On May 21, 1864, Gen. Winfield S. Hancock’s Second Corps passed through Bowling Green, where Union soldiers broke into stores, looted homes, freed prisoners from the jail, and left documents from the ransacked courthouse littering the streets. As some residents defiantly shouted at the soldiers, a young Union captain, Chapman, posted guards to help restore order and was invited by the owner of the nearby Star Hotel to share a hot meal, an act of kindness he remembered fondly. In 1906, he wrote to Caroline County Clerk Ned Coghill to recall that generosity, and Coghill, who had served in the 30th Virginia and surrendered with General Lee at Appomattox, replied that war between brothers was the worst of all and that he held warm feelings for old soldiers of both sides. Amid the turmoil, Nathaniel Evans, a runaway slave and a Confederate officer’s body servant, hid inside the courthouse and forged the last of many passes, enabling his escape to Fredericksburg and freedom.