Brandy Station: The Largest Cavalry Battle Of The American Civil War | History Of Warfare | Timeline

The thunder of hooves which shook the peaceful Virginia air on the morning of June 9th, 1863 was the herald of the largest cavalry battle ever fought on American soil. By evening, the untarnished reputation of the Confederate cavalry under Jeb Stuart had begun to fade a little, but even as the rebel star began to wane, a new name had begun its meteoric rise to fame, a name that would forever grace America's Military Hall of Fame, George Armstrong Custer. On the 5th of June, 1863, General Jeb Stuart held a grand review of the cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia. Ten thousand hard-bitten veterans of the Confederacy paraded past the salutary base and performed a number of exercises to the accompaniment of cannon fire and cheering from the assembled crowds. In the evening, a grand ball was held. These men had enjoyed an uninterrupted series of victories over their Yankee counterpart, stretching back unbroken to 1861. And they were justifiably proud of their own record and the glittering reputation of their illustrious commander, J.E.B. Stuart, better known to history as Jeb. This was to be the finest hour for his command, the absolute zenith of Southern confidence and pride in Southern arms. The glittering review of the 5th, however, was not graced by the revered figure of Robert E. Lee, a man idolized and worshipped by his men. Lee had been engaged elsewhere on important business. Undeterred, Stuart organized a second grand review for the sole benefit of the great general on the 8th of June. The whole glittering spectacle was once again followed by another ball. This conspicuous excess caused a few eyebrows to be raised, especially among those who began to wonder if Stuart's eyes might have been diverted from his real purpose by the seductive allure of the pomp and splendor of martial display. Not for nothing was the phrase, pride comes before a fall, bandied around the army. These dark mutterings were loud enough to reach even the ears of Major Haros Von Bork, the inspector general of the rebel cavalry. They grumbled at the useless waste of energy, especially that of the horses. Furthermore, they complained that the command was being worried out by a military foppery and display. What had been called the finest light cavalry in the world, appeared to be in danger of overconfidence. Cavalrymen, by their very nature, are filled with dash, drive, the idea of being very impressive to the ladies and so forth. So, you can say right through history there have been examples of cavalry, shall we put it, getting out of control, maybe, and part of that will be due to their sublime self-confidence. I can say that as a person who knows many modern cavalry officers here at Santos, for example. They are of a type. Examples? You've got the Scots Greys, of course, at Waterloo, not stopping at their objective but charging straight on to the enemy guns and thereby being massacred, who have very much the same thing happening, of course, at Balaclava under different circumstances. Cavalry again carrying out an impossible order, but with big dash, panache, bravado, but it's a fact. A lot of cavalry, particularly light cavalry, the heavier ones seem to be rather more, shall we say, careful about that. If you love history, then you will love History Hit. Our extensive library of documentary features everything from the ancient origins of our earliest ancestors to the daring mission to sink the Bismarck. History Hit has hundreds of exclusive documentaries with unrivaled access to the world's best historians. We're committed to bringing history fans award-winning documentaries and podcasts that you cannot find anywhere else. Sign up now for a free trial and Timeline fans get 50% off their first three months. Just be sure to use the code TIMELINE at checkout. ...military, but you do have a penchant, as cavalrymen of all countries, of all ages, light cavalrymen, of the slightly, shall we say, devil-may-care. But it is strange that history has got quite a few examples, and indeed the Gettysburg campaign has one too, of cavalry going out on great, what you might call, military parades really, rather than anything totally useful for the war. There's a great case of John of Gaunt's Grand Chevauxer, or Great Horse Ride, in the 14th century, when he went right through the centre of France for about four weeks and came back to the way it started off with, having fought no battle, having burnt no villages, having done nothing at all except possibly impress the local people with the splendour of the cavalry. We may well find Jeb Stuart before this, as a result of the Battle of Brandy Station, being tempted to do something of the same sort in 1863. There was indeed an element of conspicuous display on the part of the Confederates, which in military terms could probably be justified by the boost it gave to the morale of the men. The 10,000 horsemen gathered together by Stuart was to be the largest ever assembled by the Confederacy, and they undoubtedly made an imposing presence. But the ostentatious show of June 5th did not go unmissed by the Federal Intelligence Network. John Buford, the commander of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division only 12 miles away at Warrington Junction, filed