Battle of Yellow Tavern

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If Sheridan wanted a fight with Stuart, he had picked the right place to provoke it. Beaver Dam Station had been the main supply depot for Lee’s army, and Stuart was undoubtedly upset when he surveyed the destruction he had failed to prevent. Moreover, Stuart’s wife and children were staying nearby at Beaver Dam plantation, the home of Edmund Fontaine. Upon arriving at the station, Stuart let his men rest while he and one of his staff officers, Major Andrew Reid Venable, rode the mile and a half to Beaver Dam. There, Stuart met his wife, Flora, who assured him that everyone was safe. Not taking the time to dismount, Stuart exchanged a few words with Flora from the saddle, then kissed her goodbye and left to rejoin his men. During the ride back, the usually ebullient Stuart was at first Silent, and then told Venable that he had never expected to survive the war–a remark he usually made in jest, but this time with a certain seriousness. Stuart added that he would not want to live if the Confederacy lost the war.

Although Sheridan’s route put him in a position to threaten the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad, Stuart deduced from local residents that the Federal column’s target was the city of Richmond itself. He decided to send Gordon’s brigade down the route taken by Sheridan while he and Fitz Lee led the remaining two brigades along an alternate route that he hoped would place them ahead of the enemy column. In so doing, Stuart took a divided cavalry force that was already less than half the strength of Sheridan’s and subdivided it even further.

Stuart’s main force reached Hanover junction shortly after nightfall, where a courier from Gordon’s brigade informed him that the Union cavalry was camped near Ground Squirrel Bridge on the South Anna River, 20 miles north of Richmond and 10 miles from Stuart’s position. Stuart wanted to continue without delay, but Fitz Lee persuaded him to allow his men and horses, whose energy had been sapped by the hot sun, to eat and rest until one in the morning. Stuart and Venable rode 2 1/2 miles ahead to Taylorsville, where they caught three hours of sleep.

After resuming its movement, Stuart’s column crossed the South Anna at dawn on May 11 and came upon another stretch of railroad track near Ashland that had been destroyed by a detachment from Sheridan’s force. As the Confederates reached Telegraph Road and made their way south along that highway, Stuart’s adjutant, Major Henry B. McClellan, noted, He was more quiet than usual, softer, and more communicative. McClellan, who had been Stuart’s adjutant since May 1863, was the first cousin of George B. McClellan, the Union general around whose army Stuart’s cavalry had famously ridden in June 1862.

Along the way, Stuart received another message from Gordon, who told him that two of Sheridan’s divisions had left Ground Squirrel Bridge and were moving toward Richmond along Mountain Road-ironically, the same road along which Stuart had commenced his audacious circuit of McClellan’s army. By 10 a.m., Stuart’s force had reached the junction where Telegraph and Mountain roads merged into Brook Turnpike, which ran directly into Richmond, six miles to the south. A half-mile south of the intersection lay an abandoned stagecoach inn called Yellow Tavern. Stuart had two choices as to what he could do when the Federals arrived: he could make a stand directly in their path, or he could try to position his force to strike the enemy column in the flank as it advanced. He preferred the second option, but sent McClellan to see General Braxton Bragg, then President Jefferson Davis’ military adviser in Richmond, to make sure that the city’s defenses were sufficient to repulse Sheridan’s force should the flank attack fail.

McClellan had not yet returned when Sheridan’s cavalry approached. The Union commander had already learned of Stuart’s whereabouts and could not have been more pleased his men and mounts were well-rested, whereas he knew Stuart had been urging his horses to the death in order to place his forces ahead of the Federal column. Moreover, Stuart was out of time and low on manpower-with Gordon’s force trailing Sheridan but too far back to coordinate with him, Stuart had only 3,000 effectives against 10,000 Federals. A head-on confrontation was out of the question. Instead, Stuart led his troopers alongside Mountain Road, rather than across it. Although Stuart’s decision to fight dismounted meant that one out of every four men would have to hold the others’ horses, further depleting his numbers, he chose strong defensive positions. Wickham’s troops occupied a ridgeline roughly perpendicular to Telegraph Road, facing south-southwest. Brigadier General Lunsford L. Lomax’s brigade held another ridge parallel to Telegraph Road, facing west, with the 10 guns of Captain William Griffin’s Baltimore Light Artillery emplaced on a hill near the end of Lomax’s line.

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

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