Ankers’ Shop Civil War Marker

From Joyce Harris, Ankers Family Memorial Garden:

Northern Virginia Community College
Seeks Donations for Memorial Garden and Civil War Site
Virginia Civil War Trails Marker To Be Unveiled in the Garden

Help preserve an important Civil War site in Loudoun County!  The Loudoun Campus of Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) seeks donations for support of the Ankers Family Memorial Garden, a joint project between the Ankers family and NOVA.  The garden honors the ancestors of the Ankers family and the Union and Confederate soldiers who fought at or near the site during the Civil War.

The garden will be located at the entrance to the Loudoun campus of NOVA and will be constructed at the site of the Civil War Battle of the Ankers’ Shop, also known as the Second Battle of Dranesville, a cavalry skirmish between Confederate forces led by Lt. Col. John Singleton Mosby (Mosby Rangers) and Union forces led by Captain J. Sewall Reed.  The skirmish occurred in 1864 adjacent to Samuel Ankers’ blacksmith shop and home on Leesburg Pike (Route 7) in Loudoun County, near the present-day campus of NOVA.

The garden recognizes the site as hallowed ground and preserves it as an historic cultural landscape for the benefit of the community.  The garden will be used for outdoor instruction, reflective and recreational activities, and community gatherings.  Donations to the garden will be used to off-set costs for the Civil War Trails marker, plants, and for construction of stone walls that will help identify the site as a historic landscape.

Steve Meserve, a Loudoun County author and historian, will be speaking about the Battle of the Ankers’ Shop at the groundbreaking ceremony for the garden, scheduled for Saturday, July 16, 2011 at 10:00 am., in recognition of the 155^th anniversary of Samuel Ankers’ purchase of the land and the 150^th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War.  At this event, NOVA will recognize the legacy of the Ankers family and unveil the Virginia Civil War Trails marker to commemorate the Battle of the Ankers’ Shop.  For more information about the garden or the groundbreaking ceremony, contact Jolie Perara, Campus and Community Relations Officer for the NOVA Loudoun Campus, at jperara@nvcc.edu or at 703-450-2520.

A special account has been established at the Northern Virginia Community College Educational Foundation for contributions to the garden.  Donations are tax-deductible.  All donors will be recognized at the groundbreaking ceremony.  Checks should be made out to NVCC Educational Foundation with a notation that the funds are to be used for the Ankers Family Memorial Garden.

Mail checks to:
NVCC Educational Foundation
7630 Little River Turnpike, Suite 817
Annandale, Virginia  22003

If you would like to make a gift by credit card, please call the Foundation office at 703-323-3023.  Thank you for your support!

More about the Battle of Ankers’ Shop (or Second Dranesville).

Current Memorial at the Ankerage