The Battle Begins: Fighting East and Southeast of Mt. Defiance

On a day expected to bring scorching temperatures, the Union attack in the Battle of Middleburg began about 6:00 a.m. with the 4th Pennsylvania Cavalry leading the advance, supported by the 16th Pennsylvania and 10th New York. Southern pickets in Middleburg briefly held before retiring before overwhelming numbers, and Union brigade commander John Irvin Gregg then faced the Confederate brigades of Colonel John Chambliss and General Beverly Robertson posted along this ridge. Here, Robertson’s recently recruited and trained 4th and 5th North Carolina Cavalry defended the Southern line, with about 250 men holding four horses each so that about 700 Tarheels could hold nearly a mile of ground and remount as needed, a tactic increasingly used to increase mobility. After performing poorly at Brandy Station on June 9th, these North Carolina troopers sought to prove themselves. On the Union left, Federal troops met obstinate resistance from Confederates of these Carolina units posted behind the walls of the small Cocke family cemetery to the east, where the headstones and stone walls provided excellent cover, while the Cocke family home just south of the cemetery also formed part of the defensive position. Frustrated by the delay, Gregg’s superior and division-commanding cousin, General David MacMurtrie Gregg, ordered another brigade under Judson Kilpatrick to attack along the turnpike and north of it in support. Confederate dismounted cavalry was ultimately driven from the Cocke family cemetery and home by the 4th Pennsylvania Cavalry in the Civil War’s first dismounted carbine charge. The heaviest fighting took place in a line of woods to the right, where, despite heavy fire from Robertson’s North Carolinians, Pennsylvania troopers charged on foot and horseback and pushed the Confederates back from tree to tree. Driven back, the Confederates reformed and attacked again three times, before two mounted companies of the 1st Maine led the final push. As Colonel Doster of the 4th Pennsylvania Cavalry wrote, they came out of the woods like a swarm of bees. Driving the Confederates beyond the woods and to the west, the Mainers captured 45 Confederate cavalrymen, including Lieutenant Colonel Edward Cantwell of the 4th North Carolina. Cantwell, captured by Captain George M. Brown of the 1st Maine Cavalry, later said there was no disgrace in being captured by so chivalrous a soldier, and one Union officer later judged the action unsurpassed in gallantry.

Virginia · United States