Bristoe campaign | |||||||
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Part of the American Civil War | |||||||
![]() George G. Meade and Robert E. Lee, commanding generals of the Bristoe campaign | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Units involved | |||||||
Army of the Potomac | Army of Northern Virginia | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
76,000 [2] | 45,000 [2] | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
4,815 [3] |
The Bristoe campaign was a series of minor battles fought in Virginia during October and November 1863, in the American Civil War. Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, commanding the Union Army of the Potomac, began to maneuver in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Lee countered with a turning movement, which caused Meade to withdraw his army back toward Centreville. Lee struck at Bristoe Station on October 14, but suffered losses in two brigades and withdrew. As Meade followed south once again, the Union army smashed a Confederate defensive bridgehead at Rappahannock Station on November 7 and drove Lee back across the Rapidan River. Along with the infantry battles, the cavalry forces of the armies fought at Auburn on October 13, again at Auburn on October 14, and at Buckland Mills on October 19.
The Confederates had not achieved their primary objectives of bringing on a decisive battle or preventing the Federal reinforcement of the Western Theater, and Lee and his officers were much demoralized by this failure.
After the Battle of Gettysburg in July, Robert E. Lee retreated back across the Potomac River to Virginia and concentrated behind the Rapidan River in Orange County, Virginia. Meade was widely criticized for failing to pursue aggressively and defeat Lee's army. He planned new offensives in Virginia for the fall.
Early in September, Lee dispatched two divisions of Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's Corps to reinforce the Confederate Army of Tennessee for the Battle of Chickamauga. Meade knew that Lee had been weakened by the departure of Longstreet and wanted to take advantage. Meade advanced his army to the Rappahannock River in August, and on September 13 he pushed strong columns forward to confront Lee along the Rapidan, occupying Culpeper, Virginia, following the Battle of Culpeper Court House. Meade planned to use his numerical superiority in a broad turning movement, similar to the one planned by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker in the Battle of Chancellorsville that spring. However, on September 24 the Union had to deplete its forces as well, sending the XI and XII Corps to the Chattanooga campaign in Tennessee.
Lee learned of the departing Union corps, and early in October he began an offensive sweep around Cedar Mountain with his remaining two corps, attempting to turn Meade's right flank. Meade, despite having superior numbers, did not wish to give battle in a position that did not offer him the advantage and ordered the Army of the Potomac to withdraw along the line of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad.
On October 13, Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart was on one of his typical cavalry raids to capture supply wagons and blundered into the rear guard of the Union III Corps near Warrenton. Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell's corps was sent to rescue him, but Stuart hid his troopers in a wooded ravine until the unsuspecting III Corps moved on, and the assistance was not necessary. [4]
As the Union army withdrew towards Manassas Junction, Meade was careful to protect his western flank from the kind of envelopment that had doomed Maj. Gen. John Pope and Hooker in previous battles in this area. Brigades from Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren's II Corps fought a rearguard action against Stuart's cavalry and the infantry of Brig. Gen. Harry Hays's division near Auburn on October 14. Stuart's cavalry boldly bluffed Warren's infantry and escaped disaster. The II Corps pushed on to Catlett Station on the Orange & Alexandria Railroad. [5]
Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill's corps stumbled upon two corps of the retreating Union army at Bristoe Station and attacked without proper reconnaissance. On October 14, Union soldiers of the II Corps, posted behind the Orange & Alexandria Railroad embankment, mauled two brigades of Maj. Gen. Henry Heth's division and captured a battery of artillery. Hill reinforced his line but could make little headway against the determined defenders. After this victory, Meade continued his withdrawal to Centreville unmolested. Lee's Bristoe offensive sputtered to a premature halt. Meade was well entrenched, and Lee had outrun his supplies. After minor skirmishing near Manassas and Centreville, the Confederates retired slowly to the Rappahannock River, destroying the Orange & Alexandria Railroad as they went. Meade was under pressure from general-in-chief Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck to pursue Lee, but it took almost a month to re-lay the railroad track behind his army. [6]
After defeat at Bristoe Station and an aborted advance on Centreville, Stuart's cavalry shielded the withdrawal of Lee's army from the vicinity of Manassas Junction. Union cavalry under Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick pursued Stuart's cavalry along the Warrenton Turnpike but were lured into an ambush near Chestnut Hill and routed. The Federal troopers were scattered and chased five miles (8 km) in an affair that came to be known as the "Buckland Races". [7]
Lee returned to his old position behind the Rappahannock but left a fortified bridgehead on the north bank, protecting the approach to Kelly's Ford. On November 7, Meade forced passage of the Rappahannock at two places. A surprise attack by Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick's VI Corps at dusk overran the Confederate bridgehead at Rappahannock Station, capturing two brigades (more than 1,600 men) of Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early's division. Fighting at Kelly's Ford was less severe, but the Confederates retreated, allowing the Federals across in force. [8]
On the verge of going into winter quarters around Culpeper, Lee's army retired instead into Orange County, south of the Rapidan. The Army of the Potomac occupied the vicinity of Brandy Station and Culpeper County.
