During the Battles of Hanover and Gettysburg, the Union cavalry achieved impressive successes against Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry. At Hanover on June 30, 1863, Stuart’s division of 5,000 men outnumbered Union Gen. H. Judson Kilpatrick’s 4,000, but after a Union counterattack reclaimed Hanover, Stuart and his mare Virginia leapt a Plum Creek tributary around 11 a.m. while fleeing 25-to-30 Union horsemen firing pistols in pursuit. Some Confederate mounted horses had to pass through water instead, as the stream was then up to fifteen feet wide and three-to-four feet deep. Stuart regrouped in nearby farmland, then by mid afternoon withdrew east of town toward Jefferson and Seven Valleys, then north to New Salem, now also known as York New Salem, and eventually Dover, with the last Confederates leaving Hanover at dusk. The next morning, July 1, Stuart was still dangerously out of touch with Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee as Lee was about to encounter the full force of the Union army at Gettysburg. On July 3, the two cavalries clashed again in fields east of Gettysburg, where the outnumbered Union cavalry fought Stuart’s forces to a standoff, and George A. Custer, a daring newly minted general, led two Union mounted charges.

Photo: Mike McKeown

Photo: Cosmos Mariner

Photo: Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Photo: Courtesy Guthrie Memorial Library

Photo: Cosmos Mariner

Pennville, Pennsylvania · USA