The Grey Ghost and the Artist

If you had been standing here at dawn on November 27, 1863, you would have seen Col. John S. Mosby and his partisan rangers herding a string of mules bearing dejected-looking Union prisoners. Among the captives was Pvt. Robert Knox Sneden, 40th New York Infantry, seized near Brandy Station in Culpeper County. The Army of the Potomac had broken camp on November 26 and marched south toward the Rapidan River in what would become the Mine Run Campaign, leaving Sneden and a few others behind to follow with the wagon train. Sneden had suspected something was wrong at Brandy Station when he spotted unknown cavalrymen lurking in the thick fog near the house that he and his comrades occupied. When men burst in about 3:45 A.M., Sneden discovered too late that they were Mosby's He believed that "Mosby had been here [Woodville, in Rappahannock County] for a week or more only a short distance in our rear where he had made the place his headquarters" undetected. Sneden was frightened but in a foul mood as he passed through Woodville, because if he had acted on his suspicions and left with the main army, he would have avoided capture.

A Confederate officer pistol-whipped Sneden when he refused to reveal the Union army's movements. Mosby then led him and the other captives west through Woodville and Rappahannock County, then south and east to Gordonsville. There, they boarded a train for Richmond. Sneden survived confinement in the Confederate capital's prisons as well as the infamous stockade at Andersonville, Georgia. He was released in December 1864.

(Sidebar): New York native Robert Knox Sneden was an architect and engineer who enlisted in the 40th New York Volunteers in 1861. Because of his skills as an artist and mapmaker, he began preparing maps and sketches for Union Gen. Samuel P. Heintzelman, and soon other commanders vied for his services. In October 1863, after six months of trying, Gen. David B. Birney had Sneden transferred to his division near Brandy Station. There, Sneden mapped and sketched the surrounding area before he was captured. During the war, Sneden wrote a 5,000-page diary and produced more than 400 watercolors. Several dozen sketches were published in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War in the 1800s, but most of his work remained unknown. In 1994, the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond purchased his diary and drawings, then published them in 2001 in Eye of the Storm and Images of the Storm.

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Show me all markers in:  Woodville, VA  |  Rappahannock County  |  22749  |  Virginia  |  United States of America

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