to use his parlor.
After the ceremony was over members of the Army of Potomac took almost everything that wasn’t nailed down in the house as souvenirs. Major General Ord paid $40 (equivalent to $668 in today's dollars) for the table Lee had used to sign the surrender document, while Major General Sheridan took the table on which Grant had drafted the document for $20 (equivalent to $334 in today's dollars). Others just took what they wanted without reimbursing McLean. McLean exclaimed “These armies tore my place on Bull Run all to pieces… so I just sold out and came here, two hundred miles away, hoping to never see a soldier again. Now, just look around you! Not a fence rail is left on the place, the last guns trampled down all my crops, and Lee surrenders in my house.” That’s a bit of an exaggeration, even back then it was only about 150 miles from his place in Manassas and Appomattox Court House.
In the end McLean had to sell the house, unable to make the mortgage payments, and moved back to Manassas. In the end McLean moved to Alexandria and ended up working for the IRS. Wilmer might not have had phasmophobia, but he was surely haunted by the Civil War.
As part of the 2020 NoVAGO series, you can earn $.50 of the cost of a NoVAGO Cache Across Northern Virginia coin for each cache in the series you find. This cache is part of that series; when you find this cache you will need to take note of the code provided as proof of the find. The cost of the coin is $15. To claim your coin you need to send a list including each cache in the series you’ve found with the date found and the associated code word to officers@novago.org.
As you stand at the GZ, you should see three signs in front of you supported by brick columns. The code word for this cache is the five letter yellow word in the middle sign.