The Raid on Chambersburg, often identified as J.E.B. Stuart's Chambersburg Raid, was a Confederate States Army cavalry raid into Maryland and Pennsylvania on October 10–12, 1862 during the American Civil War. It became known as Stuart's "second ride around McClellan" because it duplicated Stuart's reconnaissance ride completely around the Union Army of the Potomac under Major General George B. McClellan during the ill-fated Peninsula Campaign.
After McClellan failed to pursue the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia commanded by General Robert E. Lee from Maryland to Virginia after the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, Lee planned to achieve some of his thwarted objectives from the Maryland Campaign through a cavalry raid. He asked Major General J.E.B. Stuart to lead the raid. Stuart took 1,800 men and a four-cannon light artillery battery on the raid. Stuart crossed into Maryland west of the Army of the Potomac's encampments, raided Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania and locations along his way, and returned south on a longer route which first took his men to the east of the Union Army positions.
Stuart achieved his objectives of securing fresh horses, mules, arms and supplies; capturing about 30 civilian officials to exchange for captured Confederates; destroying important railroad equipment, buildings and track in the vicinity of Chambersburg; capturing and paroling about 280 convalescing Union soldiers; gathering information; and avoiding a significant battle through evasion of pursuing Union cavalry. His men did fail to destroy the important railroad bridge over Conococheague Creek near Chambersburg which they were told, falsely, was made of iron. The raid contributed to President Abraham Lincoln's decision to replace McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac less than a month later.
On August 28–30, 1862, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia commanded by General Robert E. Lee defeated Union Major General John Pope's Army of Virginia at the Second Battle of Bull Run or Second Manassas. Pope retreated to Centreville, Virginia where he considered having his force retreat into the defenses of Washington, D.C. Since Pope's men retreated and reorganized in seemingly good order, Major General Henry W. Halleck, then Union Army General-in-Chief, ordered Pope to attack Lee. Lee had not ordered an immediate pursuit of Pope's army because the Confederates were exhausted from three weeks of marching and the battle and were low on ammunition and supplies. On the next day, Lee ordered Major General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson to outflank the Union Army and get his force between Pope's men and Washington, D.C. This led to the Battle of Chantilly or Ox Hill in Fairfax County, Virginia on September 1. Two Union Army divisions held off the Confederate force as a severe thunderstorm hampered continued fighting. After the fighting ceased, the Union forces withdrew first to Jermantown, Virginia and Fairfax Court House, Virginia and then into the Washington, D.C. defenses. This cleared the way for the Maryland Campaign, Lee's first invasion of the North.
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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