In 1749, George Washington, age 17, was commissioned to survey and plot the town and county of Culpeper. He recorded that the town occupied a "high and pleasant situation." Incorporated in 1834, Culpeper prospered as a major trading and shipping point with the opening of a stagecoach route. The arrival of the railroad in 1853 spurred even more economic development and made Culpeper a strategic supply station for Confederate and Union troops. Occupied...