Nicola Marschall (Prussian/Alabama, 1829-1917) , "General John Breckinridge Castleman (1841-1918)", 1894, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower left, 30 in. x 25 in., framed. Note: John Breckinridge Castleman was born in 1841 in Lexington, Kentucky. At the age of nineteen, he joined the Confederate Army, eventually achieving the rank of major. During the war, he led a group of insurgents in the attempted burning of Union supply boats in St. Louis, Missouri. Castleman was arrested, convicted of spying and sentenced to death in 1864. President Abraham Lincoln ordered a stay of execution and exile from the United States. Castleman then traveled to France, however he was allowed to return to the United States in 1866 when he was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson. Castleman continued his education at the University of Louisville, graduating from the School of Law in 1868. The same year he married Alice Barbee and opened an insurance company with his father-in-law. In 1878, Castleman revived the Louisville Legion of the Kentucky Militia and was later appointed the adjutant general of Kentucky in 1883 following the assassination of Kentucky Governor William Goebel and a near state civil war. Castleman also served in the Spanish-American War and invasion of Puerto Rico. He was made brigadier general and served as the military governor of Puerto Rico.Castleman became known as the father of Louisville’s Park System due to his service as the commissioner of the Board of Parks in Louisville for over twenty-five years. In this role, he established multiple parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted beginning in 1891 and contributed to the park system that exists to this day. According to the Olmsted Parks Conservancy, Louisville’s park system is Olmsted’s most fully realized concept of his park designs. In 1893, Nicola Marschall was commissioned to paint Castleman in the portrait offered here. Marschall immigrated from Germany to the United States in 1849, arriving first in New Orleans and then Alabama. Due to the economic depression caused by the Civil War, Marschall moved his family to Louisville, Kentucky in 1873. Throughout the late nineteenth century, Marschall gained a reputation as a premier portraitist painting influential people and often fellow Kentuckians, such as Castleman.

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