The Battle of Middleburg took place from June 17 to June 19, 1863, in Loudoun County, Virginia, as part of the Gettysburg campaign of the American Civil War.
Confederate Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, screening Robert E. Lee's invasion route, sparred with Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton's Union cavalry. On June 17, Col. Alfred N. Duffié's isolated 1st Rhode Island Cavalry Regiment was attacked by the brigades of Thomas T. Munford and Beverly Robertson. The 1st Rhode Island was routed, taking about 250 casualties. On June 19, J. Irvin Gregg's brigade advanced, driving Stuart's cavalry one mile beyond the town. Both sides were reinforced, and mounted and dismounted skirmishing continued. Stuart was gradually levered out of his position but fell back to a second ridge, still covering the approaches to the Blue Ridge gap.
Stuart established his headquarters at Middleburg and scattered his brigades throughout the Loudoun Valley to watch for enemy activity. Early in the morning, Col. Alfred N. Duffié, a French-born officer, had taken the 280 men of the 1st Rhode Island Cavalry westward from the Army of the Potomac's camp near Centreville. Pleasonton had ordered him to camp at Middleburg that evening and then to proceed the next day toward Noland's Ferry, extending his march to the west as far as Snickersville. Duffié crossed the Bull Run Mountains at Thoroughfare Gap at 9:30 a.m., easily pushing aside pickets from John R. Chambliss's brigade. Confederate commanders could not believe that a small Union regiment would dare to travel so deep into enemy territory without an escort, so Chambliss did not aggressively attack, fearing that the column was the advance element of a much larger enemy force. Duffié continued on his isolated march, turning to the north by 11:00 a.m. and heading for Middleburg as ordered.
Arriving there about 4:00 p.m., Duffié drove in the few Confederate pickets deployed there and disrupted Stuart's evening of socializing with local ladies. Stuart and his staff quickly retreated to Rector's Crossroads, the location of his closest brigade. He ordered Beverly Robertson to move immediately to Middleburg to crush the Union cavalry. Duffié barricaded the streets of Middleburg, dismounted half of his regiment behind stonewalls, and sent for help from Judson Kilpatrick's brigade near Aldie. At 7:00 p.m., Stuart's attack routed the vastly outnumbered Rhode Islanders. Many of Duffié's men were captured the next morning as Chambliss cut off their escape route. The Parisian colonel finally returned to Centreville with only 4 officers and 27 men. A few stragglers eventually rejoined the shattered remnants of the regiment. Duffié would never again serve with the Army of the Potomac, although he did command cavalry in other Union armies. The Union casualties on July 17 were reported as 250.
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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