In 1978, the Fairfax County Office of Comprehensive Planning printed the Historical Highlights of Bull Run Park, written by Benjamin F. Cooling III. The book was a cooperative effort by regional and county offices to publish a history of the Bull Run-Occoquan Regional Park area.

Dr. Benjamin Franklin Cooling III is an historian and author of books on the U.S. Civil War. He served as Chief Historian and Research Director with the Department of Energy and as a historian with the Army, Air Force, and National Park Service, and elsewhere. He has taught at numerous universities and is currently a Professor of History at the National Defense University in Washington DC. Cooling has written or edited over 16 books on the Civil War and modern warfare and has written several hundred articles, essays and reviews on aspects of military, naval and other history. His books include The Day Lincoln Was Almost Shot: The Fort Stevens Story (2013), Counter-Thrust: From the Peninsula to the Antietam (Great Campaigns of the Civil War) (2008), USS Olympia: Herald of Empire (2000), Fort Donnelson’s Legacy (1997), Jubal Early’s Raid on Washington (1995), Symbol, Sword and Shield (1991), Forts Henry and Donnelson (1988), and other books. He co-authored, with Walton H. Owen II, Mr. Lincoln’s Forts: The Civil War Forts of Washington, DC (2009).