this fairly accurate report on June 5th. All of the available cavalry of the Confederacy is in Culpeper County. Stuart, the two Lees, Roberts and Jenkins, and Jones are all there. The Confederate cavalry force, which so concerned Buford, had won its spurs the hard way in two years of battle with the numerically stronger and even better supplied enemy. That's not to say, however, that Stuart's men were without fault. They were hard fighters for sure, but they were also highly undisciplined with a large streak of arrogance which showed from the top down, and this could lead to moments of extreme discomfort for the Confederate high command. Their lack of discipline sprang chiefly from the fact that they were all volunteers who supplied their own horses. They were there because they believed in their cause and because they wanted to be. The superior attitude of the Confederate cavalry with regard to their own merits is best summed up by one who was there. George Baylor fought throughout the war in the ranks of the 12th Virginia Cavalry. Although he was of English extraction, by 1863 Baylor was nonetheless as loyal a rebel soldier as any. He described in his memoirs the reaction of the proud rebel cavalrymen to the arrival of a rule-bound brigadier general. One morning, just prior to the Culpeper fight, I was surprised at the number of absentees during roll call in Company B. I frankly disclosed the fact that some of these boys had gone home, some to get fresh horses, others to get winter clothing, and I assured him that they would be back in a few days. The general then said, ''You think they'll ever come back?'' To which I replied indignantly, ''I know that they will come back. They are gentlemen.'' ''Well,'' said the downy general, ''I will have some of these gentlemen shot.'' I mounted and returned to camp, consoling myself with the thought that if any of those gentlemen were shot, then a general, not so much a gentleman, would be shot also. The Confederate army was, of course, a rebel army, and rebel armies right through history have had a tendency towards indiscipline, though not, I must say, in every single case. But for good examples, there's the period of the Jacobite revolt in the 45, when although the rebel Scots Highlanders did not actually loot much in their advance to Derby, yet they tended to go home when they felt things were going a bit adverse for the cause. And the same thing had happened in the previous century at Sedgmore, when Lord Favisham suddenly finds that he's facing Monmouth's army, which had been something like 6,000 only two weeks before. He's only got 4,000 facing him at the Battle of Sedgmore, because again, they've gone home. Other examples that spring to mind, of course, is Washington's Continental Army, which in its early days was highly indisciplined. Indeed, there were a number of major mutinies and officer mutinies of that, not the rank and file, refusing to soldier anymore, words to that effect. Garibaldi had a great deal of trouble in Italy with many aspects, many sections of his red shirts. They were free men fighting for a cause, and they believed, therefore, their interpretation of their role was very much up to them. And that tends to be a feature of rebel armies. And of course, there are other examples of very highly disciplined rebel troops. I can't imagine anything more disciplined than Oliver Cromwell's Ironside, a heavy Carassier cavalry in the English Civil War. They would rally after the charge, ready to fight again, and were way ahead in terms of professionalism than Prince Rupert's famous dashing cavaliers, who never knew when to stop, but would disappear off the battlefield after a local success to go and loot the baggage and things of that nature. So you have to be careful here. It goes either way. So in general terms, it is true to say that cavalry of a rebel army, and indeed the infantry of a rebel army for that matter, too, have a tendency to be indisciplined. Despite this lack of polish, the Confederate cavalry had proved more than a match for the Union horsemen in every battlefield so far in the war. They looked upon the Yankees with undisguised scorn and considered themselves so superior to the Federal cavalry that it was almost beneath contempt, a mounted joke to be ridiculed and made fun of at every turn. Baylor summed up the superior attitude of the rebels in his memoirs when he mischievously related the confusion caused in the mind of the U.S. Brigadier General White, discomforted by the presence of a much smaller force of rebel cavalry at Winchester in 1862. The Yankee pickets an outpost with daily attack and communication between Winchester and Harpers Ferry broken. General White, unable to keep the way open, became so much alarmed that after sparking many of his larger guns and destroying a large amount of his ammunition, he hastily evacuated Winchester, retiring on Harpers Ferry. Now, actually threatening him were about 100 men of our company, but this is how he described us in his letter to General Halleck, Martinsburg, West Virginia, September 6th, 1862. General, I have the honour to report that in accordance with the telegraphic order of Major General Halleck, the troops under my command evacuated the fortifications near Winchester, Virginia, falling back on Harpers Ferry without opposition. Owing to the authenticated