Preserving and sharing the history of Raccoon Ford on the Rapidan River
Gallery
1781 – General Lafayette’s travels through Virginia, and crossing of the Rapidan River at Raccoon Ford, en route to Yorktown during the Revolutionary War. Please visit https://www.loc.gov/item/00558784/ to view the map and enlarge it to track Lafayette’s route.1863 – A sketch by prolific Civil War illustrator Alfred R. Waud entitled “Reconnoisance (sic) by Bufords Cavalry towards the Rapidan river.” Done in pencil and Chinese white on brown paper, September 14, 1863. Waud served as an “artist correspondent” for the New York Illustrated News and Harper’s Weekly. (Image source: Library of Congress, loc.gov)
1863 – This map was created by another well known illustrator of the Civil War, Robert Knox Sneden. Sneden was a landscape painter who prepared maps for the Union Army. On the map, Raccoon Ford is marked east of the railroad along the Rapidan River. Note the Confederate earthenworks marked in red across the river. (Image source: Library of Congress, loc.gov)
