Image ID: AILV

Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book Of The War. Vol. 2, No. 67. Quarles’ Mill, North Anna, Virginia, May, 1864. Another scene of picturesque beauty on this interesting stream. The building is a time-worn, weather-stained structure, not altogether free from the suspicion of harboring reptiles. In the river the negroes caught delicious terrapin, and the soldiers varied their rations with messes of catfish. A temporary bridge, constructed from the timber found at the mill, was thrown across, just below the dam, and many were the misgivings, when the rains caused a rise in the river, threatening to float away the frail structure, and sever communications with the opposite bank, a disaster which happily did not take place. In the grassy fields above the mill, the tents of Grant’s and Meade’s headquarters, seldom far apart, were pitched for a few days. Among the prisoners brought to this place was a woman, clad in rebel gray. She was taken, mounted astride a bony steed, apparently performing the duties of a scout, but claimed to belong to a battery of artillery. A degraded, wild specimen of humanity, of Irish extraction, with a shock of tangled black hair hanging in elf locks down to her shoulders, she proved the centre of interest to the idlers of the camp. At these she would occasionally hurl stones, being particularly hostile towards the negroes, who gave her a wide berth, to avoid missiles, which she threw with considerable force and accuracy. The North Anna, meeting with its sister stream, the South Anna, a few miles lower down, forms the sluggish Pamunkey, which in its turn combines with Mattapony, and becomes the York river, under which name the associated streams fall into the Chesapeake.

Incidents of the War. Quarles Mill on North Anna. [Gardner Co. cabinet card]

Usually misattributed to Alexander Gardner.