Gettysburg (6 page)

Robert E. Lee spent all of June 6 observing the troops that Hooker had landed on the southern bank. If the Union commander became uncharacteristically aggressive, Lee would have to reevaluate all his plans. But Lee’s intuition was right on the mark. He soon reported to Richmond, “After watching the enemy’s operations Saturday, and being unable to discover more troops [across the Rappahannock] than could be attended to by [A. P.] Hill, and no advance having been made by them, I sent for word to Gen[era]l Ewell to resume his march, and left Fredericksburg myself in the evening.”

Ewell, anxious to prove himself in his new position, had his men moving quickly. The soldiers slogged through a heavy thundershower that left them, in the words of one, “wet and very cold.” Most marched for six hours, camping at around 10:00
P.M.
Still, spirits were high, and when Ewell’s men spotted him watching them cross the Rapidan River on June 7, they “began to cheer him as had been their habit with Gen. Jackson,” observed a Second Corps staff officer. It was a good omen.

Lee reached Culpeper “early on Sunday morning, June 7.” Hood’s and McLaws’ divisions of Longstreet’s Corps were on hand to greet Ewell’s men, who would continue to arrive throughout the day. The status report that Lee sent to Richmond this day was disingenuous, to say the least. In it he implied that the movement of so many Confederate troops to Culpeper had been prompted by the need to match a similar Federal redeployment, rather than to prepare for a raid into Maryland and
Pennsylvania. He also urged that the repositioning of troops defending Richmond be completed so that Pickett’s Division, now holding north of the capital at Hanover Junction, could fill out Longstreet’s Corps. He closed by renewing his argument that troops from Beauregard’s coastal command should either “be sent to re-enforce Johnston in the west, or be ordered to re-enforce this army.” Next, in the same breath, he sent orders directing one detached cavalry brigade (then in southwestern Virginia) to be ready to link up with his vanguard when it entered the Shenandoah Valley, and instructing a second detached mounted brigade to undertake a diversionary raid into northwestern Virginia.

Reports from Fredericksburg indicated that Hooker’s bridgehead across the Rappahannock remained in place. For a while on June 6, Lee had contemplated returning the favor by dispatching Hood’s Division to force a river crossing below Culpeper at Ellis Ford, but he had decided against the move shortly after midnight. Artilleryman E. P. Alexander had helped to scout this operation with John B. Hood. “I remember on this trip talking a great deal with Hood about our chances in an invasion of the enemy’s territory,” Alexander would recollect, “& the impression I gathered of Hood’s view was that we were taking a lot of chances.”

On June 8, Jeb Stuart restaged his grand review, this time with Lee present. During his ride from Culpeper to the reviewing field, Lee passed a column of Longstreet’s troops that included the 17th Mississippi. The general was roughly dressed for travel and, surrounded by his mounted detail, looked for all the world like a man under arrest. The spectacle caused one Mississippian to call out, “Boys, where did you get that bushwhacker? … He looks like a good old man. … Turn him loose.” According to Sergeant C. C. Cummings, Lee beamed when he heard the remark. “His bright smile,” Cummings would write in 1915, “haunts me still.”

Conscious of the need to preserve horseflesh and gunpowder for the upcoming operation, Lee forbade any mock charges or massed cannon firing. Nonetheless, Stuart managed to put on a good show. An officer on Longstreet’s staff swore it was a “sight … not soon to be forgotten.” Lee concurred, describing the review as “a splendid sight” and noting that “Stuart was all in his glory.”

Lee returned to his headquarters already thinking about his next move. In a letter written earlier that day to Secretary of War Seddon, he had urged that “every exertion [be] made to obtain some material advantage in this campaign.” The next steps were fixed: Ewell would march north into the Shenandoah Valley, with Longstreet following after Pickett
arrived; Stuart’s horsemen would screen the eastern side of the movement. It was all timed to get under way on June 9.

