The most powerful cavalry force ever seen…

The most powerful cavalry force ever seen in the Eastern Theater—over ten thousand troopers with thirty-two artillery pieces—had ridden to the southeast on May 9 to move behind Lee's arm.

They have three goals: first, disrupt Lee's supply lines by destroying railroad tracks and supplies; second, threaten the Confederate capital in Richmond, which would distract Lee; third, and most important, defeat Stuart.

The Union cavalry column, which at times stretches for over thirteen miles (twenty-one kilometers), had reached the Confederate forward supply base at Beaver Dam Station that evening.

The Confederate troops had been able to destroy many of the critical military supplies before the Union arrived, so Sheridan's men destroy numerous railroad cars and six locomotives of the Virginia Central Railroad, destroy telegraph wires, and rescue almost four hundred Union soldiers who had been captured in the Wilderness.