soon after that Union defeat at Second Bull Run, Wyndham was given command of Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel's cavalry brigade. In early 1863, his brigade was headquartered at Fairfax Court House and became engaged in a series of running battles across northern Virginia with partisan rangers led by Lt. Col. John Singleton Mosby. Sir Percy, schooled in the 'honorable' open-field style of fighting, despised Mosby's guerrilla tactics and called him a horse-thief. To counter Mosby's tactics, he threatened to burn down local towns until the rangers' whereabouts were revealed, earning Wyndham the reputation of an unscrupulous marauder.

In reply to Sir Percy's slur, Mosby decided on a personal response. Learning the location of Wyndham's headquarters from a deserter, the Rebel ranger gained entrance on the night of March 9. Sir Percy had left for Washington the previous day, but Mosby did capture his uniforms, two of his aides and Brig. Gen. Edwin H. Stoughton. This affair proved embarrassing to the Union Army and Wyndham.

Sir Percy's first role after this debacle was as a leader in Brig. Gen. George Stoneman's raid toward Richmond on April 29-May 11, 1863. Although the raid was generally held to have been a tactical failure, Wyndham's detached force of 400 troopers performed very well, capturing Columbia, Va., and destroying stores and infrastructure. Their destruction of a canal prevented its use by the Rebels for several months.

Without doubt, Wyndham's star performance was in the Battle of Brandy Station. Crossing the Rappahannock at Kelly's Ford on June 9, he took his force south to the station, where the battle was already in progress. Wyndham personally led the attack up Fleetwood Hill, mustache aflutter as he engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Greatly outnumbered, he personally formed the rear guard and twice forced the Rebels back with furious charges. Wounded in the leg, he remained in the saddle until loss of blood forced him to retire. Though forced off the hill, Wyndham was fulsome in his praise of his men's performance: 'It affords me no small degree of pleasure to be able to say that all of my command that followed me on the field behaved nobly, standing unmoved under the enemy's artillery fire and, when ordered to charge, dashing forward with a spirit and determination that swept all before them!'

Invalided to Washington for recuperation, he was given command of the capital's cavalry defenses. During Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's raid prior to the Battle of Gettysburg, Sir Percy managed to raise a force of some 3,000 fully equipped men, mostly mounted. His final assignment was command of the District of Columbia Cavalry Depot.Mustered out of the Army on July 5, 1864, Wyndham returned to New York and established a military school, then returned to Italy to serve on Garibaldi's staff in 1866. At the end of the war in Italy, he and a chemist partner went back to New York to establish a petroleum refining business. Soon thereafter, however, an explosion destroyed his main distillery.

He soon left New York for India, and in Calcutta established a comic newspaper, The Indian Charivari, modeled on London's Punch. He also established an Italian opera company and married a wealthy widow. A later venture, logging teak in Mandalay, Burma, dissipated the profits from his Calcutta ventures.

Afterward he briefly served the Burmese government as commander-in-chief of the army, but he was eventually reduced to penury. One of Sir Percy's more quixotic projects was the construction of a huge balloon. But in January 1879 his monster machine (70 feet tall and 100 feet in circumference) exploded at an altitude of 300 feet with him aboard.

Thus at age 46 died one of the more colorful figures of the American Civil War and the 19th century in general. Given his career, it may not come as a surprise that some believe Sir Percy inspired 20th-century author George McDonald Fraser's fictional rogue of the Victorian era, Sir Harry Flashman.

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This article was written by Lewis Scheuch-Evans and originally published in the December 2005 issue of Military History magazine.

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