Just two weeks after Elon Farnsworth’s encounter with the guerrillas, Gen. George Stoneman set out on the mounted raid deemed vital to the success of Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s spring campaign. Hooker’s “high expectations” were immediately crushed, however, by a “drenching northeast storm of wind and rain.” Rather than a quick dash across the Rappahannock…

During the winter of 1862 and the spring of 1863, several Southern units conducted guerrilla operations in Northern Virginia. Companies A and H, 4th Virginia Cavalry, known as the Prince William Cavalry and the Black Horse Troop respectively, were detached from the regiment and, based in Warrenton, conducted independent operations, predominately in Fauquier and Prince…