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Laura Ratcliffe was born May 28, 1836 at Fairfax City, Virginia to Francis
Fitzhugh and Ann McCarty (Lee) Ratcliffe. Following the death of her father,
Laura moved with her mother and two sisters to Frying Pan (later Herndon), Virginia.
A
friend of both General Stuart and Colonel Mosby, she gave them invaluable
information on Union army activities in Fairfax County. Early
in the war, Laura learned of a plan to capture Mosby and warned him so he could
elude capture. There was a large rock near her home where she would
conceal money and messages for the Colonel.
Laura's brother, John R. Ratcliffe, was a private in
Company D, 17th Virginia Infantry. John enlisted in 1861 at Centreville,
Virginia
and died of illness at Chimborazo Hospital No. 1 at Richmond, Virginia on October 29, 1864.
At
the age of 50, she married Milton Hanna, a Union veteran, whose family had moved
to Herndon before the war. Laura died August 8, 1923 at ‘Merrybrook’, her home
in Herndon, where she was laid out by the front window so those who knew her
could view her body.
A
private and reclusive woman, Laura has never received the recognition she
deserved for her courageous and important contributions to the Confederate war
effort.
Merrybrook
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