Area Information
Stafford lies 10 miles (16 km) north of Fredericksburg, approximately 40 miles (64 km) south of metropolitan Washington, D.C., and about 60 miles (97 km) north of Richmond, the Commonwealth capital. The Marine Corps Base Quantico is located north of the community.

History: One of Stafford’s most famous residents was George Washington, who lived here as a youngster from age six to nineteen. It was most likely here that he threw “stones” across the Rappahannock River, not silver dollars – as they did not exist at that time.
During the American Civil War, Stafford was a logistical and transportation center, and a staging ground. Chatham, like many other homes in Stafford County, was utilized as a Union headquarters and hospital. Among Chatham's visiting nurses were Walt Whitman and Clara Barton. President Lincoln also visited Chatham during the war, giving Chatham the distinction of being the only private home whose threshold both Lincoln and Washington are known to have crossed. During the war the county was part of the battlegrounds, occupied repeatedly by more than 100,000 troops for several years. In 1862, before and after the Battle of Fredericksburg, some 10,000 African-American slaves left area plantations and city households to cross the Rappahannock River, reaching the Union lines and gaining freedom. This exodus and Trail of Freedom is commemorated by historical markers on both sides of the river, in Fredericksburg and in Stafford County
Resources: Stafford County - Wikipedia

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