presence of three or four brigades of the enemy in the valley, it was impracticable to bring all the government property accumulated at the post. For why? He magnified one company into three brigades, and in his great haste to get away, his imagination created intentions and embodied things unknown to him. To a large extent, Baylor's mock sympathy was not altogether misplaced. The Federal cavalry had indeed performed very poorly so far in the war. They were easily spooked and quick to retreat. Numerous shake-ups, changes, and rearrangements had all failed to produce results. On the eve of the Battle of Brandy Station, the latest set of changes had just taken place, with Alfred Pleasanton assuming command of the Federal Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac, a force of some 11,000 men whom he found in a very sorry state. In taking this command, I cannot do myself such an injustice as to remain silent as to the unsatisfactory condition in which I find this Corps. I shall use every exertion to bring it to a state of efficiency at the earliest possible moment. So dismal was the performance of the Federal Cavalry that the favorite rhetorical question asked by the long-suffering infantrymen had become, whoever saw a dead cavalryman? This hoary old line had even been uttered by generals of repute, Hooker included, who was less than complimentary towards the cavalry arm. In his reply to Pleasanton's initial dismal report on the cavalry corps, he replied, The general desires that you will spare no labor to place the cavalry in a high state of efficiency at the earliest practicable moment. He cannot but feel that the force of this arm has been greatly impaired from want of system, organization, and judicious employment. If the overall performance of the cavalry corps was less than outstanding, it was not for want of good material. Properly led and organized, the men were undoubtedly capable of great feats of valor. In their ranks were some very brave and courageous young soldiers, among them the young George Armstrong Custer, who had become an American legend in the war. But even his youthful vigor and unflinching bravery were tinged by naivete. In the early years of the war, the inexperienced young men who composed the bulk of the Federal Cavalry Corps were always likely to be outfought by their proud foe, for whom the horse was a way of life. He left us this account of his first action. I realized that I was in front of a company of old and experienced soldiers, all of whom would have an eye upon their new lieutenant to see how he comported himself when under fire. As we rode toward the enemy on the other side of the hill, Lieutenant Walker anxiously inquired of me, Custer, what weapon are you going to use in the charge? From my earliest notions of the true cavalryman, I'd always pictured him bearing aloft his curved saber and cleaving the skulls of all that came in contact with him. So I promptly replied, the saber. Oh, but could you have seen some of the charges that were made? While thinking of them, I cannot but exclaim, glorious war. At this stage in that glorious war, the vice-like hands of economic strangulation had yet to fasten upon the Confederacy. Southern spirits were still high, and these high spirits were echoed in the ranks of the leaders. The revered leader of the horsemen against whom the young Custer would be pitted was Jeb Stuart. In 1863, Stuart was approaching the pinnacle of his fame. He basked in the public adoration which resulted from the undisputed superiority his Confederate cavalry enjoyed over its federal opponents. With Stuart in Culpeper County were five full cavalry brigades, each of about 2,000 men. They were supported by a battalion of horse artillery numbering 24 guns, with a further four guns permanently attached to Jones' brigade. In command of the first brigade was Brigadier General Wade Hampton. Next came Brigadier General Fitzhugh Lee, the second son of Robert E. Lee. In command of the third brigade was his cousin Rooney Lee, nephew of the great commander. Brigadier William Jones, better known as Grumble, commanded the next brigade. And finally, there was Beverly Robertson's brigade. Jeb Stuart, the leader of this grand assembly, was a colorful man whose cavalier attitude and love of life could be seen in his love of music. Attached to Stuart's command was a virtuoso banjo player by the name of Samson D. Sweeney. Nominally, he was a courier, but in reality, he was the key to bringing color and life to an otherwise drab military scene, a musician par excellence who lifted the spirits of all who heard him. Stuart loved his banjo music and would command Sweeney to play for them at every available opportunity. Wherever Stuart went, Sweeney went too. Esten Cook, a member of Stuart's staff, recollected the man. Stuart's banjo player, Sweeney, was the constant inmate of his tent. He rode behind him on the march and went with him to social gatherings. Stuart wrote his most important dispatches and correspondence with the rattle of the gay instrument stunning everybody. Stuart would turn around from his work, burst into a laugh, and join up roariously in Sweeney's chorus. If ever the spirit of wild and hilarious mirth spoke from any instrument, it spoke from the notes of Sweeney's banjo. Wild and hilarious indeed was the spirit of Jeb