On April 17, 1862, William H. Snowden boarded the steamboat John A. Warner for a trip down the Potomac River. He was traveling for business….with the Union Army. While he was raised in the Quaker tradition, at the first sign of war, he returned to his hometown in New Jersey and enlisted in Company A, 3 rd Regiment of the New Jersey volunteers. Snowden and his company spent the fall and winter at Fort Worth (near Quaker Lane) drilling and waiting for their “marching orders” from General George B. McClellan.
Snowden was no stranger to Virginia, as he and his brothers had relocated to Fairfax County in 1859. They purchased the home we know as Wellington or River Farm from George Washington’s heirs. William’s brothers, Stacey and Isaac, remained at Wellington to keep the farm operating. Meanwhile, war preparations at the docks in Alexandria were not at all familiar to Snowden. He remarked, “–this unceasing rattling of drays and huge army wagons and swift railway trains–the creaking of derricks and noisy bustle of
The workers Snowden saw preparing supplies for the exodus may have included African-American men as Union-occupied Alexandria had a growing reputation as a safe haven for self-emancipated people who would continue to flood into the city over the next couple of years.