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  James Ewell Brown Stuart, the preeminent Confederate cavalier. (Cook Collection, Valentine Museum)

  Stuart’s only disappointment was the absence of General Lee, who was involved in getting Dick Ewell’s corps started on its march west from Fredericksburg. Nothing daunted, Stuart scheduled a second grand review, for June 8. Absent civilian spectators, this was less the spectacle of June 5 and more a strictly military exercise. The general commanding would not strain horseflesh or waste gunpowder, so this time there was no mock charge against the guns. Nevertheless, with 10,000 horsemen going through their reviewing evolutions, there was spectacle enough. “It was a splendid sight,” General Lee wrote his wife. “The men & horses looked well…. Stuart was in all his glory.“6

  Orders for the next day called on General Stuart to lead his cavalry division across the Rappahannock to screen the northward march of the infantry. That night, still aglow from the splendor of the review, Stuart allowed his various commands to scatter widely across the landscape so they might conveniently reach the river crossings in parallel columns the next morning, June 9. He made his headquarters bivouac on Fleetwood Hill, an eminence overlooking Brandy Station. If Jeb Stuart gave any thought at all to the enemy that night, he probably focused on just where north of the river he might first encounter the Yankee cavalry.

  At that moment the Yankee cavalry was just barely north of the Rappahannock—quietly massing in great force opposite Beverly Ford and Kelly’s Ford so as to cross the river in the early hours of the morning of June 9 and carry out Joe Hooker’s crisp orders “to disperse and destroy” the Rebel cavalry reported to be “assembled in the vicinity of Culpeper….“7

  The task Hooker had assigned to Alfred Pleasonton was a straightforward one. His was neither an intelligence-gathering mission nor a reconnaissance in force, like Sedgwick’s at Fredericksburg. Instead he was simply to smash up Stuart’s cavalry before it could make any mischief, thereby testing the fighting spirit of the Federal cavalry and its new commander. The right wing of the assault, crossing the Rappahannock at Beverly Ford, was under John Buford, with his own division, the cavalry’s reserve brigade, and a reinforcing brigade of infantry. The left wing, crossing at Kelly’s Ford six miles downstream, was commanded by David Gregg. Gregg had his own division and the division of Alfred Duffié, plus an infantry brigade. The whole force came to some 7,900 cavalry and 3,000 infantry. The two wings were to join at Brandy Station on the railroad—a march of four miles for Buford and eight for Gregg—and then strike out together the six miles to Culpeper and the reported bivouac of the Rebel cavalry. General Pleasonton set the starting time for the crossing at “earliest dawn,” 4:30 A.M. —earlier by a good margin than the time Stuart had set for his river crossing that morning.

  Alfred Pleasonton challenged Stuart’s cavalry at Brandy Station. (Library of Congress)

  As it happened, only half of Pleasonton’s force followed the timetable, which left the whole operation seriously out of balance. At Kelly’s Ford the division of Colonel Duffié was slated to lead the march and act as a flank guard at Stevensburg, south of Brandy Station, to intercept any Confederate reinforcements drawn to the battle. But Duffié was misdirected and did not reach the crossing site until after 6:00 A.M. Gregg’s division, which was intended to link up with Buford at Brandy Station at an early hour, could not complete its river crossing until 9 o’clock. By that time, the Battle of Brandy Station was already four hours old, and was being fought on the Federal side only by John Buford’s forces. 8

  By 5:00 A.M. Buford’s right wing, spearheaded by Benjamin “Grimes” Davis’s brigade, had rushed through streaming white mist obscuring Beverly Ford to seize the crossing with hardly a shot fired. The surprised pickets, a company of 6th Virginia cavalrymen, sent off couriers to raise the alarm and fell back firing before the enemy advance. Their nearest cavalry support was the Virginia brigade of William “Grumble” Jones, encamped at St. James Church some two miles distant. Between the church and the ford were four batteries of Stuart’s horse artillery, casually posted for the planned march north that day and entirely unsupported but for the company of the 6th Virginia on picket duty—which just then was heading for the rear. In a letter home, artillerist Charles Phelps reported that “about daylight the Yanks drove in our Picket stationed at Beverly’s Ford on the Rappahannock and came near surprising us in bed…. They charged up to our camp and killed & wounded several horses before we could get out.”