Stuart, and his men loved him for it. The soldiers of the Federal Cavalry Corps, on the other hand, had little opportunity to grow to love their commanders. The frequent changes as the Federal High Command searched in vain for a winning combination meant that there was little opportunity to develop a rapport between the commanders and their men. General Alfred Pleasanton, who now commanded the Northern Cavalry Corps, had taken over from General Stoneman on May 22nd, only 17 days before the Battle of Brandy Station. Pleasanton's command was organized into three divisions of cavalry, each amounting to about 3,000 men. In theory, they were supported by a division of horse artillery, amounting to around 58 guns, although only 12 were actually present at the Battle of Brandy Station. The first of Pleasanton's divisions was commanded by Brigadier General John Buford. Next came the division of Brigadier General David Gregg. The third division was commanded by a Frenchman, Brigadier General Alfred Dufay. Also attached to Pleasanton for Brandy Station were two weak brigades of infantry commanded by Brigadier Generals Russell and Amos. These were attached to Buford and Gregg, respectively. Despite his extreme youth, Custer had already begun to shine in battle, and the active Pleasanton warmed to the young man and recruited him to his staff. In return, Custer gave the officer his unequivocal support and admiration. The day I rode into Camp Thalmuth, I was summoned to the headquarters tent of the First Cavalry Division, there to be greeted by Brigadier General Pleasanton. Curly, he said, I want you to be my special aid. I'll make no bones about it, you're a man after my own heart. Pure rambunction. Well, will you accept? Indeed I will, sir, I answered at once, and we shook on it. These were the men of the Great Cavalry Forces, which were gathered together on June 9, 1863. They were the largest body of horse soldiers who would ever be brought against each other in America. But the cavalry, as an important branch of the army, was already in decline by the 1860s. It had been eclipsed by the greater firepower of the infantry. And by comparison with the vast infantry forces on the move in the procedure to Gettysburg, the cavalry forces seemed almost modest. In the vicinity of Culpeper County, Robert E. Lee had gathered his 60,000-strong Army of Northern Virginia together for a second invasion of the North. Opposing him was General Joe Hooker, with 110,000 effectives. By invading the North, Lee hoped to lure Hooker away from Richmond, thus taking the Federal pressure off the hard-pressed capital of the Confederacy. After the hard-won Confederate victory at Chancellorsville, the Yankees had been content to occupy well-fortified positions and wait. Regardless of the Federal strength in numbers, the Confederates felt that provided they could lure the Federal army into the open, they could defeat the Yankees once more. Lee therefore sought to provoke a pitched battle by moving north and encouraging the Yankees to leave their defenses. He knew if he threatened the North, they could not stay dug in and would be forced to follow. Lee was to achieve his objective, but the outcome would be rather different from the he had intended, for the drive north would produce the terrible three-day Battle of Gettysburg, the beginning of the end for the South. Before that dramatic event, however, there was the small matter of the great cavalry battle at Brandy Station to be settled first. Having got wind of Lee's planned invasion of the North, the commander of the Army of the Potomac, Major General Fighting Joe Hooker, knew that he had to act swiftly to prevent a recurrence of the unfortunate events of the Chancellorsville Campaign. Hooker therefore ordered Pleasanton with the Federal Cavalry Corps to attack Stewart's Cavalry Corps, which had been masked for its ill-advised review in Culpeper County. With their inferior numbers, the rebels fought a mobile war. Stewart's cavalry was the eyes and ears of the rebel army on the march, and Hooker knew that their destruction would seriously hamper, if not avert, the proposed invasion. Federal intelligence believed the rebel cavalry to be still massed near Culpeper Courthouse, Virginia, a pleasant rural area of verdant farmland, ideally suited for cavalry actions. Pleasanton therefore planned to trap his adversary in a three-pronged attack. Crossing Beverly's Ford on the early morning of June 9th, 1863, would be Buford's Division, supported by Amos's Brigade of Infantry. They would clear away any opposition, then move to Culpeper. To the south at Kelly's Ford, two further divisions under Dufay and Gregg, with Russell's Infantry, would also advance into Confederate lines. Dufay was to make for Stevensburg, then head north to rendezvous with Buford in the vicinity of Brandy Station. Following Dufay was to be Gregg's Division. These men would complete the third arm of the combined thrust on Brandy Station. Once joined, the three columns would move upon the main rebel body, thought to be at Culpeper Courthouse. As aid to Pleasanton, George Armstrong Custer was present at the briefing, and later recalled the scene in his memoirs. Al, the G.I.C. said, our scouts report that Lee is moving up the east side of the Blue Ridge Mountains towards Harper's Ferry. We can only suspect by this that