I worked for Bob Hubbard from 1987 until his retirement in 1992. The details have slipped away over the years, but at some point Bob and I discussed the area around Sangster’s Station and the fight at the blockhouse. Bob recalled having once seen a small monument at the scene of the fight. He also…
Back in the 1980s, when I first became aware of this fight, I was intrigued by the identification of the regimental standard captured by the Confederates that evening. The flag was identified as belonging to the 164th New York Infantry, but the blockhouse was defended by men from the 155th New York Infantry. The accounts…
Rosser’s attack on the blockhouse was not the first skirmish to take place near Sangster’s Station. Union and Confederate cavalry clashed nearby on March 9, 1862. The Southerners were driven off but Lt. Henry Hidden, 1st New York Lincoln Cavalry, was killed. Lieutenant Hidden is believed to be the first Union volunteer cavalry officer killed in…
In mid-December 1863, just as Jeb Stuart’s troopers thought they were heading into winter quarters, Union general William Averell launched a raid against the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. Another Union force targeted the town of Saunton, Virginia. The Southern troops in the Upper Shenandoah Valley were outnumbered, and in danger of being overwhelmed. In an effort to aid…
Susan Caldwell lived in Warrenton, with her four children, while her husband worked in Richmond. Throughout their years of separation, Susan wrote to her husband regularly, and with a keen eye for the events transpiring around her. In a letter begun on April 17, Caldwell explained how word of the Yankee’s approach reached the Southern troopers…
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…
Part 1 of 4 But for his meteoric rise from captain to brigadier on June 28, 1863, and his death five days later in a controversial attack at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Elon Farnsworth may well have remained one of the many thousands of young men who served during the Civil War in relative anonymity. And while…
Small But Important Riots 