Aldie

On June 17, 1863, Loudoun County, Virginia became the setting for the fighting at Aldie, one episode within the larger Gettysburg campaign of the Civil War.

At this stage, Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's horsemen were shielding the movement of Gen. Robert E. Lee's infantry, which marched north through the Shenandoah Valley under the cover of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Chasing after them, Union cavalry from Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick's brigade, riding ahead of Brig. Gen. David McMurtrie Gregg's division, ran into Col. Thomas T. Munford's troopers close to the village of Aldie. What followed was a hard fought clash lasting some four hours, with regiments and squadrons on each side launching mounted charges against one another. By afternoon, reinforcements reached Kilpatrick, and Munford ultimately pulled his forces back in the direction of Middleburg.

Background

By late spring of 1863, friction had built between Hooker, in charge of Union forces, and his cavalry chief, Brig. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton, since the latter could not break through the screen thrown up by Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's horsemen. That failure kept Union forces from reaching the Shenandoah Valley and pinpointing the whereabouts of the Army of Northern Virginia, a force that had already been marching since June 3rd. Determined to change this, Pleasonton resolved on June 17 to force his way past Stuart's cavalry. He directed Brig. Gen. David McM. Gregg to move his division west from Manassas Junction along the Little River Turnpike toward Aldie. The village held real strategic value, since it sat where the turnpike met both the Ashby's Gap Turnpike and the Snicker's Gap Turnpike, roads that ran through their namesake gaps in the Blue Ridge Mountain and opened the way into the valley beyond.

Battlefield

The ground where the fighting took place has survived in largely unspoiled form, even though no comprehensive protections cover it. Aldie village and its mill still look much as they did when the battle unfolded. Along the Ashby's Gap Turnpike, however, the expansion of U.S. Route 50 has altered that stretch of the field. By contrast, the stone wall and the farmsteads bordering the Snicker's Gap Turnpike, now known as Route 734, have kept their original character. It was near that stone wall, at a blind curve, that the 1st Massachusetts suffered devastating losses, and survivors of the regiment later placed a monument there to commemorate their comrades' service in the engagement.

Governor Bob McDonnell revealed on May 8, 2012, plans to preserve a five-acre parcel of the battlefield, which the Civil War Trust would purchase and which the park authority would eventually manage as a quiet, historically focused interpretive site. This parcel sits along the boundary separating Loudoun and Fauquier counties, ground that proved essential to the fighting at Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville between June 17 and 21, 1863. Since 2001, the Civil War Trust, now part of the American Battlefield Trust, together with its partner organizations, has secured and safeguarded 605 acres (2.45 km2) of this battlefield across four separate purchases.

Aftermath

From Munford's perspective, no defeat had occurred at Aldie, since his pullback happened at the same moment Stuart ordered a general retirement, prompted by fresh sightings of Federal horsemen near Middleburg. The Union side counted 305 killed and wounded, while Confederate losses ranged from 110 to 119 men. This engagement opened a string of minor clashes stretching along the Ashby's Gap Turnpike, where Stuart's troopers managed to slow Pleasonton's advance through the Loudoun Valley, keeping him from discovering where Lee's army lay.

Among those captured that day was Luigi Palma Di Cesnola, colonel commanding the 4th New York Cavalry, who spent time afterward confined in Libby Prison until his release in May 1864. His conduct during the fighting at Aldie later earned him the Medal of Honor.