  That they got out at all was thanks, first, to Captain James Hart, who managed to drag one gun of his South Carolina battery into the roadway and open on the charging Yankee cavalry with canister. Behind this covering fire the rest of the guns were hitched up and started for the rear. At the same time a ragtag body of Rebel troopers, pressed to the front by Grumble Jones to rescue the batteries, rode headlong at the head of the Federal column. These troopers, from the 6th and 7th Virginia, many of them half dressed and some even riding bareback, set back the enemy long enough for the horse artillery to make good its escape and establish a gun line on a ridge near St. James Church. The Federal drive was further disrupted when Grimes Davis, fighting at the head of his brigade, was shot through the head and killed.9

  Thus far the battle was one of mutual surprise—the Confederates startled by the unexpected Federal offensive, the Federals startled to encounter major opposition so far in advance of the Confederate cavalry encampment they had supposed was at Culpeper. Both sides scrambled to reinforce the spreading fight at St. James Church.

  From his headquarters at Fleetwood Hill Jeb Stuart sent couriers flying in every direction—to Beverly Robertson to cover the lower Rappahannock fords, to Fitz Lee’s brigade eight miles in the rear to come to the front, to Rooney Lee to support Grumble Jones on the left, to Wade Hampton near Stevensburg to come up and tie into Jones’s line on the right. General Buford, seeing the Confederate line swelling into a broad arc in front of him, widened his own line to the left by bringing Thomas Devin’s brigade to the front, and his reserve brigade (U.S. regulars and the 6th Pennsylvania) to support the right and center. Buford posted the brigade of his supporting infantry in the woods to the rear to act as an anchor if his line should waver at any point.

  This maneuvering along the St. James Church battle lines was accompanied by a succession of charges and countercharges across a half-mile of open field, with much close-in cavalry fighting, both mounted and dismounted. The Confederates in particular made skillful use of sharpshooters to harass the Yankee flanks. “I had a fine opportunity of witnessing some fine cavalry fighting,” wrote the Southern horse artillerist Charles Phelps. “Our men charged them into the woods but were met by two brigades of infantry and had to fall back. Then the Yanks charged our cavalry…. I thought at one time I was gone, the fighting being so general that we could not use our pieces.”

  The Yankee countercharge Lieutenant Phelps described was launched by the 6th Pennsylvania, supported by the 6th U.S. regulars. “Never rode troopers more gallantly…,” admitted Captain Hart, whose South Carolina battery was a target of the assault, “as under a fire of shell and shrapnel, and finally of canister, they dashed up to the very muzzles, then through and beyond our guns, passing between Hampton’s left and Jones’ right. Here they were simultaneously attacked from both flanks, and the survivors driven back.” The 6th regulars lost 67 men in the charge, a quarter of their attacking force. The 6th Pennsylvania reported one-third of its men unhorsed by the “terrible fire of rifle shot in front and of grape and canister from the enemy’s battery on our left.” General Buford would credit the bold attack with stabilizing his left, and indeed the two sides appeared so stunned by the melee that an uneasy calm fell across this sector of the field.10

  Jeb Stuart was on the scene of the St. James Church fighting now, and during the lull several of his youthful staff members scrambled into a big cherry tree to feast on the ripe fruit, pitching what they didn’t eat down to Stuart and his generals. Without warning a Federal shell came scr
eaming through the tree, splintering branches and sending the cherry pickers all plunging to the ground in unseemly haste. Stuart roared with laughter, recalled one of the staff, and called out, “What’s the matter, boys, cherries getting sour?”

  He was still in good humor when a courier reached him from Grumble Jones, relaying a warning from Beverly Robertson’s pickets that Federal cavalry was on the march from the Kelly’s Ford crossing. “Tell General Jones to attend to the Yankees in his front, and I’ll watch the flanks,” Stuart told the courier. Grumble Jones, who had little use for Stuart to begin with, was irritated by the cavalier tone of this response. “So he thinks they ain’t coming, does he?” Jones snapped. “Well, let him alone; he’ll damned soon see for himself.”

