On the eastern banks of the Rappahannock River, Chatham Manor served at headquarters to Union Major General Edwin Vose Sumner during the Battle of 1st Fredericksburg. In the conflicts devastating wake, the stately home would become a military hospital serving some of the over 8,000 wounded during the conflict of December 13, 1862. Like the countless thousands sheltered elsewhere, the union wounded at Chatham would bear terrific suffering lasting weeks if not longer. Soldiers endured the recovery period after surgery which typically included infection and disease, both of which would prove two times as deadly as the battles themselves.

Under these conditions and after enduring the hell of the battle at Fredericksburg, one soldier at least did not harbor bitterness or thoughts of vengeance towards the enemy who had shattered so many lives. To the contrary, without words, this one man eloquently left for all posterity his hopes for both Northern and Southern men alike. As he convalesced, this recent combatant used his time to express his fraternal wishes by painting the scabbard of a soldiers sword. Clearly, he repeated the theme of reconciliation, friendship, and peace, a feeling that comfortably graces this former housing of an instrument of war. Although this conflict would bear many names, from such magnanimous sentiments grew the gentlemanly and occasionally fitting label of "The Brothers War".