After Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's victory over Union Gen. John Pope at Second Battle of Manassas, Lee decided to invade Maryland in hopes of reaping the fall harvest, gaining Confederate recruits, earning foreign recognition of the Confederacy, and perhaps compelling the Union to sue for peace. Lee's 40,000-man Army of Northern Virginia arrived in Loudoun County early in September 1862. On September 2, Lee's cavalry skirmished with the Union Loudoun Rangers near the Leesburg courthouse and north of town at Mile Hill and New Valley Church. Lee's main force marched into Leesburg on September 4, and after conferring with key subordinates at Harrison Hall that night and the next morning, he ordered his army across the Potomac River into Maryland. Earlier he had written Confederate President Jefferson Davis that although the movement was attended with much risk, he did not consider success impossible and would endeavor to guard it from loss. As a tentative step, Lee sent D.H. Hill across the river that Thursday afternoon at three fords from here to Point of Rocks. At midday on September 5, Stonewall Jackson crossed his main force here at White's Ford, on property owned by local Confederate cavalry Major E.V. White, who served as Jackson's guide into Maryland. Gen. James Longstreet's wing followed Jackson's and completed its crossing the next day. After feinting toward Washington, Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry brought up the rear of the army that afternoon. Maj. Heros von Borcke, a Prussian serving on Stuart's staff, recalled that the cavalry column's passage of the Potomac occupied about two hours and that the artillery had some difficulty because in many places the water rose to the middle of the horses' bodies. After crossing, Lee's army consolidated near Frederick, Maryland, beginning the Maryland Campaign. Lee divided his force, detaching Stonewall Jackson's corps to capture Harpers Ferry. At Antietam Creek on September 17, Gen. George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac fought Lee's men to a bloody draw, and Lee retreated to Virginia on September 18-19.