  And so he did. Shortly before noon, a breathless courier reined up with a message from Stuart’s adjutant, Major Henry McClellan, at cavalry headquarters on Fleetwood Hill. The courier announced that a Federal column was just then approaching Brandy Station—squarely in the rear of the Confederate battle line at St. James Church. Stuart’s first reaction was disbelief. “Ride back there,” he ordered one of his officers, “and see what this foolishness is all about!” Just as the man was starting back, a second courier rushed up. “General,” he shouted, “the Yankees are at Brandy!” Frank Robertson of the staff long remembered the moment. “The only time in my fourteen months service with Gen. Stuart,” he wrote, “that he seemed rattled was when Frank Deane, one of his couriers, dashed up and told him the Yankees were at Brandy Station. This was startling indeed….“11

  Major McClellan, manning headquarters alone, with but a few couriers on call, had been utterly astonished to see a long column of enemy cavalry approaching “within cannon shot” of the station and of Fleetwood Hill, the dominant high ground in the area. McClellan could not understand how the Federals had evaded Beverly Robertson’s brigade, which Stuart had earlier charged with guarding the downriver crossings, especially Kelly’s Ford. General Robertson, it seemed, was exceedingly literal-minded. As ordered, he had posted his command, some 1,500 men, on the direct route from Kelly’s Ford to Brandy Station. When the Federals took a more roundabout route, Robertson duly reported that fact … and stayed right where he was while two divisions of Yankee cavalry marched past without the least hindrance.

  This was David Gregg’s left wing of the operation, finally across Kelly’s Ford and pushing ahead fast, anxiously hearing the din of battle from the direction of Buford’s right wing. Alfred Duffié‘s division went on ahead toward Stevensburg to seal off the southern flank; Gregg’s division, led by the brigade of Sir Percy Wyndham, turned up the road leading to Brandy Station. Sir Percy was easily the gaudiest figure in the Federal cavalry. A British soldier of fortune who had been knighted for his service with Garibaldi, he sported spectacular waxed mustaches and a phalanx of medals from various European armies.

  The sole weapon Major McClellan could find to meet this new crisis was a 6-pounder howitzer from one of the horse artillery batteries that had pulled out of the fight at the church to resupply ammunition. McClellan posted the howitzer in a commanding position on the hill and opened a deliberate fire at the Federal advance with the few shells and solid shot that remained in the limber chest. It was pure bluff, but effective for all that. Wyndham halted, called up his own artillery from the rear for counterbattery fire, and began deploying for an assault on Fleetwood Hill.

  Once again, at the last possible moment, Rebel troopers came pelting up to blunt a Federal thrust. Wyndham himself was leading an ordered advance up the hill at the head of his old regiment, the 1st New Jersey, when he was assailed by the 12th Virginia and the 35th Virginia battalion that had been dispatched at the gallop by Stuart. The hasty Rebel charge was ragged and disorganized, something of a forlorn hope, but it won just time enough for reinforcing regiments under Wade Hampton to reach the scene.12

  It became a classic battle for the high ground. Both sides poured in reinforcements. Swirling melees of slashing, firing horsemen covered the hill and its slopes; dust clouds and battle smoke blanketed the ground, challenging gunners to separate foe from friend, or even to fire at all. Walter Taylor, General Lee’s adjutant, described the tumult in a letter home: “Such charging and yelling was never before witnessed and heard on this continent. We occupied a range of hills, with large tracts of cleared fields in every direction, and whichever way the eye turned you could see squadrons charging squadrons, and whole regiments rushing like a whirlwind towards the opposing force and meeting with a shock that fairly shook the earth.” A New York cavalryman named Noble Preston sought to capture the chaos: “Then followed an indescribable clashing and slashing, banging and yelling….We were now so mixed up with the rebels that every man was fighting desperately to maintain the position until assistance could be brought forward.”

