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Maryland Scroll

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The Maryland Scroll is a Civil War artifact drawn on March 16, 1863, on the wall of the Graffiti House in Brandy Station, Virginia. It shows a vertical scroll with a banner above it. The banner, read aloud, says: "Rifle Gun" and "No. 1, Stuart Horse Artillery / Breathed's Battery / On Picket - March 16, 1863."

The main scroll lists fourteen soldiers and two officers from James Breathed's Battery: Sgt. Henry Thomas and Cpl. F. Gibson. The names on the 1–14 list are George W. McCabe, H. Hopkins, S. Owens, H. Greenwell, H. Wagner, E. Russell, W. Hopkins, F. Yates, A. Muth, B. Evans, H. Wickes, W. Evans, U. Haller, and H. Boyd. On March 17, 1863, the day after it was drawn, those men fought at the Battle of Kelly's Ford.

The Graffiti House was used as a hospital and meeting place by both Union and Confederate forces during the war. It was nearly demolished in 1993, but salvage work uncovered the graffiti on the upper floor. The Maryland Scroll was removed from the wall and went into a private collection. Locals in Culpeper, Virginia pressed for its return, and in January 2004 it came back after the Brandy Station Foundation acquired it. Today it sits in a glass case in the house’s South Room, with a photo showing its original position on the wall.


This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 17:30 (CET).