One day. Fourteen hours. Twelve thousand Union cavalrymen against 9,000 of their Confederate counterparts—with three thousand Union infantry thrown in for good measure. Amidst the thunder of hooves and the clashing of sabers, they slugged it out across the hills and dales of Culpepper County, Virginia. And it escalated into the largest cavalry battle ever fought on the North American continent. Fleetwood Hill at Brandy Station was the site of four major cavalry battles during the course of the Civil War, but none was more important than the one fought on June 9, 1863. That clash turned out to be the opening engagement of the Gettysburg Campaign—and the one-day delay it engendered may very well have impacted the outcome of the entire campaign. The tale includes a veritable who’s-who of cavalry all-stars in the East: Jeb Stuart, Wade Hampton, John Buford, and George Armstrong Custer. Robert E. Lee, the great Confederate commander, saw his son, William H. F. Lee, being carried off the battlefield, severely wounded. Both sides suffered heavy losses. But for the Federal cavalry, the battle was also a watershed event. After Brandy Station, never again would they hear the mocking cry, “Whoever saw a dead cavalryman?” In Out Flew the Sabers: The Battle of Brandy Station, June 9, 1863—The Opening Engagement of the Gettysburg Campaign, Civil War historians Eric J. Wittenberg and Daniel T. Davis have written the latest entry in Savas Beatie’s critically acclaimed Emerging Civil War Series.

The winter of 1862-63 found Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and Ambrose Burnside's Army of the Potomac at a standoff along the Rappahannock River in Virginia, following the Union defeat at Fredericksburg. In January 1863 Major General Joseph "Fighting Joe" Hooker relieved the disgraced Burnside, reorganized his troops and instituted company colors, giving his soldiers back their fighting spirit. Lee concentrated on maintaining his strength and fortifications while struggling for supplies. By spring, cavalry units from both sides had taken on increased importance--until the largest cavalry battle of the war was fought, near Brandy Station, Virginia, on June 9, 1863. Researched from numerous contemporary sources, this detailed history recounts the battle that marked the opening of the Gettysburg campaign and Lee's last offensive into the North. Forces commanded by J.E.B. Stuart and Alfred Pleasanton fought indecisively in an area of 70 square miles: Confederate troops maintained possession and counted fewer casualties, yet Union forces had definitely taken the offensive. Historians still debate the significance of the battle; many view it as a harbinger of change, the beginning of dominance by Union horse soldiers and the decline of Stuart's Confederate command.

*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the fighting on both sides *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "One result of incalculable importance certainly did follow this battle, - it made the Federal cavalry. Up to that time confessedly inferior to the Southern horsemen, they gained on this day that confidence in themselves and in their commanders which enabled them to contest so fiercely the subsequent battle-fields of June, July, and October." - Major Henry B. McClellan, JEB Stuart's adjutant general In early June 1863, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia occupied Culpeper, Virginia, and after their victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville against armies twice their size, the Confederate troops felt invincible and anxious to carry the war north into Pennsylvania. One of the proudest was iconic cavalry leader JEB Stuart, who had filled in admirably for the mortally wounded Stonewall Jackson the previous month at Chancellorsville. Back in command of the cavalry, Stuart bivouacked his men near the Rappahannock River, screening the Confederate army against surprise Union attacks. Buoyed by his recent successes, Stuart held a field review on June 5, but when Lee couldn't attend that one, he held another one in Lee's presence on June 8. During that one, the Confederates paraded nearly 9,000 mounted troops and four batteries of horse artillery for review, which included mock battles near Brandy Station. Some of the cavalrymen and newspaper reporters at the scene complained that all Stuart was doing was "feeding his ego and exhausting the horses," and he was referred to as a "headline-hunting show-off." Meanwhile, Union Army of the Potomac commander Joseph Hooker interpreted Stuart's presence around Culpeper as a precursor to a raid on his army's supply lines. In response, he ordered his cavalry commander, Maj. General Alfred Pleasonton, to take a combined force of 8,000 cavalry and 3,000 infantry on a raid to "disperse and destroy" the 9,500 Confederates. Crossing the Rappahannock River in two columns on June 9, 1863 at Beverly's Ford and Kelly's Ford, the first infantry unit caught Stuart completely off guard, and the second surprised him yet again. In addition to being the largest cavalry battle of the war, the chaos and confusion that ensued across the battlefield also made Brandy Station unique in that most of the fighting was done while mounted and using sabers. One account of the battle noted, "Of the bodies that littered the field that day, the vast majority were found to have perished by the sword." After 10 hours of charges and countercharges that swept back and forth across Fleetwood Hill involving drawn sabers and revolvers, Pleasonton decided to withdraw his exhausted men across the Rappahannock River. Stuart immediately claimed a Confederate victory because his men had managed to hold the field and inflicted more casualties on the enemy while forcing Pleasonton to withdraw before locating Lee's infantry, but Stuart was trying to save face, and nobody else, including Lee, shared his view of the battle. The fact was that the Southern cavalry under Stuart had not detected the movement of two large columns of Union cavalry and had fallen prey to not one but two surprise attacks. Two days later, the Richmond Enquirer reported, "If Gen. Stuart is to be the eyes and ears of the army we advise him to see more, and be seen less. Gen. Stuart has suffered no little in public estimation by the late enterprises of the enemy." Lee was now painfully aware of the increased competency of the Union cavalry, as well as the decline of the seemingly once-invincible Southern mounted armed forces under Stuart. Moreover, Stuart was now smarting from the negative publicity and the hit his reputation had taken at Brandy Station, and it would go on to have an impact on the ensuing battle of Gettysburg.