"High table land, flanked by dense woods...no better place could have been selected by the Confederates for a permanent camp from which to harrass an enemy or repel attack."
"Manassas, the junction of the Orange & Alexandria and Manassas Gap Railroads...strikes the attention of the visitor at once by its remarkable strength as a military position."
By March of 1862, "Manassas Junction was but a level plain...with neither natural or artificial works of any strength, the fortifications at that time consisting only of rude mud banks."