In May 1862, Union Gen. George B. McClellan led the Army of the Potomac up the Peninsula to the gates of Richmond. Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia in June and began planning a counterattack. On June 12, Gen. J.E.B. Stuart led 1,200 cavalrymen on a daring 3-day reconnaissance and discovered that the Union right was unsecured, giving Lee vital information for the offensive that became the Seven Days’ Battles on June 26. Late on June 13, 1862, Stuart and his cavalrymen approached Tunstall's Station, where he ordered a detachment to cut telegraph wires and obstruct the Richmond and York River Railroad, the Army of the Potomac’s main supply route. The troopers captured two squads of Union infantry and station guards without firing a shot, chopped down two telegraph poles, and failed to burn the railroad bridge across Black Creek. As a train approached from the west, the cavalrymen tried to throw a switch to send it onto a siding, but a lock stopped them, so they cut trees and blocked the track. Stuart posted men on a high bank overlooking the railroad cut and ordered the engineer to halt, but the locomotive Speedwell, pulling a 20-car freight train carrying 200-300 Union soldiers, crashed through the obstructions as Confederates opened fire, killing or wounding some Federals. Some Union soldiers returned fire, while others lay on the floors or jumped into the woods, and the train escaped toward the guarded supply depot at White House Landing on the Pamunkey River four miles away. Knowing the Federals would be alerted, Stuart quickly destroyed what could not be carried and pressed on toward Talleysville with prisoners.
