The fighting 167to lift the heel of war from Virginia, not only
for humanitarian reasons, but also to allow
that home country to recover from hostile
occupation so that it could sustain Lee's army
in future months. The country north of the
Potomac also offered a much wider field for
The Confederate high tide at Chancellorsville
propelled Lee's army into a new campaign that
swept north past Winchester into Maryland and
then Pennsylvania, where the Federal Army of the
Potomac repulsed it in the war's largest battle. During
the fall of 1863, the two armies clashed again in Virginia
at Bristoe Station, Rappahannock Station, and Mine Run,
but none of those engagements developed into a major
battle. The next spring, with Commander-in-Chief
U. S. Grant accompanying it. the Army of the Potomac
crossed the Rapidan river and fought at Wilderness
and Spotsylvania. Although they could not defeat Lee.
the Federals determinedly pushed on to the North
Anna Riven Cold Harbor; and the outskirts of Richmond
and Petersburg. After 10 months attempting to
break into the Confederate capital, Grant finally
succeeded in April 1865 and Lee was forced to
surrender at Appomattox Court House on the 9th.
The Confederates counterattack at Brandy Station.
(Painting by Don Troiani, http://www.historicalartprints.com)maneuver, a military element in which Lee
excelled. An ostensible threat to the Federal
political capital in Washington also held out
potential advantages: knowing that his enemy
must keep the city covered foreshadowed in
mirror image the 1864 campaign in which
Richmond served as a similar focus and pivot
for Lee on the defensive.
Lee moved away from Fredericksburg and
the Rappahannock river line early in June
1863, and headed northwestward through
piedmont Virginia toward the Shenandoah
valley. On 9 June his cavalry force fought
one of the largest all-mounted engagements
of the war around Brandy Station. Hooker
had sent his own cavalry out with orders to
'disperse and destroy' the Confederates they
found, and the Northern troopers came close
to doing that. They completely surprised the