By June 6, George Sharpe and his staff at the Bureau of Military Information had worked up revised organizational tables for Lee’s army. Among those briefed on the changes was Hooker’s provost marshal, whose notes indicated that “Longstreet’s & Jackson’s Old Corps are divided into 3, Ewell taking Jackson’s and A. P. Hill having added to his Division to make up a … Corps.” Ironically, this intelligence coup would help to mislead Hooker into accepting the testimony of prisoners captured by Sedgwick’s men, who provided a ready explanation for the disappearance of the bivouacs. According to Hooker’s interrogation summary, “The changes remarked in the camps proceeded from the reorganization of their army, and the assignment of them to new camps.”

In ordering the probe across the Rappahannock, Hooker had authorized John Sedgwick to throw his entire “corps over the river, if necessary,” but the cautious Sixth Corps commander was having none of that. He limited the number of men holding the bridgehead to about a division’s worth, advising Hooker that any further effort would ignite “a general fight.” New information that had come in was demanding Hooker’s complete attention, so he allowed Sedgwick to maintain what he held. To the Sixth Corps infantrymen posted on the southern bank, the sudden inactivity made no sense. “If we were going to attack, why wait?” wondered a Vermont soldier. “If not, what are we going to do?”

The new intelligence that Hooker was pondering concerned the concentration of Confederate cavalry near Culpeper. The usually perceptive George Sharpe badly misread the situation this time. He was convinced, as he told Hooker on June 7, that Stuart was preparing for a big cavalry raid—”the most important expedition ever attempted in this country.” At the same time, Sharpe predicted that Lee’s infantry (most of which he believed to be still near Fredericksburg) would soon “fall back upon Richmond and thence reinforce their armies in the west.” Forgotten in the processing of all the new data was Sharpe’s own previous conclusion that a northward movement of Lee’s army was in the offing. Hooker sent Sharpe’s assessment to Washington with a covering note suggesting that he was planning a preemptive “bust … up” of Stuart’s concentration.

on June 7, Hooker sent detailed instructions to his cavalry commander, Major General Alfred Pleasonton. Using all his mounted units,
Pleasonton was to “cross the Rappahannock at Beverly and Kelly’s Fords, and march directly on Culpeper.” His objective was “to disperse and destroy the rebel force assembled in the vicinity of Culpeper.” To ensure that all mounted units could participate, Hooker dispatched a picked force of infantry to protect the fords behind the cavalry. Pleasonton was primed for action: “My people are all ready to pitch in,” he assured Hooker.

Throughout the morning of June 8, as Lee watched Stuart’s cavalry pass in review, the Yankee horsemen made ready for battle. At 2:00
P.M.,
the mounted columns were formed and moved up close to their assigned crossing points. The hard-marching infantry arrived as scheduled. Everything was set.

It was an uncomfortable night for the Union soldiers. No fires were allowed, so the men ate their rations cold and tried to sleep on the hard ground. Whispered orders brought the riders to horse at 2:00
A.M.,
June 9. By 4:00
A.M.,
the lead regiments were at the fords, ready to go.

Robert E. Lee may have had his own plans for June 9, but Joseph Hooker’s would supersede them.

Everybody was surprised at Brandy Station, though for different reasons: Stuart because he had never imagined that the Yankee cavalry would attack, and Pleasonton because Stuart was not where he was supposed to be. The Union plan called for two columns to cross the Rappahannock, unite at Brandy Station, and then attack the Rebel cavalry camps, which were thought to be near Culpeper. But Stuart was actually bivouacked around Brandy Station, so the Federal columns hit enemy strength immediately upon crossing the river, prompting Pleasonton to notify Hooker that their plans had been compromised. Nevertheless, the Union troopers did have the advantage of striking first.

Just after dawn, Pleasonton’s northern column, an augmented division under John Buford, rolled over a company of Virginia cavalry posted at Beverly’s Ford before drawing up near St. James Church, where a hastily cobbled together defensive line, spiked with artillery and bolstered by several costly counterattacks, brought the advance to a halt. Pleasonton’s two-division southern column, using Kelly’s Ford, delayed crossing until nearly 9:00
A.M.
because the leading unit was late. Once across, the Federals, commanded by Brigadier General David McMurtrie Gregg, separated, with one portion pushing due west to Stevensburg while the other took a road leading north to Brandy Station.

