Historical Notes on the Area Around Front Royal

centers, malls, banks, cinemas, restaurants, tennis courts, fitness centers, and full medical services. The international headquarters of both Human Life International and Seton Home Study School are just a mile from campus. Shenandoah National Park, George Washington National Forest, and Skyline Drive are close to Front Royal and contain hiking trails, camping grounds, and boating and fishing areas. The famous Appalachian Trail lies five miles to the east of campus. The Shenandoah River is a popular site for canoeing and white-water rafting; there are several commercial ski slopes in the area and numerous systems of extensive natural caverns open to the public.

The nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., is only 70 miles from Christendom College, and its museums, monuments, libraries, and cultural events offer students a wide variety of entertainment and educational opportunities, as do the historic cities of Northern Virginia, such as Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, and Manassas. Charming and historic Harpers Ferry, at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers where Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland meet, is just a forty-five-minute drive from Front Royal. The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., and the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Basilica Shrine in Emmitsburg, Maryland, are both within 90 minutes of campus.

Historical Notes on the Area Around Front Royal

The area around the Christendom College campus is as rich in history as it is rich in natural beauty. Front Royal is located close to the outlet end of the historic Shenandoah Valley. The Valley was settled well before the War for American Independence. The origin of the town’s unique name is uncertain. One story, probably apocryphal, says that during that war an officer trying to teach march and drill commands to untrained militia, frustrated in his efforts to assemble them in the center of town by proper military commands, finally gave up and simply directed them to “Front the Royal Oak!” More likely is the theory that the name derives from colonial times when the Shenandoah Valley was known as the Royal Frontier of the King’s domain, and the French on the eastern side of the Alleghenies referred to the area as Le Front Royal.

Not far to the north, the little town of Harper’s Ferry where the Shenandoah River joins the Potomac was the scene of one of the most famous episodes in American history, when in 1859 John Brown and his band of revolutionaries were attacked and captured by Robert E. Lee. Despite his bloodthirsty intentions, Brown’s admirers in the North made him into a hero, and men marched to the Civil War singing “John Brown’s body lies a-mould’ing in the grave; but his soul goes marching on!”

During the Civil War, the Shenandoah Valley was the scene of the prodigious marches of Stonewall Jackson, whose campaign, which was conducted almost entirely in the Valley, is still studied in military academies all over the world. The Shenandoah Valley was a route for surprise Confederate efforts to invade the North, outflanking the Union Army of the Potomac that fought in northern Virginia. One of the most dramatic Civil War battles was the Battle of Cedar Creek, near Front Royal, in 1864. Confederate General Robert E. Lee had sent a substantial part of his Army of Northern Virginia secretly to the Valley to catch by surprise the Union army then sweeping down the Valley from the north under the command of General Phil Sheridan. The

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Confederates attacked at dawn and drove the Union army back in near-rout. But General Sheridan had been on a journey in the rear; riding south that morning, he saw the fleeing Union troops coming toward him, apparently decisively defeated. He called on them to turn around and counterattack. Among the knots and groups of retreating men the word flashed: “Phil Sheridan’s here, boys! We’re going back!” They did turn back, attacked the Confederates, and won the battle.

Driving to Front Royal from Washington, D.C., via Interstate 66, one passes through Thoroughfare Gap where, in happier times for the Confederates, Robert E. Lee outmarched the Union army under General John Pope and joined Stonewall Jackson at Manassas to win the Second Battle of Manassas (or Bull Run) in 1862, now memorialized in Manassas National Battlefield Park.

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