Quaker Guns, Centreville, VA (March 1862)

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These were found in the works at Centreville, after the rebels evacuated the position at Manassas Junction. It was claimed, and is believed by many, that the rebel lines at Centreville were never defended by any others; yet the rebels had in position there at least seven heavy siege guns and numerous field batteries. As for the "Quakers," it was not at all an uncommon thing to place them upon deserted positions. Union soldiers, at the evacuation of Harrison's Landing, left the works so well supplied with "Quaker" guns, and bogus figures on guard duty, that it was several days before the rebels ventured to approach them.
The Centreville works, in consequence of their natural advantages, were almost impregnable to attack. The rifle-pits covering the crest of the hill were strengthened at intervals with embrasured forts. The huts in the distance were a portion of the rebel cantonments, numbering in all about fifteen hundred log cabins, calculated to contain from eight to twenty men each. The fort in the foreground has a lining of rude hurdle work, to keep the earth from crumbling down, a very necessary precaution with the Virginia soil.

Gardner's Photographic Sketchbook of the Civil War - Plate 6