As soon as he got over his initial surprise, Jeb Stuart was cool enough. He sent his wagons back to Culpeper, ordered some units to Kelly’s Ford, and then rode to St. James Church with reinforcements. What Stuart could not have anticipated was that the troopers he had sent to Kelly’s Ford would, by taking the direct road, miss the Federal column moving in the opposite direction on a secondary lane. Lee’s cavalry chief got his next jolt when frantic couriers arrived around noon with word that the Yankee riders were well in his rear and closing on Brandy Station.

Stuart promptly released regiments from the St. James front, sending them off to the threatened point. The two sides met at Fleetwood Hill, where, for the next few hours, mounted charge was met by mounted charge as men on horseback flailed, stabbed, slashed, and shot at one another. The broad slope of Fleetwood Hill presented a churning panorama of small units engaged in clanging combat while around them terrified, riderless horses reared and galloped in every direction. The
portion of Gregg’s force that had marched west to Stevensburg was bluffed into retreating by a smaller enemy party and then countermarched to add its strength to the efforts at Fleetwood.

Stuart’s northern flank began to collapse at about 3:30
P.M.
as the alert Buford, sensing that his enemy was weakening, increased the pressure and began to make gains. But even as his men approached victory on the northern slope of Fleetwood Hill, Buford received orders from Pleasonton to break off the action. The Federal cavalry commander was satisfied that he had carried out his mission. By 9:00
P.M.,
the last bluecoat soldier capable of doing so had retired to the opposite bank of the Rappahannock.

Stuart had managed matters fairly well. He had been surprised but had regained sufficient poise effectively to handle each crisis in turn. Even though thousands of Rebel infantrymen had been positioned just a few miles west of the fighting, none had been brought into action. Lee had moved some units to within easy supporting distance, but in the end Stuart had handled the affair using solely his own resources. The best guess on his casualties was about 523 killed, wounded, missing, or captured.

In a terse summary of the day’s events that was telegraphed to Richmond, Lee omitted any mention of his preparations to move north, or of the one-day delay imposed by Pleasonton’s incursion. Instead, he reported that prisoners from two Union infantry corps had been captured in the fighting, and that there were unconfirmed indications of two more corps nearby. Once again, the implication was that his movements had been undertaken more to counter these Federal deployments than to pursue any initiative of his own. But few in Richmond were buying what Lee was selling. War Department clerk Jones, writing on June 9 and knowing only of the river crossing at Fredericksburg, observed that “Lee is ‘marching on,’ northward, utterly regardless of the demonstration of Hooker.”

Pleasonton, the Union cavalry commander, would later recount his version of the Brandy Station engagement with the full benefit of hindsight. His sole object had been reconnaissance, he would insist, so his failure to break up the Rebel concentration was in fact no failure at all. Pleasonton would also claim to have captured documents disclosing Lee’s intention to invade the North. This evidence existed only in Pleasonton’s mind, however, for an examination made long afterward found nothing in this material to substantiate his statement. One partial bit of intelligence did come from David Gregg, who spotted Southern railroad cars suitable for carrying infantry. Union losses in all categories were tallied at 866.

Back at Fredericksburg, Hooker maintained Sedgwick’s position on the southern side of the river. While the Sixth Corps men exchanged sniper fire with the Confederates who were hemming them in, Hooker finished his Brandy Station summary. In a report sent directly to President Lincoln, he predicted that the Rebel cavalry “raid” would be delayed at least a “few days.” He remained convinced that Ewell’s and Hill’s troops faced him at Fredericksburg, though he was now willing to concede that another infantry corps was likely stretched out between Gordonsville and Culpeper. He thought he might be able to use the Sixth Corps bridgehead to “throw a sufficient force over the river to compel the enemy to abandon his present position,” and from there threaten Richmond. Hooker wondered if such a course would be within the ground rules imposed on him by Washington.