Brandy Station and the March to Gettysburg: The History of the Confederate Invasion of Pennsylvania Before the Biggest Battle of the Civil War
ISBN: 9781532923005
$6.99
*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the fighting written by generals and soldiers on both sides *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents Buoyed by his recent successes at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate cavalry commander JEB Stuart held a field review on June 5, but when Robert E. Lee couldn’t attend that one, he held another one in Lee’s presence on June 8. During that one, the Confederates paraded nearly 9,000 mounted troops and four batteries of horse artillery for review, which included mock battles near Brandy Station. Some of the cavalrymen and newspaper reporters at the scene complained that all Stuart was doing was “feeding his ego and exhausting the horses,” and he was referred to as a “headline-hunting show-off.” More importantly, Union Army of the Potomac commander Joseph Hooker interpreted Stuart's presence around Culpeper as a precursor to a raid on his army's supply lines. In response, he ordered his cavalry commander, Maj. General Alfred Pleasonton, to take a combined force of 8,000 cavalry and 3,000 infantry on a raid to "disperse and destroy" the 9,500 Confederates. Crossing the Rappahannock River in two columns on June 9, 1863 at Beverly's Ford and Kelly's Ford, the first infantry unit caught Stuart completely off guard, and the second surprised him yet again. In addition to being the largest cavalry battle of the war, the chaos and confusion that ensued across the battlefield also made Brandy Station unique in that most of the fighting was done while mounted and using sabers.