Civil War graffiti exposed

With the steady hands of a surgeon, architectural conservator Chris Mills slowly unveils history one painstaking step at a time. His end goals—reveal and protect the Civil War era signatures, drawings and scribbling strewn throughout the Brandy Station Graffiti House.

The circa 1858 structure is believed to have been used as a hospital by Confederate and Union forces during the war. For unknown reasons, patrons decided to mark up the walls with signatures, drawings and anything else that crossed their minds. Mills’ challenge is to remove the post-historic paint and whitewash that subsequent owners’ attempted to cover the markings with, as well as stabilize the fragile plaster.

“You don’t want to mess with the graffiti itself, everything affects it,” said Mills of the tedious process. In addition to removing the cover layer with tools such as a razor and an elongated cotton swab, where the plaster has separated from the wood over time, he stabilizes it by literally injecting a synthetic resin and temporarily pinning it till it dries.

The room he is currently working in, coined the J.E.B. Stuart room because of a signature in the room, has posed a unique challenge to Mills because of a colored lime wash applied directly to the plaster in parts of the room. In cases where he has no way to reveal the graffiti, he leaves it alone.

“What seems impossible today, might not be tomorrow,” said Mills. He said between work he did in 2010 and the room he is working on now, conditions constantly change.

“You have to constantly be checking what works,” he said of changing techniques to find the best way to preserve the graffiti. “For the most part we’re having a lot of luck.” Once exposed, “In order to clarify this [graffiti], we’re going to clean around it contour-wise.”

As of Saturday, Mills had been working 10-hours days on the room since Wednesday and he expected it would take at least 80 more hours to complete the task.

“This was the hardest and most difficult removal I’ve ever done,” he said. He said that much of the graffiti was originally scribed using charcoal from fireplaces and that it is very delicate once exposed. He attributed the particularly nice examples to a layer of dirt on the wall that actually helped to preserve the markings.

“You just keep finding things. I think it’s fascinating.”

Brandy Station Foundation secretary, Peggy Misch, said, “We really do rely on donations to do the work.” The recently renovated Graffiti House is the headquarters for the foundation. “We feel we step back in time when we come to this house”

The foundation has identified several of the soldiers that signed their names.

BSF board member, Barry Atchison, said, “Every time we find the true story of a soldier, it’s more exciting than the speculation…the more you stare at the wall, the more you find.”

For more information about the Brandy Station Foundation or the Graffiti House, visit http://www.brandystationfoundation.com or contact president Joseph McKinney at 540-727-7718.