Slashing Sabers

Slashing Sabers. Vicious cavalry fighting raged in the Loudoun Valley. , On the steaming hot afternoon of June 17, 1863, troopers from Gen. J.E.B. Stuart’s 2nd Virginia Cavalry clashed here with the 2nd New York Cavalry of Gen. Alfred Pleasonton’s Federal command. Stuart was screening Gen Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia as it marched toward Pennsylvania west of here along both sides of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Pleasonton, meanwhile, had orders from the Army of the Potomac to locate Lee’s army, initiating five days of intense cavalry fighting – the Battles of Aldie, Middleburg and Upperville – involving some 18,000 troopers just days before the Battle of Gettysburg. , , Fighting on June 17 also occurred on both the Ashby’s Gap Turnpike (Route 50) and Snickersville Pike (Route 734) that radiated from this quiet village. A fierce clash just west of Aldie along Route 50, the “Haystacks Fight”, is marked by a Civil War Trails sign. Interpretive signs and a monument to the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry, mauled in a second deadly battle, stand along a curve of winding Route 734, two miles northwest of Aldie. Other Civil War Trails signs at Middleburg, Atoka, and Upperville help make sense of the fast-moving cavalry clashes. , , NOVA Parks maintains key pieces of the five-day battlefield, including Aldie Mill; Mt. Zion Church; Mt. Defiance, an important feature in the Battle of Middleburg; and Goose Creek Bridge where action occurred during the Battle of Upperville., “Aldie abounds in beautiful shade trees …. The houses… present a neat and homelike appearance. The farms look flourishing, the grist mill is full of work, [and] poultry run around without fear of molestation. …” , Lynde Walter Buckingham, , New York Herald, June 23, 1863