After sunset on May 20, 1864, General Winfield Hancock’s Union Second Corps left Spotsylvania Court House and marched south along dark roads toward Milford Station on the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad. Grant had ordered Hancock there in hopes of drawing the Confederate army out of its Spotsylvania trenches to a place where he could be attacked at an advantage. Hancock reached Guinea Station about dawn on May 21, where pickets of the 9th Virginia Cavalry fired at the Union column and then withdrew to spread the alarm. Hancock continued south, and as soon as his troops left Guinea Station, Confederates began tearing up Downer’s Bridge less than a mile behind him. A spirited attack by the 114th Pennsylvania Volunteers saved the bridge for the Union, allowing Warren’s Fifth Corps to cross the river there later that afternoon. On May 21 Grant established his headquarters at the Motley House, later visited Fairfield, and spoke with Mrs. Chandler about Stonewall Jackson’s death there a year earlier.