The five battles in the Bristoe campaign resulted in 4,815 casualties on both sides, including 1,973 Confederate prisoners at Rappahannock Station. [3] Lee and his officers were disgusted with their lack of success. They had not achieved their primary objectives of bringing on a decisive battle or preventing the Federal reinforcement of the Western Theater. Meade's army was in a good position, sitting on their supply base and having suffered fewer casualties in their larger force. Pressured by Abraham Lincoln to achieve an offensive success against Lee before the winter brought campaigning to a halt, Meade began to plan his Mine Run campaign for later in November. [9]
James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart was a United States Army officer from Virginia who became a Confederate States Army general during the American Civil War. He was known to his friends as "Jeb,” from the initials of his given names. Stuart was a cavalry commander known for his mastery of reconnaissance and the use of cavalry in support of offensive operations. While he cultivated a cavalier image, his serious work made him the trusted eyes and ears of Robert E. Lee's army and inspired Southern morale.
The Battle of Chancellorsville, April 30 – May 6, 1863, was a major battle of the American Civil War (1861–1865), and the principal engagement of the Chancellorsville campaign.
The Battle of Chantilly took place on September 1, 1862, in Fairfax County, Virginia, as the concluding battle of the Northern Virginia Campaign of the American Civil War. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's corps of the Army of Northern Virginia attempted to cut off the line of retreat of the Union Army of Virginia following the Second Battle of Bull Run but was attacked by two Union divisions. During the ensuing battle, Union division commanders Isaac Stevens and Philip Kearny were both killed, but the Union attack halted Jackson's advance.
The Battle of Brandy Station, also called the Battle of Fleetwood Hill, was the largest predominantly cavalry engagement of the American Civil War, as well as the largest ever to take place on American soil. It was fought on June 9, 1863, around Brandy Station, Virginia, at the beginning of the Gettysburg Campaign by the Union cavalry under Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton against Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's Confederate cavalry.
The Second Battle of Rappahannock Station took place on November 7, 1863, near the village of Rappahannock Station, on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad.
The First Battle of Rappahannock Station, as took place on August 23, 1862, at present-day Remington, Virginia, as part of the Northern Virginia Campaign of the American Civil War.
The Manassas Station Operations included the operations known as Bristoe Station, Kettle Run, Bull Run Bridge, or Union Mills. It took place August 25–27, 1862, in Prince William County, Virginia, as part of the Northern Virginia Campaign of the American Civil War.
The Battle of Kelly's Ford, also known as the Battle of Kellysville or Kelleysville, took place on March 17, 1863, in Culpeper County, Virginia, as part of the cavalry operations along the Rappahannock River during the American Civil War. It set the stage for Brandy Station and other cavalry actions of the Gettysburg Campaign that summer. Twenty-one hundred troopers of Brig. Gen. William W. Averell's Union cavalry division crossed the Rappahannock to attack the Confederate cavalry that had been harassing them that winter. Brig. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee counterattacked with a brigade of about 800 men. After achieving a localized success, Union forces withdrew under pressure in late afternoon, without destroying Lee's cavalry.