he's planning another invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania. We've got to stop him before he crosses the Potomac. Jeb Stewart is protecting his right with 10,000 horse. Knock out Stewart, and you paralyze Lee. He can't advance without mounted protection and support, nor can he be guided with any degree of certainty. Knock him out, I say. That's the time and place to hit him. If you can't cut him to pieces, at least shake him up. Put him on the run, harass him, anything to stop Lee dead in his tracks. Take your entire corps and leave tomorrow. And bear in mind, Al, the element of surprise is essential to our success. The element of surprise, however, was not to be the sole preserve of the Yankees. Almost as soon as they were laid, federal plans began to go awry. Stewart's cavalry was not at Culpeper Courthouse as Hooker thought. They were in fact camped around the fields of Brandy Station. The clash of arms would come much sooner than expected. Clausewitz, the famous Prussian military philosopher of earlier in the 19th century, talks a great deal about the effects of friction and uncertainty in war. If you like the muddle factor, which almost always comes about. Vomolka, a little later than the American Civil War, would again say very sensibly, no plan survives the first five minutes of battle, because war is very much the realm of the unexpected. Sometimes you get mutual surprise, as in this case at Brandy Station, when really both sides wander into each other and then suddenly find themselves in a military situation which neither had foreseen. One of the major roles of cavalry, as we have already said, is reconnaissance in battle. But here you have both cavalrymen. Jeb Stewart, the most famous cavalryman of his particular generation in America, and Pleasanton, the commander of the Union cavalry. Each of them really charged with the duty of looking out and finding out about the enemy's army, wherever it happens to be, blundering into each other as if by fate. But then of course Jeb Stewart has this very flashy tendency. He wants to be a Prince Murat. All cavalrymen of this period were absolutely adored Prince Murat's reputation from the Napoleonic period, full of dashing beautiful uniforms or playing the actual banjo or whatever it happens to be. This was meant to be the mentality, mental ethos of a cavalry commander. So I think in this case, both these two generals, Jeb Stewart perhaps more than Pleasanton on points, allowed themselves to be taken completely by surprise. By the capricious hand of Providence, the entire rebel cavalry corps had planned to cross the Rappahannock River by the same ford as the Union foes on exactly the same day. This had been intended as a prelude to a move to screen the right of Lee's army as it moved north. So the rebels were not at Culpeper Courthouse where the Yankees expected to find them on the morning of June 9th, but at Brandy Station in preparation of a move to cross the same river as the Yankees. The stage was now set for a titanic cavalry clash. Custer's letter to his wife Libby, written on the eve of the engagement, recalls the tension of the coming battle. I will wake the general at 2 a.m and at 4 we cross the Rappahannock to strike at Brandy Station and at Culpeper. I'm in excellent health and spirits and I'm feeling as fit as a fiddle and never felt better in my life. But the chance of my being killed tomorrow is just as great as ever before. In case anything happens to me, burn all my letters. Although the federal plan of action appeared fairly straightforward on paper, in practice, as always in life, the reality was far less simple. Greg, who was to cross at Kelly's Ford and take the rebels from the south, had intended Duffey's division to precede his own column. But the Frenchman's division got lost en route to Kelly's Ford and there was a long delay as Duffey's troops marched and counter-marched, trying to find the right crossing point. There was a great deal of confusion as troops milled back and forth. So it was well after 9 a.m by the time Greg's command crossed the Ford, by which time Buford's column to the north was already engaged in action against the Confederates. The Battle of Brandy Station had begun. To the north of the tardy columns of Duffey and Greg, Buford had crossed the Ford and begun to form his lead brigade ready for action. As the early morning mist cleared around them, the federal troopers were greeted with the sight of a tempting target, the South Carolina Artillery Camp. The Confederate pickets managed to raise the alarm, but only just in time. Caught completely unawares, the men of the South Carolina Horse Artillery were hastily attempting to withdraw their guns. The sudden appearance of the Yankees had led their half-dressed crews to leap from their bivouacs. None of Stewart's guns had ever been captured and the frantic gunners were doing their best to avoid being the first. The Union cavalry had succeeded in fighting their way right up to the Confederate guns, but they were forced back by the staunch resistance of the gunners and by accurate sustained musket fire from dismounted Confederate cavalrymen hurriedly thrown together. Fortunately, in their hour of need, help was at hand and as the Yankees charged among the guns, they were met by men from the 6th Virginia Cavalry of Rumble Jones's