Battle of Hanover

Battle of Hanover. Confederates Invade Free Soil. (preface) , After a stunning victory at Chancellorsville in May 1863, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee led the Army of Northern Virginia through Maryland into Pennsylvania, marching east to threaten Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington D.C. The Army of the Potomac marched north from the nation’s capital, searching for Lee. On July 1-3, the armies collided at Gettysburg in one of the pivotal battles of the Civil War. Three days later, after a bloody defeat, the Confederates began retreating to Virginia., As the sun rose on June 30, 1863, Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart’s 5,00-man-strong cavalry corps prepared to trot from Union Mills, Maryland, 12.5 miles south of here, to Hanover. At about 10 A.M., as a detachment rode towards the junction in front of you, it encountered an untimely and deadly surprise: the rear guard of the Union cavalry corps under Gens. H. Judson Kilpatrick., A few days earlier, Stuart had left Gen. Robert E. Lee’s army in northern Virginia to impede Federal forces marching north from their Washington defenses. Stuart led a raid through Maryland and into Pennsylvania to gather intelligence, acquire provisions, and disrupt rail and telegraph lines. By June 29, Stuart had reached Union Mills, dangerously out of touch with Lee. Stuart had captured 125 Union wagons carrying provisions, along with 600 mules saddled with supplies, all of which bogged down his progress and kept him far away from Lee., It was here that sixty of Confederate Col. John Chambliss’s cavalrymen ran into Union Lt. Henry Clay Potter’s forty-man rear guard. Gunfire shattered Hanover’s morning calm as the first battle on free soil erupted here. The Federals retreated up Frederick Street., “[T]he capture of this train of wagons was a misfortune. …Had Stuart been entirely unimpeded, he would probably have passed Hanover on the 30th before the arrival of Kilpatrick’s division, and would have been in communication with General Lee before nightfall on that day.”, Major H.B. McClellan, The Life and Campaigns of Major General J.E.B. Stuart 1885, (image captions) , Stuart’s cavalry attacking a Federal wagon train, from Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (1887-1888), Pulling Out, by Raymond J. Dubs, Jr., painted 1961 , Courtesy Guthrie Memorial Library