Captain Henry Fairfax, to whose memory the tablet alluded to was placed in the old church, was a graduate of West Point. At the outbreak of the Mexican War, he organized a company called the Fairfax Volunteers sailing to Mexico with the regiment of Virginia volunteers under command of Colonel John F. Hamtramck. Upon arriving in Mexico, Captain Fairfax fell a victim to the climate and died at Saltillo, August 16, 1847. His body was brought home and buried near the church he loved so well, and it is thought that the grave which may be seen in the foreground of the war-time picture of the church on page 62 may be his. The tablet to his memory has long since been destroyed, and every vestige of his tombstone has disappeared, but nature, not forgetting his generous gifts to the old church, has sent up a spire-shaped cedar to mark his grave. Colonel Hamtramck died April 21, 1858, at Shepardstown, Va. [Illustration: Mr. F. A. Niles] The damage to the old church, according to one of the oldest citizens of the town, Mr. George B. Ives, was done by a company of Union cavalry on picket duty under command of a captain of the regular army. He permitted his men to tear out the floor of the church and use it for a stable. The building might have been damaged beyond repair had it not been for Mr. Ives and the late Mr. John Bartlett, who reported the matter to General Augur, the Military Governor of this district, by whose orders the captain was arrested and further desecration prevented. About three miles from Falls Church, on the Alexandria turnpike, is Bailey's Cross Roads, where in November, 1861, President Lincoln reviewed the Union forces preparatory to the Peninsular Campaign. The story of the most important events occurring during those stormy times around the old Colonial church is best told by the "Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies," extracts from reports therein following: [Illustration: Dr. T. C. Quick] SKIRMISH AT MUNSON'S HILL AUGUST 31, 1861. Report of Colonel Geo. W. Taylor, 3rd N. J. Infantry, dated September 2, 1861. GENERAL: The pickets of the enemy having for some time been extremely annoying to outposts on Little River Turnpike and on the road leading from thence to Chestnut Hill, I decided on making a reconnaissance in person with a small force with the view of cutting them off. Accordingly I marched with 40 men, volunteers from 2 companies of my regiment, on the morning of Aug. 31, at 3 a. m., and keeping to the woods arrived soon after daylight at or near the point, a little beyond, at which I desired to strike the road and cut them off. [Illustration: Miss Ellen W. Green] Here we were obliged to cross a fence and a narrow corn field where the enemy, who had doubtless dogged our approach through the woods, lay in considerable force.