• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 6751 0

Court House on June 9, Stuart put on another review, this time without the flower girls. But the feeling among the observers was that the cavalry general had become far too interested in showmanship. Lee commented acidly to Stuart about a Northern commander who had also bedecked himself with flowers—just before a defeat. Francis Lawley wrote damningly that Stuart was “much too fond of frolics and dancing and being flattered.”25 As soon as the performance ended, the men dispersed in readiness for the long march in the morning. Lee planned to take the army across the Blue Ridge Mountains into the Shenandoah Valley and head due north; Stuart was meant to be diverting attention rather than attracting it, so that Lee would have time to put sufficient distance between himself and his pursuers.

At 4:30 in the morning on June 9, the first divisions of Union general Alfred Pleasonton’s 11,000-strong cavalry corps splashed across the Rappahannock on a mission to “to disperse and destroy the rebel force” at Culpeper. Stuart’s antics had led the Federal cavalry straight to him; fortunately for the Confederates, Hooker’s information was several days old and he was unaware that the entire Army of Northern Virginia was nearby or that it was about to begin the journey northward. Woken by the sound of firing, Stuart scrambled out of his tent on Fleetwood Hill, which overlooked Brandy Station, and shouted to his officers to block the river fords. He was too late; half the Federal cavalry was already across the river.

Sir Percy Wyndham, restored to brigade command and in high spirits, led the second half of the corps, which forded the Rappahannock in midmorning. He was trotting toward Brandy Station when an artillery gun on top of Fleetwood Hill began firing shells at their feet. There was only the one gun at Stuart’s headquarters, but Wyndham could not know that. He shouted for the brigade to halt and take up a defensive position. A Federal artillery gun was pointed in the offending direction and fired back. Half an hour later, the 1st New Jersey Cavaliers made the first of six charges against Stuart’s position on Fleetwood Hill. Wyndham had trained his men to use their sabers, which at the time they had scoffed at as fancy Old Worldism, but now that they were fighting up close with the horses wheeling and rearing, the saber proved by far the most effective weapon. Their Confederate opponents were outraged and bewildered; one of them shouted, “Draw your pistols and fight like gentlemen!”26

The thunderous galloping of thousands of horses caused a swirling brown cloud to envelop the hill as cavalry units charged and countercharged one another for almost seven hours. At various times during the day, each side briefly gained control of the crest. The Confederates captured Wyndham’s artillery and two of his best officers were killed, yet the 1st New Jersey Cavaliers fought on until they were surrounded and their only path of retreat was through the enemy. Wyndham remained in command, despite a bullet having sliced through his calf, until all his men were off the hill and safely back across the Rappahannock.

Wyndham exhorted the regiment to take pride in its performance. Though they had not ended with possession of the hill, his troops had behaved nobly, he wrote the following day, “standing unmoved under the enemy’s artillery fire, and when ordered to charge, dashing forward with a spirit and determination.”27 The Battle of Brandy Station fulfilled Wyndham’s dream of leading his own cavalry charge. The disappointments and frustrations of the past year were eclipsed by the brilliant performance of his troops under fire. The exhausted soldiers relished his delight. Wyndham “paid the regiment the highest compliments for its steady and dashing charges,” wrote one of his officers to the governor of New Jersey on June 10. “He goes to Washington today [to the hospital]. We hope he will soon return, as he cannot be spared from his command.”28

The Battle of Brandy Station was a turning point for the Federal cavalry. Though its 866 casualties were