![]() Throughout June, the Army of Northern Virginia snaked north in the valleys west of the Bull Run and Blue Ridge Mountains, headed for Maryland and Pennsylvania beyond. The Confederate cavalry would soon be trotting north as well, in search of glory and perhaps redemption. Indeed, Confederate soldiers were already pounding the roads north, headed for the small Pennsylvania hamlet named Gettysburg. There will be some hard fighting pretty soon.” The young Tarheel’s intuitions proved correct. Young Benjamin Parker of the 2nd North Carolina Cavalry, writing to his sister on June 10th, opined that “ Lee I think is going to make a move across the river. Soon enough, however, Jeb Stuart and his Confederate troopers would have a chance at redemption. For the troopers underneath him, Brandy Station was “the hardest cavalry fight…since the war began.” The Army of Northern Virginia's cavalry had always enjoyed total domination over its Yankee foe Brandy Station challenged that assumption. Having risen to command by superb leadership during the war's first years, the surprisingly tough fight at Brandy Station seemed to stain Stuart's reputation (which he cultivated assiduously). The commander of Confederate cavalry, James Ewell Brown (Jeb) Stuart, had to be wondering if the Brandy Station fight wasn’t “discreditable” to him. The Richmond Sentinel called for greater “vigilance…from the Major General down to the picket.” The Charleston Mercury thought the affair an “ugly surprise,” while the Savannah Republican thought it all “very discreditable to somebody.” Other Southern papers offered more of the same. “But this puffed up cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia,” the Examiner crowed, “has been twice, if not three times, surprised since the battles of December, and such repeated accidents can be regarded as nothing but the necessary consequences of negligence and bad management.” Such humiliations were unacceptable, and the Examiner concluded by charging that better organization, more discipline, and greater earnestness among “vain and weak-headed officers” was needed. Just days before, Confederate cavalry had been caught completely by surprise in a daring strike by their Union counterparts at Brandy Station Virginia, and only after a hard fight with the help of Southern infantry was the enemy repulsed. If you do not agree to the use of marketing cookies, ads will be displayed, but will not be tailored to your preferences.The June 12th, 1863 edition of the Richmond Examiner seethed. Advertising cookies do not record your personal information, but they idenatify your web browser and device. Your interest profile is created based on the information from the cookies. They can be installed by partners through our service. Marketing cookies allow you to tailor the ads displayed on and off our site to your interests. If you do not give permission for the use of these cookies, they will not collect and transmit data. They are not intended to determine the identity of users. The information collected is used to improve the quality and efficiency of our service. They allow us to learn how users of our store navigate, what they are looking for, and which pages appeal to them. Always enabledĪnalytical cookies are used for statistical and business analysis, as well as to constantly improve the performance of our site and services by enabling us to see the number of visits and traffic sources. They are installed mainly for remembering login sessions and filling out forms. They additionally guarantee the security of shopping. Essential cookies guarantee the correct operation of the site and all its technological functionalities related to the execution of the shopping process.
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