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Updated: May 6, 2025
Jackson advanced promptly to the Warrenton Springs Ford, which had been selected as the point of crossing, drove away a force of the enemy posted at the place, and immediately began to pass the river with his troops. The movement was however interrupted by a severe rain-storm, which swelled the waters of the Rappahannock, and rendered a further prosecution of it impracticable.
There are five forts in Virginia, mounted with thirty cannon, two on James River, and one each on the other three rivers of York, Rappahannock, and Potomac; but we have neither skill nor ability to maintain them. We have a large foreign commerce.
Its return is rather sooner than I had originally contemplated, but having accomplished much of what I proposed on leaving the Rappahannock namely, relieving the valley of the presence of the enemy and drawing his army north of the Potomac I determined to recross the latter river.
His left almost touched the Rappahannock, his right stretched two miles toward Germanna Ford. He was in great strength. Jeb Stuart with his cavalry, waiting impatiently near Catherine Furnace, found beside him General Jackson on Little Sorrel. "General Stuart, I wish you to ride with me to some point from which those guns can be enfiladed. Order Major Beckham forward with a battery."
He ordered Hunter to replace Sigel and go south straight into the heart of the Valley, asked the navy to move his own base down the Rappahannock from Fredericksburg to Port Royal, and then himself marched on toward Richmond, where Lee was desperately trying to concentrate for battle.
We moved at a sufficient distance from the Rappahannock to screen our columns from the enemy's posts of observation. We marched to the vicinity of Elkton, where we bivouacked for the night. The next morning we resumed our march, and soon struck the railroad at Bealeton, where we met and drove a detachment of Rebel cavalry.
The icy Rappahannock proved the river of death to thousands and thousands of brave men. Early in May the Union army, baffled, depleted, and discouraged, was again in its old quarters where it had spent the winter. Apparently the great forward movement had been a failure, but it was the cause of a loss to the Confederate cause from which it never recovered, that of "Stonewall" Jackson.
While he was awaiting the arrival of pontoons to enable him to recross Bull Run, which was enormously swollen, the enemy, after some daring skirmishes along his front, and some feints of attack, retreated quite rapidly, completely destroying the Orange and Alexandria Railroad from Manassas Junction to the Rappahannock. A more thorough work of destruction was never witnessed.
General Lee is reported to be falling back to the Rappahannock. Sunday, July 19. Our cavalry left Harper's Ferry at two o'clock P. M., crossed the river on pontoons at Sandy Hook, and advanced into Virginia. Monthly returns for June were made before our march commenced. The weather is very warm and sultry.
It was said, by the rebel prisoners taken by the cavalry, that while the fights were in progress on the Rappahannock, General Lee was holding a grand review of his army, when suddenly the information reached him that the Yankees were coming.
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