The Battle of Aldie in the Gettysburg…
June 1863 CE
Tensions have grown between Hooker and his cavalry commander Brigadier General Alfred Pleasonton because of the latter's inability to penetrate Major General J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry screen and gain access to the Shenandoah Valley to locate the Army of Northern Virginia, which has been on the move since the Battle of Chancellorsville in early May.
Pleasonton had decided on June 17 to push through Stuart's screen.
To accomplish his goal, he had ordered Brigadier General David McMurtrie Gregg's division from Manassas Junction westward down the Little River Turnpike to Aldie.
Aldie is tactically important in that near the village the Little River Turnpike intersects both the Ashby's Gap Turnpike and Snicker's Gap Turnpike, which respectively lead through Ashby's Gap and Snickers Gap of the Blue Ridge Mountain into the valley.
Munford does not consider Aldie as a defeat as his withdrawal coincides with an order from Stuart to retire, as more Federal cavalry had been sighted at Middleburg.
Union casualties are three hundred and five dead and wounded, with the Confederates losing between one hundred and ten and one hundred and nineteen.
Aldie is the first in what will be a series of small battles along the Ashby's Gap Turnpike in which Stuart's forces successfully delay Pleasonton's thrust across the Loudoun Valley, depriving him of the opportunity to locate Lee's army.
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