Battle of Yellow Tavern

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When the Battle of the Wilderness ended on May 7, 1864 it left Robert E. Lee marginally the master of the battlefield, but the Confederate general’s first major confrontation with the new commander of the Union Army, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, was, in fact, very different from Lee’s victory on the same ground at Chancellorsville a year earlier. Then, the Federal Army of the Potomac, under Major General Joseph Hooker, had retreated in disorder. Grant, in contrast, ignored his tactical defeat and ordered the Army of the Potomac, under Major General George Gordon Meade, to resume its advance toward Richmond. Grant’s action served ominous notice to the Confederacy that the Union had a leader who was not at all intimidated by Lee’s legendary reputation-and one who was determined to bring the Civil War to a close by any means necessary.

During the Union advance on Spotsylvania, Meade fell into a heated argument with the commander of his cavalry corps, Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan. Meade claimed that Sheridan’s cavalry had impeded the progress of the Union infantry. Underlying the dispute was the issue of control; thus far in the Wilderness campaign, some of Sheridan’s officers had been getting orders from him and some had gotten them directly from Meade. Sheridan thought his cavalry would be more effective if he had more latitude. In the midst of the mutual recriminations between Meade and Sheridan, the name of Sheridan’s Confederate counterpart came up — Maj. Gen. James Ewell Brown Stuart, better known as Jeb Stuart, whose dashing and audacious cavalry exploits had made his name as celebrated as Lee’s. ‘Never mind Stuart, Meade remarked. He will do about as he pleases anyhow.

Damn Stuart, snapped Sheridan. I can thrash hell out of him any day. Later, when Meade mentioned Sheridan’s remark to Grant, Grant simply replied: Did Sheridan say that? Well, he generally knows what he’s talking about. Let him start right out and do it.

Grant was satisfied that Little Phil was not idly boasting. They had served together in the west, where Sheridan had consistently displayed the sort of aggressiveness that Grant favored — the sort that did what had to be done. If Sheridan was as unawed of Stuart as Grant was of Lee, then Grant was eager to give the diminutive but pugnacious Ohioan the chance to put his cavalry where his mouth was-and to demonstrate what he could do with a free hand. On that very night, Grant authorized Sheridan to take his entire corps toward Richmond, skirting the right flank of the Army of Northern Virginia. Sheridan’s principal objective was not to gather intelligence or to take real estate. As one of his officers summarized it, Our move would be a challenge to Stuart for a cavalry duel behind Lee’s lines, in his own country.

Sheridan’s idea was not unprecedented, but Union success in executing such a plan was. Notwithstanding the valor of a number of regiments within its ranks, the history of the Union cavalry corps in Virginia had generally been less than brilliant. Union horse soldiers had never played a key role in a major Union victory in Virginia, although they came close on one occasion–the Battle of Brandy Station on June 9, 1863, a colossal equestrian collision in which the Yankee troopers came within an ace of overrunning Stuart’s headquarters. Almost was not good enough, however; not only did Brandy Station end inconclusively, but in the subsequent skirmishes at Aldie, Middleburg and Upperville, Stuart’s gray knights went on to thwart three attempts by their Federal counterparts to locate the Army of Northern Virginia as it made its way northward on the offensive that would ultimately lead Lee to Gettysburg.

Sheridan was confident that he could do better. For one thing, his Richmond raid was to involve 10,000 cavalrymen against what he knew to be only about half that number of Confederates. More important, he had set a goal and would stick to it, unlike his immediate predecessor, Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasanton, who had a habit of arbitrarily changing his objective from gathering intelligence to engaging Stuart in decisive battle — and, in consequence, failed to accomplish either.

Tags: 19th Century, America's Civil War, American Civil War, Historical Conflicts

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