Brandy Station and the March to Gettysburg: The History of the Confederate Invasion of Pennsylvania Before the Biggest Battle of the Civil War

Overview: Buoyed by his recent successes at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate cavalry commander JEB Stuart held a field review on June 5, but when Robert E. 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.” ...