After Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s victory at Chancellorsville in May 1863, he led the Army of Northern Virginia west to the Shenandoah Valley, then north through central Maryland and into Pennsylvania, while Union Gen. George G. Meade, who replaced Gen. Joseph Hooker on Jun 28, led the Army of the Potomac in pursuit. The armies collided at Gettysburg on July 1, and after three days the defeated Confederates retreated across the Potomac River into Virginia on July 14. During the second half of July 1863, the Union army pursued Lee’s army through Rappahannock County as the Confederates marched south toward the protection of the Rapidan River. The county’s largest single military engagement occurred here on the morning of July 24, when Union Gen. George A. Custer, with five cavalry regiments and two batteries, attacked the rear of Confederate Gen. James Longstreet’s corps and the head of Gen. A.P. Hill’s corps as they marched down the Richmond road. Custer placed artillery on the shoulder of Battle Mountain and shelled Hill’s men, who returned fire from the embankment on the southeastern corner of the crossroads. Col. William Oates and the 15th Alabama Infantry reconnoitered northeastward from the crossroads along the side of Battle Mountain, while Confederate Gen. Henry L. Benning, farther south on the Richmond Road, doubled back to flank Custer with 2,000 Georgia and Alabama infantrymen at Newman’s Crossroads, a quarter mile to the east. Custer’s rear guard—two guns of Battery M, 2nd U.S. Artillery, and the 5th and 6th Michigan Cavalry—held Benning’s Confederates in check for two hours, allowing Custer and his command to escape by cutting a road through dense woods and racing back to camp at Amissville, several miles northeast, while Hill’s corps continued on to Culpeper County. Two Union officers later received the Medal of Honor for helping save the guns during the engagement: Lt. Carle A. Woodruff of the 2nd U.S. Artillery and Capt. Smith H. Hastings of Company M, 5th Michigan Cavalry.
