On May 8, 1864, after the Battle of the Wilderness, troopers of the 9th Virginia Cavalry scouted through this region and captured several United States Colored Troops near Madden's Tavern. Private Byrd C. Willis of the 9th recalled that they were taken to the roadside and shot, and their bodies were left to the ravages of nature. This grew indirectly from the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, which authorized Black men to serve in the U.S. Army, and from a Confederate War Department order that treated captured United States Colored Troops as slaves in a state of insurrection, making them liable to execution or sale into slavery. The men captured near Madden's Tavern belonged to the 4th Division, 9th Corps. In late May 1864, they were assigned to the Army of the Potomac as the first African American soldiers to join that army. Many had self-emancipated from their enslavers and identified Culpeper, Orange, and Madison counties as their birthplaces. They served knowing they might die in battle or, if captured, suffer the same fate as their comrades executed by the 9th Virginia. In another incident, a captured United States Colored Troop was taken to nearby Orange and hanged in front of the courthouse.
