Action, Culpeper Court House was a Civil War engagement fought in Virginia, 1863. It was a Union victory.
On September 13, 1863, mounted units from the Army of the Potomac clashed with their Confederate counterparts from the Army of Northern Virginia in a small engagement near Culpeper, Virginia, known as the Battle of Culpeper Court House. Federal forces emerged victorious, and their success brought the surrounding Culpeper area under Union control. This outcome set the stage for the Bristoe Campaign that followed.
Near the town of Culpeper, Virginia, mounted forces clashed on September 13, 1863, in what became known as the Battle of Culpeper Court House. Horsemen from the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia faced off against their counterparts from the Union Army of the Potomac in this Civil War engagement. When the fighting ended, Federal troops had secured control over the Culpeper area, a triumph that set the stage for the Bristoe Campaign that followed.
On September 12, 1863, Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton set out from camp near Warrenton, Virginia, leading the Army of the Potomac's cavalry corps, a force numbering 10,000 Union horsemen. The corps pushed across the Rappahannock River, and its scattered elements gathered together near the small settlement of Sulphur Springs. What the Federal troopers were after was a strike against the headquarters of Confederate Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, situated at Culpeper Court House, the county seat of Culpeper County.
Before dawn broke, at four in the morning, Pleasonton pushed his three divisions forward across nearly two miles of ground, crossing the Hazel River on their way toward Culpeper. The Union horsemen came on in three separate columns, scattering the Confederate pickets and skirmishers they encountered along the way. By one in the afternoon they had reached the enemy's main defenses, and there Brig. Gen. H. Judson Kilpatrick, leading the 1st Division, called for Brig. Gen. George Armstrong Custer's Michigan Brigade to charge on horseback. The charge broke through the Confederate line anchored at the railroad depot, and Custer came away with more than 100 prisoners and three artillery pieces. All three Union columns then joined together at Culpeper and pressed onward, forcing the Confederates back toward the Rapidan River amid fierce skirmishing. When darkness fell, the Federals, having won the day, made camp near Cedar Mountain while the Confederates settled across Raccoon Ford on the Rapidan. Meanwhile Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren's II Corps had taken possession of Culpeper Court House, though his infantry never joined in the cavalry fighting. Over the following two days, Union probes tested the Confederates' new position beyond the Rapidan and found it too formidable to break.
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