Battle of Aldie
Encyclopedia : B : BA : BAT : Battle of Aldie
| Gettysburg Campaign |
|---|
| Brandy Station – Winchester II – Aldie – Middleburg – Upperville – Hanover – Gettysburg – Hunterstown – Fairfield – Williamsport – Boonsboro – Manassas Gap |
Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry screened Robert E. Lee's Confederate infantry as it marched north in the Shenandoah Valley behind the sheltering Blue Ridge Mountains. The pursuing Union cavalry of Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick's brigade, in the advance of David McM. Gregg's division, encountered Col. Thomas T. Munford's troopers near the village of Aldie, resulting in four hours of stubborn fighting. Both sides made mounted assaults by regiments and squadrons. Kilpatrick was reinforced in the afternoon, and Munford finally withdrew toward Middleburg.
The battle
Early on the morning of June 17, Colonel Munford led the 2nd and 3rd Virginia Cavalry eastward across the Loudoun Valley from Upperville through Middleburg to Aldie on the Bull Run Mountains. He established a line of pickets in Aldie to watch for enemy activity and withdrew his two regiments northwest of town on the Snicker's Gap Turnpike to camp on the farm of Franklin Carter. Soon, two companies of the 2nd New York Cavalry drove the Confederate pickets from Aldie and occupied the village.
In the meantime, the rest of Munford's brigade (the 1st, 4th, and 5th Virginia Cavalry under the command of Col. Williams Carter Wickham) arrived at Dover Mills, a small hamlet on the Little River west of Aldie. Wickham ordered Col. Thomas L. Rosser to take the 5th Virginia to locate a campsite closer to Aldie. They ran into the New Yorkers and easily drove them back through Aldie. After positioning his sharpshooters (50 men of Company I under Capt. Reuben F. Boston) east of the William Adam farmhouse, Rosser deployed along a ridge that covered the two roads leading out of Aldie and awaited the arrival of the Federals, as well as Munford and Wickham.
Artillery and more cavalry on both sides soon arrived and a furious fight ensued, which at first went in favor of Munford as Federal charges were met, stopped and then forced back. The 1st Massachusetts Cavalry was trapped in a blind curve on the Snicker's Gap Turnpike and was destroyed, losing 198 of 294 men in the 8 companies that were engaged. The tide finally turned as Union reinforcements charged into the fray in the fading light. Munford did not look on Aldie as a defeat as his withdrawal coincided with an order from Stuart to retire, as more Federal cavalry had been sighted at Middleburg. Union casualties were 305 dead and wounded, with the Confederates losing between 110 and 119.
Aldie was the first in a series of small battles in which Stuart successfully delayed Pleasonton's thrust across the Loudoun Valley, depriving him of the opportunity to locate Lee's army.
References
- [National Park Service battle description]
- Head, James W., History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County Virginia, Richmond, Virginia: Parkview Press, 1908
- O'Neill, Robert F., The Cavalry Battles of Aldie, Middleburg and Upperville: Small But Important Riots, June 10-27, 1863, Lynchburg, Virginia: H.E. Howard, 1993, ISBN 1561900524.
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