The Fauquier Artillery was recruited at Markham, a tiny station along the Manassas Gap Railroad. The company enlisted into Confederate States service on July 1, 1861. The unit was initially recruited as infantry. The unit adopted the nickname, the “Markham Guards”. Robert M. Stribling was elected as Captain, James H. Kidwell as 1st Lieutenant, and William C. Marshall and William N. Green as 2nd Lieutenants. Sergeant D. M. Mason was another of the company’s notables, grandson of Virginia’s George Mason.
The Markham Guards officially became Company G of the 49th Infantry. It was a short-lived designation. The capture of nearly 30 Union artillery pieces at the battle of Manassas made possible the organization of several new batteries of artillery. In October, Captain Stribling received orders transferring the Markham Guards to the artillery. Christened the “Fauquier Artillery,” the company received four guns: two 24-pounder howitzers and two iron 12-pounder guns. General Beauregard assigned the new battery to General D.R. Jones’ South Carolina Brigade of Longstreet’s Division.
During its term of service the Fauquier Artillery was engaged in fourteen battles. It lost 12 men killed, 29 wounded and 40 captured.
Captain Stribling wrote years after the war:
"In this War, all reward a Confederate Soldier expected was that his manhood should be recognized, for love of home and country was his inspiration. Though he marched and fought with bare feet and tattered clothes, and with nothing but a small ration of corn meal and coarse pork for his diet, and with worthless money for his scant pay, he wrote, in the record of his acts, [that] with….bravery and fortitude it is possible for manhood to assert itself."