Brigade and a fierce hand-to-hand engagement broke out which became a running battle as more Union troops were fed into the battle, only to be matched by fresh rebel cavalry. The fierce action was described by George Bailey. Early on the morning of the 9th, the ball was opened north of Brownlee Station, the enemy driving in our pickets and attacking the reserve of the 6th Virginia Cavalry about 6 a.m. Our regiment was capped nearby and was pacing forward to reinforce the 6th and the fight soon became animated. Charge and counter charge, first one side then the other being the victor. Our first onset was with the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry and as we drove them back from our guns which were almost in their grasp to the woods from which they'd emerged, another regiment issues forth their aid, met and repulsed our attack and they soon themselves were repulsed. These charges and counter charges continued till noon without any decisive advantage to either side but with considerable loss to both in men and horses. As Baylor recorded, the action soon became general and charge followed counter charge. A huge running fight developed and the rebels were hard pressed. As urgently needed reinforcements arrived, they were fed piecemeal into battle as quickly as possible by the harassed staff of Stuart's headquarters based around St. James's Church. But gradually, a Confederate line of defense was drawn up which prevented any further Yankee advance toward Culpeper. By now it was obvious that the Federal Cavalry would not penetrate the Confederate lines by a direct assault. Pleasanton therefore ordered Buford to open a new line of attack on the Confederate positions by way of Fleetwood Hill in order to outflank the rebels. Percy Windham's brigade was dispatched to complete the job. At any moment, Pleasanton expected Dufay and Gregg to arrive from the south which he felt would prove too great a shock for the Confederates to withstand. The trap was about to be sprung. Unaware of the danger which threatened from the south, Stuart was frantically bringing up his remaining brigades to feed into the battle. But in the meantime, his defenders on Fleetwood Hill were stretched desperately thin. Pleasanton's decision to attack Fleetwood Hill was an inspired one, although even he could not have known that the rebel lines were so thinly spread on Fleetwood Hill and that only a single gun lay between them and disaster. As Rooney Lee struggled to reorganize and move from Ewe Ridge in the north to take up position on the threatened hill, the approach of the Yankee Cavalry was stayed by a single rebel gun, frantically wheeled into position at the desperate urging of Major McClellan of Stuart's headquarter staff. There was no rebel cavalry anywhere near, but a few rounds fired at long range proved sufficient to convince Windham that other guns lay behind the crest and that he could be riding into a trap. Windham therefore halted his men to ensure that they were deployed properly and his own guns brought up prior to the charge. This vital delay brought the necessary relief to the Confederates and in those few desperate moments, help arrived in the form of a detachment of the 12th Virginia Cavalry. Filling the gap just in time, the rebels charged up one side of Fleetwood Hill just as Percy Windham released his lead regiment, the 1st New Jersey, on the other. Completely unaware of the proximity of the other, both sides hurtled towards the crest. The rebels reached the crest first, but the Yankees were not far off. George Baylor was with the 12th Virginia. When the summit of Fleetwood Hill was gained, we discovered the enemy, which proved to be the 1st Maryland coming up the southern slope in platoons with its flags and guidons fluttering in the breeze, closely followed by the 1st Pennsylvania and the 1st New Jersey on our left. These federal regiments presented a beautiful, but awe-inspiring sight to our little troop, but Lieutenant Roos, in obedience to orders, gave the command to charge, and down the slope we darted, striking into the head of the column, thrown in and around in confusion. But our success was short-lived, for the 1st Pennsylvania, now charging by force of numbers, pressed our company back up to the top of the hill. When the residue of the 12th regiment came up, the fight for possession of the hill became general. Once again, the battle had become a desperate man-to-man struggle, with widespread and confused fighting as each side strove for superiority. But there was worse still to come for the southerners. At this desperate juncture, Greg finally arrived with the additional federal troops of the U.S. 2nd Division. Things now looked desperate. Steward-in-command of the Rebel cavalry was stunned and taken completely by surprise. Early on the morning of the 9th, he had dispatched Beverly Robertson's cavalry brigade to cover the crossing over the river at Kelly's Fort. Robertson was aware of the huge federal force crossing the river, but had done nothing to prevent their movement to the west. Greg was therefore able to join the battle at the worst possible moment for Stewart. Stewart was livid at the appearance of the federal cavalry that Robertson had been detailed to halt. After the battle, Stewart was highly critical of Robertson's inactivity, which had left his column exposed