Battle of Bristoe Station

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v • d • e Bristoe Campaign

Auburn I – Auburn II – Bristoe Station – Buckland Mills – Rappahannock Station II

The Battle of Bristoe Station was fought on October 14, 1863, between Union and Confederate forces in the Bristoe Campaign of the American Civil War. The Union army was led by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, the Confederates by General Robert E. Lee. Lee had stolen a march, passing around Cedar Mountain, the site of a battle in 1862. This forced Meade to retreat toward Centreville. By withdrawing, Meade prevented Lee from falling on an exposed flank of the Army of the Potomac. Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren, commanding II Corps in Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock's absence, was following V Corps on this retreat. II Corps had an encounter with Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry near Auburn, Virginia, the Second Battle of Auburn, nicknamed "Coffee Hill." (Confederate shells interrupted Federals who were boiling coffee.)

Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill, leading the Confederate Third Corps, reached Bristoe Station on October 14. (The town is variously called Bristoe, Bristow, and Bristo in contemporary newspapers.) Hill tried to harass the rearguard of V Corps, but he missed the presence of II Corps. Warren hid his forces behind an embankment of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad near Bristoe Station. Warren sprung a powerful ambush as Hill's corps moved to attack the Federal rear guard. Maj. Gen. Henry Heth's division suffered serious losses, including a battery captured in a Federal counterattack.

Warren, seeing Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell's Second Corps coming up on his left, eventually had to withdraw. Lee is supposed to have cut off Hill's excuses for this defeat by saying, "Bury these poor men, general, and we'll say no more about it." (One of the casualties was Confederate Brig. Gen. Carnot Posey, who died of his wound.) The Union forces won the battle, but the Confederates destroyed a railroad during their retreat. Meade had to rebuild the railroad when he reoccupied the area around Bristoe Station. Warren won such reputation as a corps commander that he was given V Corps as a regular assignment after Hancock returned to the Army of the Potomac in 1864.

[edit] References

National Park Service battle description
Freeman, Douglas Southall, Lee's Lieutenants, vol. 3, New York, C. Scribner's sons, 1944.
Jordan, David M., Happiness is not My Companion: the Life of General G.K. Warren, Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c2001.
Walker, Francis Amasa, History of the Second Army Corps in the Army of the Potomac, New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1886.