The Battle of Manassas Gap, also known as the Battle of Wapping Heights, took place on July 23, 1863, in Warren County, Virginia, at the conclusion of General Robert E. Lee's retreat back to Virginia in the final days of the Gettysburg Campaign of the American Civil War. Union forces attempted to force passage across the Blue Ridge Mountains and attack the Confederate rear as it formed a defensive position in the upper Shenandoah Valley. Despite successfully forcing the passage at Manassas Gap, the Union force was unable to do so before Lee retreated further up the valley to safety, resulting in an inconclusive battle.
The Gettysburg campaign was a military invasion of Pennsylvania by the main Confederate army under General Robert E. Lee in summer 1863. It was the first time during the war the Confederate Army attempted a full scale invasion of a free state. The Union won a decisive victory at Gettysburg, July 1–3, with heavy casualties on both sides. Lee managed to escape back to Virginia with most of his army. It was a turning point in the American Civil War, with Lee increasingly pushed back toward Richmond until his surrender in April 1865. The Union Army of the Potomac was commanded by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker and then by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade.
The Battle of Mine Run, also known as Payne's Farm, or New Hope Church, or the Mine Run campaign, was conducted in Orange County, Virginia, in the American Civil War.
The northern Virginia campaign, also known as the second Bull Run campaign or second Manassas campaign, was a series of battles fought in Virginia during August and September 1862 in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. Confederate General Robert E. Lee followed up his successes of the Seven Days Battles in the Peninsula campaign by moving north toward Washington, D.C., and defeating Maj. Gen. John Pope and his Army of Virginia.
The First Battle of Auburn was fought on October 13, 1863, between Union infantry and Confederate cavalry forces at the start of the Bristoe Campaign during the American Civil War. A Union infantry column stumbled upon a Confederate cavalry reconnaissance party and a short, inconclusive fight ensued. The Confederate cavalry withdrew in the face of the superior Union force, but a much larger body of Confederate cavalry under Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, attempting to raid a Union wagon train became entrapped by the column, forcing them to abandon the raid and hide in a ravine overnight awaiting Confederate infantry to come to their aid.
The Second Battle of Auburn was fought on October 14, 1863, in Fauquier County, Virginia, between Union and Confederate forces in the American Civil War. Confederate forces led by Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell led a sortie to extricate Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry command, trapped between two Union columns and clashed with the rearguard of the Federal II Corps under Brig. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren. Stuart was successfully extricated but the Federal wagon train avoided Confederate capture in the inconclusive fight.
The Battle of Bristoe Station was fought on October 14, 1863, at Bristoe Station, Virginia, between Union forces under Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren and Confederate forces under Lt. Gen. A. P. Hill during the Bristoe Campaign of the American Civil War. The Union II Corps under Warren was able to surprise and repel the Confederate attack by Hill on the Union rearguard, resulting in a Union victory.
The eastern theater of the American Civil War consisted of the major military and naval operations in the states of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and the coastal fortifications and seaports of North Carolina.
John Randolph Chambliss Jr. was a career military officer, serving in the United States Army and then, during the American Civil War, in the Confederate States Army. A brigadier general of cavalry, Chambliss was killed in action during the Second Battle of Deep Bottom.
The Cavalry Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia was an organized unit of cavalry in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. Starting out as a brigade in late 1861, becoming a division in 1862 and finally a Corps in 1863; it served in the Eastern Theater until the ANV's surrender in April 1865.
The Battle of Culpeper Court House was an American Civil War skirmish fought September 13, 1863, near Culpeper, Virginia, between the cavalry of the Union Army of the Potomac and that of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. The Union victory opened up the Culpeper region to Federal control, a prelude to the subsequent Bristoe Campaign.
Timeline of Fauquier County, Virginia in the Civil War