at a critical moment. His own report left an ominous question mark for Robertson to fill. Robertson kept the enemy in check on Kelly's Ford Road, but did not conform to the movement of the enemy to the right of which he was cognizant, so as to hold him in check or thwart him by a corresponding move of a portion of his command in the same direction. His detailed report will, I hope, account for this. Regardless of the reasons, Greg's unexpected arrival was a major blow to Stewart's command, which was now fighting for its life. The general himself was seen in the thick of the fight, which was carried on with the sword, firearms, rifles, and any other weapon the men could find. Eventually, experience told, and the battle gradually went the way of the more experienced Confederates. But it was to be a near-run thing, as Baylor recalled. General Stewart in person now joined us in the fight, and the contest was renewed with increased vigor under General Stewart's personal leadership, without much regimental or company organization, but more as a bodyguard. Several times enemy reached our guns, which had taken a position on the hill, and become our rallying point, but after a desperate struggle, had been driven back in confusion and with great loss. We were now fighting Greg's entire division of cavalry and Russell's brigade of infantry. At this juncture, the 6th, 7th, and 11th Virginia Cavalry of our brigade came up and charged an enemy, captured their guns, and drove them back away from Grandy Station, causing Greg to retreat in rout and confusion. And so the day's fight was virtually ended. Now it was the turn of the Confederates to charge the Union artillery, and once again their greater experience made them equal to the task. The 6th Virginia Cavalry, better known as the Comanches for their fierce hand-to-hand fights, rode straight through a detachment of three guns from Captain Martin's 6th New York Battalion, killing 30 of the 36 gunners and capturing the guns. The fierce fight was described by Thomas Kitchen, a New Jersey officer. One rebel sabred three gunners and seemed almost supernatural. There was no call for a surrender or offer of one until nearly all our men were killed or wounded. As the Southerners gained ground and the battle gradually turned in favor of Stuart's men, the Federal Cavalry was saved from out-and-out disaster by a brilliant charge by the 1st Maine Cavalry. These men, known as the Puritans for their sober disposition, relieved the Southern pressure which had begun to look ominous. So the Battle of Grandy Station drew to a close. The Union commanders felt that they had achieved all they were going to. Their men were fought out and the exhausted rebels were clearly going to allow them to withdraw in good order. Buford took his weary troopers back over Beverly's Ford, while Greg in the untouched columns of Dufay crossed back by the Rappahannock Ford. The tired men of Stuart's command simply let them go. This time there would be no rout of the Yankees. We'd fought all day without anything to eat or drink. There was no food or water for our horses. We were glad of the opportunity for both to get refreshment. The loss to our cause was severe, both in men and in horses, but not as severe as that of the enemy. General Pleasanton admits a loss of 907, while General Stuart reports his loss of 480. There were other battles during the war between opposing cavalry forces where equally as large numbers were involved, but they were fought in large part by dismounted cavalry. Brownie Station was unique in the fact that it was a distinctly cavalry fight. While the enemy's cavalry and infantry had suffered a repulse and a severe loss, the cavalry had gained confidence in themselves, and this body of men who prior to this time had afforded us more amusement than work now emerged as a body of men who would be foemen worthy of our steel. Brandy Station marked a turning point in the fortunes of the federal cavalry. No longer would they be seen as inferior citizens. For Jeb Stuart, too, his personal status had taken a first major blow. A previously subservient press began to criticize his command. The Richmond Observer commented, The more the circumstances of the late affair of Brandy Station are considered, the less pleasant do they appear. If this was an isolated case, it might be excused under the convenient head of an accident or chance, but this much-puffed cavalry of Northern Virginia have been twice, if not three times, surprised since the battles of last December, and such repeated accidents can be regarded as nothing but the necessary consequences of negligence and bad management. Now, if the war was a tournament invented and supported for the pleasure and profit of a few vain and weak-headed officers, well, these disasters might be dismissed with compassion, but the country pays dearly for the blunders which encourage the enemy to overrun and devastate the land with a cavalry which is daily learning to despise the mounted troops of the Confederacy. It is high time that this branch of the service be reformed. Jeb Stuart, being a very colorful character, was also a very touchy one, and believing that he'd been slighted by the outcome of Brandy Station, and feeling of his reputation as being the beau sabre of the Confederate Army, and of all the armies of America in that