At the Battle of Brandy Station, after failing to break through Major General J.E.B. Stuart's Confederates at Saint James Church, Brigadier General John Buford swung his force north and west to turn the Confederate left flank, but Brigadier General William Henry Fitzhugh "Rooney" Lee, son of Robert E. Lee, blocked the move from a stone wall five hundred yards ahead and positioned dismounted regiments between Ruffans Run and the Hazel River, with two unlimbered cannon on the far side of the hill behind the wall. From a knoll behind his position, Buford saw that the enemy's deployment and the channels of the two watercourses left him no alternative, so he launched several mounted and dismounted charges against the wall. Lee's brigade poured blistering fire into the Federals and held them back for several hours. Some infantry with Buford then slipped through a wheat field along Ruffans Run to strike the Confederate flank, causing the Confederates to run for their horses and begin to fall back, while another reason for Lee's withdrawal was that Brigadier General David M. Gregg's Union cavalry had finally entered the battle from the south at Brandy Station.