  Wyndham went down with a wound during the repeated charges and countercharges. David Gregg, normally the soul of calm reserve in battle, was caught up in the moment and led one of the assaults himself. “As they neared the enemy General Gregg showed an enthusiasm that I had never noticed before,” one of his men wrote. “He started his horse on a gallop … swinging his gauntlets over his head and hurrahing….“A wild charge by 1st New Jersey troopers carried them right in among the guns of William McGregor’s Virginia battery, one of whose gunners remembered the scene with amazement: “One of our men captured a prisoner with his sponge staff. Another one with a trail hand spike captured another prisoner. The writer had no weapon, tried to capture one with words only, but he heeded me not. Why did he not shoot me down, as I stood on the ground, looking at him, at a distance of a few feet only?” 13

  Gregg’s second brigade was led by the reckless Judson Kilpatrick, who proceeded to live up to his nickname, “Kill-Cavalry.” When he ordered two New York regiments to the charge, they were quickly broken one after the other and sent flying, leaving Kilpatrick “wild with excitement.” Rushing up to his remaining regiment, the 1st Maine, he shouted to its colonel, Calvin Douty, “what can you do with your regiment?”

  “I can drive the rebels to Hell, sir!” came the prompt reply, and the Maine troopers made a valiant effort to honor their colonel’s pledge. They gained the crest of Fleetwood Hill and sliced right through two of Wade Hampton’s regiments that had just put the New Yorkers to rout. The 1st Maine simply kept going, for over a mile, but from flank and rear the Rebels closed in and soon isolated it. At one point these Down East Yankees came near the Barbour house, where Generals Lee and Ewell and their staffs were watching the battle. “General Ewell,” mapmaker Jed Hotchkiss remarked in his diary, “said we could gather into the house and defend it to the last.” No such last-ditch effort become necessary. Douty’s regiment, what was left of it, turned aside and finally managed to circle around and escape to the Federal lines.14

  The fruitless charge of the 1st Maine marked General Gregg’s last best effort. Gregg had no reserves left, three of his guns had already been overrun, and it did not appear that either of the divisions of Buford or Duffié was about to join him to carry on the battle for Fleetwood Hill. It was midafternoon now, and by all appearances Jeb Stuart’s headquarters was secure and this latest crisis had been averted.

  The hasty dispatch of forces by Grumble Jones and Wade Hampton from St. James Church to defend Fleetwood Hill seemed at first to promise new life for John Buford’s stalled operation. It was not to be so, however. Rooney Lee’s Virginians and North Carolinians took up good defensive positions and continued to block the Federal advance. Fighting in this sector during much of the day was more like an infantry than a cavalry engagement, with both sides often fighting dismounted. Indeed, it was here that the Federal supporting infantry got into the action, when a company each from the 2nd Massachusetts and 3rd Wisconsin flushed sharpshooting Rebel troopers out from behind a stone wall. In one final burst of charge and countercharge, Rooney Lee received a severe saber gash in the leg before finally driving back the enemy.

  At Stevensbur
g, at the southern end of the sprawling battlefield, Colonel Calbraith Butler and the 200 men of his 2nd South Carolina managed to stymie an entire Yankee cavalry division. Initially the Federals here rode roughshod right over the 4th Virginia. “We drove them through the thick woods,” wrote William Rawle Brooke of the 3rd Pennsylvania, “and it was a regular steeple chase, through ditches, over fences, through underbrush, getting our hands, faces, clothes torn….” The South Carolinians were made of sterner stuff, however, and Colonel Duffié—who like Beverly Robertson on the Confederate side did not seem inclined to march to the sound of the guns elsewhere on the field—made only halfhearted efforts to brush away Butler’s troopers. Colonel Butler’s stand would cost him his right foot, shot off by a cannonball, but he prevented some 1,900 Yankees from joining the fight for Fleetwood Hill.15

  Almost from the first clash of arms that day, General Pleasonton had cast his dispatches in pessimistic language. The enemy was found sooner than expected, at Brandy Station, and in great force—“Prisoners report that Stuart has 30,000 cavalry here”—and the fighting was severe and he had lost heavily. “They were aware of our movement, and were prepared,” he insisted. Hooker responded that if Pleasonton could make no headway against the enemy cavalry, he should break off and return. By midday it was evident that the two wings could not unite, and in midafternoon Pleasonton issued orders to Buford and Gregg to pull back to the Rappahannock crossings.