The Battle of Fairfax Court House was fought during the Gettysburg campaign of the American Civil War between two cavalry detachments from the Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by General Joseph Hooker, and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert E. Lee.
The Confederate cavalry leader General J.E.B. Stuart was keen to restore his prestige after two humiliating encounters with Union cavalry, and as the main body crossed the Potomac into Maryland, he received permission to detach three brigades and ride around the entire Union army to gather supplies and intelligence, and damage lines of communication.
At Fairfax Court House, Virginia, on June 27, one of Stuart’s brigades, led by Brigadier General Wade Hampton, was surprised by a small detachment of the 11th New York Cavalry under Major Remington, which initially drove them into the woods, but were so heavily outnumbered that they had to retreat. Although technically a Confederate win, this small engagement had a major impact on the outcome of Gettysburg, since it delayed Stuart’s arrival, depriving Lee of essential knowledge of the enemy’s whereabouts.
On the night of May 5–6, 1863, after the Army of the Potomac commanded by Major General Joseph Hooker had been defeated at the Battle of Chancellorsville (April 30, 1863 to May 6, 1863), in Spotsylvania County, Virginia by the General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, Hooker withdrew his forces to positions north of the Rappahannock River, mainly in the vicinity of Falmouth, Virginia. Lee's army remained just to the south of the Rappahannock in the Fredericksburg, Virginia area after the battle.
Meanwhile, in Mississippi, Union Major General Ulysses S. Grant was closing in on a Confederate army at Vicksburg, Mississippi. Loss of Vicksburg would give the Union control of the Mississippi River and effectively cut off Confederate territory west of the Mississippi from the rest of the Confederacy. Leaders of the Confederate government, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Confederate States Secretary of War James A. Seddon wanted to relieve the pressure on Vicksburg, possibly by sending reinforcements from Virginia to Mississippi or to Tennessee in order to divert attention of Union forces from Vicksburg.
In meetings with Davis and Seddon from May 14, 1863 to May 17, 1863 and on May 26, 1863, Lee proposed to relieve the pressure in Mississippi by diverting Union Army attention to an invasion of the North from Virginia. This also would spare Virginia from further campaigning that summer, allow the Army of Northern Virginia to live off the land in the North and to threaten major cities, such as Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., in order to weaken Northern support for the war and possibly even to obtain foreign recognition of the Confederacy. Davis and Seddon, along with Davis's entire cabinet, except Postmaster-General John Reagan of Texas, agreed upon Lee's plan at these meetings. However, further correspondence was exchanged, which made it appear to some later historians that Davis's full approval did not come until May 31. On the other hand, historian Stephen W. Sears states that the further correspondence only concerned Lee's difficulty with D. H. Hill concerning reinforcements and not the plan to invade the North and that Lee began to get his force ready to move north on May 17.
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.
This page covers Mosby's Raid on Fairfax Court House. A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
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