The Second Battle of Auburn was fought on October 14, 1863, in Fauquier County, Virginia, between Union and Confederate forces in the American Civil War. Confederate forces led by Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell led a sortie to extricate Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry command, trapped between two Union columns and clashed with the rearguard of the Federal II Corps under Brig. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren. Stuart was successfully extricated but the Federal wagon train avoided Confederate capture in the inconclusive fight.
On October 10, 1863, Gen. Robert E. Lee went on the offensive for the first time since the Gettysburg campaign in an attempt to turn the right flank of the Army of the Potomac standing between his Army of Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., much as he had done the year prior during the Northern Virginia Campaign. As Lee began his advance, Maj. Gen. George G. Meade shifted his line from the north bank of the Rapidan River towards Centreville to avoid being flanked. On October 13, J.E.B. Stuart was dispatched from Warrenton towards Catlett's Station on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad to determine the location of the Union left flank.
Upon discovering the Union wagon train falling back up the railroad, Stuart determined to raid it, leaving a small detachment in his rear at Auburn. Poor scouting failed to locate the presence of a Federal column of the II and III Corps advancing on Auburn from the south. The Federal column, whose cavalry had been dispatched towards Warrenton to protect the Union left flank, stumbled into Stuart's rearguard and a small fight ensued, known as the First Battle of Auburn. The small Confederate force was quickly driven off by the superior Union force and the Federal II Corps under Brig. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren went in to bivouac just south of Auburn, trapping Stuart's force between it and the wagon train. Stuart led his force, some 3,000 men, horses and equipment into a wooded ravine and hid from the Federals overnight. During the night Stuart dispatched a half dozen scouts in Federal uniforms through the Union lines to alert Lee, who dispatched Richard S. Ewell's Corps to Auburn to extricate Stuart at dawn the next morning.
At 3 a.m. on October 14, Warren's II Corps broke camp at Three Mile Station for Catlett's Station. At the crossing of Cedar Run just south of Auburn the ground was muddied by the passing of the Federal III Corps during the night. The wagon trains had difficulty in the mud on the slopes of the creek and accordingly Warren ordered Brig. Gen John C. Caldwell's brigade to secure the high ground north of the creek and guard the rear of the column and the wagon train as it marched to Catlett's Station. On the hill, Caldwell's men set up camp and began to make breakfast, and the Hill was soon dubbed Coffee Hill. Caldwell formed a skirmish line facing northwest towards Warrenton with the 10th New York in advance as vedettes.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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