Collection of Frederick Douglass, Esq.
The largest cavalry battle of the war was fought at Brandy Station, Virginia a few miles northeast of Culpeper on June 9, 1863 and resulted in around 1,000 casualties. I located a number of items from this battleground including horseshoes, a mule shoe and a number of dropped and fired bullets to
include in the production of this painting.
Soon after the conclusion of the battle at Appomattox, a young runaway slave named Charlie Wright appeared behind Union lines with information about the numbers and movements of Confederate units amassing in Culpeper to move through the Shenandoah Valley and invade the North.
This information was validated by the Bureau of Military Information, the precursor to today’s C.I.A., and credited with allowing the Union army to reach Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in time to thwart the Confederate invasion and turn the tide of the entire war. I created two paintings depicting Charlie Wright arriving in Union hands.