On August 22, 1862, during the Second Manassas Campaign, Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart and 1,500 cavalrymen struck the lightly guarded Union supply depot at Catlett’s Station, thirteen miles behind Gen. John Pope’s army on the Rappahannock River. Residents of nearby Warrenton greeted Stuart’s presence with excitement as he pushed on through pouring rain toward Catlett’s Station to get behind Pope’s army. The raid proved highly successful: Stuart’s men captured 200 prisoners, the paymaster with $25,000, and burned many wagons. They also unexpectedly seized Pope’s personal baggage wagon, containing a dress uniform cloak, a fine hat, and his dispatch book. The cloak and hat compensated for Stuart’s earlier embarrassment over the loss of his plumed hat, while the intelligence in the dispatch book helped Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson develop the strategy that led to the Confederate victory at Second Manassas one week later.
