Posted on 06/10/2023 6:26:12 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
From Our Own Correspondent.
HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, Monday, June 8, 1863.
The reports about the proposed great raid of the enemy have taken some positive shape. Information has been received, within the last three days, which fixes the character and designs of this body of the enemy quite accurately.
For several weeks, since the battle of Chancellorsville, JEB. STUART has been massing, and drilling, and supplying a large force of cavalry at or near Brandy Station, five miles north of Culpepper. This force is the largest body of cavalry that the enemy has ever got together. It consists, as near as I can learn, of the two original brigades of LEE, and WM. FITZHUGH LEE; several other scattering regiments of Virginia cavalry; part of HAMPTON's brigade; one brigade of North Carolina cavalry: Gen. G.W. JONES' guerrillas from the Shenandoah Valley, who have recently been rendezvousing at Harrisonburgh since their return from Western Virginia; and in addition, two brigades of mounted infantry -- one of them being Gen. HOOD's old brigade of Texas and Mississippi troops. The total strength of the force is estimated at from twelve to fifteen thousand men. This force STUART has been getting ready to make a grand raid into the North, and it may well be thought that such a body of these desperate men will make their presence felt as soon as they get into Maryland. On Saturday he had a grand review, and those who witnessed it give it as their estimate that he had from fifteen to twenty thousand men in line. This is doubtless exaggerated. I cannot bring myself to believe that his total strength reaches 10,000. One month ago the entire effective force of the enemy's cavalry east of the Blue Ridge did not exceed 4,500 men,
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The Proposed Rebel Raid: A Large Rebel Cavalry Force Massed Near Culpepper, Va. – 2
The Siege of Port Hudson: Effectiveness of the Negro Troops – 2
The War in Tennessee: Two Prominent Rebel Officers Arrested as Spies and Hung – 2-3
Vicksburgh Reported Fallen: Surrender of the Stronghold with its Entire Garrison – 3-4
News from Washington: Our Special Washington Dispatches – 4
Presidential Smiles – 4
The Projected Rebel Raid – 4
Editorial: Six Thousand Slaves Find Freedom – 4-5
Editorial: Rebel Plans in the West – 5
Department of the A Reconnoissance of James Island, S.C. – 5
Loyal League Meeting in Trenton, N.J. – 8
The Railroad Disaster at Nicholasville, Ky. – 5
JEB Stuart = James Ewell Brown Stuart
My Grandfather did not know who he was named after, but his name was James Ewell K******
His grand father fought in the Civil War, and wound up in a Prison in NY. He walked home to Texas. He was born in Texas during the Republic of Texas.
Coincidence?
Yeah…rumors of a raid in force into MD and PA are destitute in facts.
Yup. Pay no attention to those troops moving north. Nothing to see there.
The last speaker I heard on this subject said that Joe Hooker had received two reports, one from a confederate deserter and another from a runaway slave, that large numbers of confederate infantry were massing in the Culpepper area. Both armies at that point were screening the Rappahannock from Warrenton down to Fredericksburg, which is at the fall line.
A concentration around Culpepper would have indicated that Lee was shifting his army north and west, which would signal an offensive move. The alternative, which was being debated in Richmond, was to shift some of Lee’s army west, where the confederate position was collapsing. Vicksburg was already besieged, and Rosecrans was about to launch the Tullahoma Campaign, which would give the Union control of Middle Tennessee and, by early September, Chattanooga.
Hooker of course ordered a strong probe — with over 10,000 men involved, I’d call it more than a reconnaissance in force — to see what was going on. Stuart had a notable fight on his hands around Brandy Station, but in the end he successfully screened the concentration.
This is ultimately why Lee was able to steal a march on the way ultimately to Gettysburg, where the confederates were able to concentrate a bit more rapidly as Meade was still waiting on the morning and early afternoon of July 2 for V and VI Corps to arrive.
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