![]() Twice before in the war he had ridden his troopers all the way around the Union army, to their chagrin and his glory. The stain of Brandy Station still lingering, Stuart hoped to carry out these new orders in dramatic fashion. Stuart could take the remaining three brigades, however, through Maryland and “take position on General Ewell’s right, place yourself in communication with him, guard his flank, keep him informed of the enemy’s movements, and collect all the supplies you can use for the army.” The cavalry commander was to leave at least two brigades to continue securing the mountain passes as the army moved north. In a pair of orders on June 22nd and 23rd, Lee outlined his objectives for Stuart. The combination of the Bull Run Mountains and Stuart’s cavaliers kept the Union Army of the Potomac in the dark Lee’s move north remained a secret.Īs Lee’s army approached Maryland, the time arrived for Stuart’s role in the upcoming campaign to be laid out. Throughout mid-June, at the minor battles of Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville respectively, Stuart’s horsemen successfully repulsed probing Union troopers hoping to confirm the location of Lee’s army. By mid-June he was off to an excellent start. It was Stuart’s duty to screen these movements with his 10,000 troopers, divided into five brigades. ![]() Throughout June, the Army of Northern Virginia snaked north in the valleys west of the Bull Run and Blue Ridge Mountains, headed for Maryland and Pennsylvania beyond. The Confederate cavalry would soon be trotting north as well, in search of glory and perhaps redemption. Indeed, Confederate soldiers were already pounding the roads north, headed for the small Pennsylvania hamlet named Gettysburg. There will be some hard fighting pretty soon.” The young Tarheel’s intuitions proved correct. Young Benjamin Parker of the 2nd North Carolina Cavalry, writing to his sister on June 10th, opined that “ Lee I think is going to make a move across the river. Soon enough, however, Jeb Stuart and his Confederate troopers would have a chance at redemption. For the troopers underneath him, Brandy Station was “the hardest cavalry fight…since the war began.” The Army of Northern Virginia's cavalry had always enjoyed total domination over its Yankee foe Brandy Station challenged that assumption. Having risen to command by superb leadership during the war's first years, the surprisingly tough fight at Brandy Station seemed to stain Stuart's reputation (which he cultivated assiduously). The commander of Confederate cavalry, James Ewell Brown (Jeb) Stuart, had to be wondering if the Brandy Station fight wasn’t “discreditable” to him. The Richmond Sentinel called for greater “vigilance…from the Major General down to the picket.” The Charleston Mercury thought the affair an “ugly surprise,” while the Savannah Republican thought it all “very discreditable to somebody.” Other Southern papers offered more of the same. “But this puffed up cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia,” the Examiner crowed, “has been twice, if not three times, surprised since the battles of December, and such repeated accidents can be regarded as nothing but the necessary consequences of negligence and bad management.” Such humiliations were unacceptable, and the Examiner concluded by charging that better organization, more discipline, and greater earnestness among “vain and weak-headed officers” was needed. ![]() Just days before, Confederate cavalry had been caught completely by surprise in a daring strike by their Union counterparts at Brandy Station Virginia, and only after a hard fight with the help of Southern infantry was the enemy repulsed. The June 12th, 1863 edition of the Richmond Examiner seethed.
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