period, he felt he had to re-establish his reputation. So, it seems, although we have no documentary proof of this, that he decided to take his cavalry on a broad show-off sweep through Union territory, way around the behind and the rear of the Union army, instead of carrying out his vital reconnaissance role of passing back information to Robert E. Lee every day, exactly where the enemy were, and where they seemed to be moving towards. He drops the classical role of cavalry before the battle, and Nelson, of course, in the Trafalgar campaign, had always spoken of his frigates as the eyes of the fleet, and similarly, cavalry in the later, mid-19th century, primary duty was reconnaissance role. Stuart, for his own reasons, thought he did better, and as a result, removes all the intelligence data which Lee was desperately waiting for, and only turns up in the end, in the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg, far too late to affect the issue. This is an example of how not to use cavalry in war. If the criticism of Stuart in the newspapers was hard to take, the general quite properly bit his lip, as he knew that things could have been much worse. The third Yankee column under Dufay had played hardly any part in the battle. It had been late in starting, and although he had reached his objective at Stevensburg, Dufay had failed to support Greg in his struggle at Brandy Station, by marching straight to the sound of the guns. Dufay insisted on retracing his steps southward, by which time Greg's men were beyond help. By a combination of ineptitude and bad generalship, Dufay had managed to miss almost the entire battle, a battle in which his intervention, at almost any point, would almost certainly have proved decisive. General Dufay's failure to turn up on the battlefield at a critical time There are plenty of other great examples of this happening in other periods of history. Perhaps the most dramatic one I can bring to mind is that of General Count Derlon, during the Waterloo campaign of 1815. Napoleon decided he wanted to outflank the Prussian position, a classical outflanking type manoeuvre, so sent a message by one of his imperial aides, the Comte, to Marshal Ney, ordering him to detach General Derlon's 1st Corps, to move across country, the six or so miles between Quatre Bras and Ligny, to fall on the flank of Lucas' army. Now the problem here was that the messenger could not find Ney, who being one of those extremely colourful generals, was right up in the front line, covered in battle smoke and hacking at cannons with his sabre and all this kind of thing, and so on his own authority, the aide de corps, which imperial aides were allowed to do, he ordered Derlon, in the name of the emperor, to march off with his corps, which was in the supporting position behind the combat, to go over the hills and far away to Ligny. Now Ney didn't take that too nicely, he took hold of his own chief of staff and sends him rushing across the country to head off Derlon, who was marching towards Ligny, and with an order of immediate recall. Now as a result of this maundering to and fro between the two battlefields, through the afternoon and early evening of the 16th of June 1815, General Derlon does not appear on either battlefield as a fighting force, and the fact is that had he been involved either at Katshubra, as Ney intended, or at Ligny in the role that Poland intended, they would have won the campaign of 100 days. So just as it was the case in 1815, so in 1863 in the Brandy Station episode, you find Duffier playing the role of Derlon, and had Duffier only appeared on that battlefield, they would have been a decisive Union success. But if the news was bad for Stewart, quite the reverse was true for George Armstrong Custer. He had been mentioned in dispatches, cited for gallantry throughout the fight, and already he was on the road to the position of general which he craved. He was to be America's youngest general, and soon the USA would have a new legend. Back at GHQ, General Hooker actually shook my hand and slapped me on the back. Captain, he said, you and General Pleasanton are to be complimented on the successful execution of my orders, and needless to say, I shall have a great deal more for you to do in days to come. I was to be cited for, in the general's words, gallantry throughout the fight. Both sides claimed victory at Brandy Station, and ironically, both were probably right. Tactically, the Confederates won because they held their ground, captured the Federals' guns, and had inflicted twice as many casualties. But the Federals had the strategic victory, because they had finally learned to stand up to the previously invincible Rebel cavalry and fight it out toe-to-toe. Although few could have known it that June evening, as Jeb Stuart surveyed the field of his victory, the high tide of the Confederacy had been reached. The Gettysburg Campaign was just around the corner. There, the Rebel infantry would at last find its match. Today, at Brandy Station, and Custer, and the Federal cavalry, Stuart had his first glimpse of the Rebel cavalry's nemesis. Two years of bitter struggle still lay ahead, but the end was now inevitable. More men, better equipped men, and above all, confident men, led by able young commanders like Custer, would ultimately be the doom of Stuart's brave command.