As Meade followed south once again, the Union army smashed a Confederate defensive bridgehead at Rappahannock Station on November 7 and drove Lee back across the Rapidan River.

The Confederates had not achieved their primary objectives of bringing on a decisive battle or preventing the Federal reinforcement of the Western Theater, and Lee and his officers were much demoralized by this failure.

Early in September, Lee dispatched two divisions of Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's Corps to reinforce the Confederate Army of Tennessee for the Battle of Chickamauga.

Meade, despite having superior numbers, did not wish to give battle in a position that did not offer him the advantage and ordered the Army of the Potomac to withdraw along the line of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad.

Stuart was on one of his typical cavalry raids to capture supply wagons and blundered into the rear guard of the Union III Corps near Warrenton.

[4] As the Union army withdrew towards Manassas Junction, Meade was careful to protect his western flank from the kind of envelopment that had doomed Maj. Gen. John Pope and Hooker in previous battles in this area.

On October 14, Union soldiers of the II Corps, posted behind the Orange & Alexandria Railroad embankment, mauled two brigades of Maj. Gen. Henry Heth's division and captured a battery of artillery.

After minor skirmishing near Manassas and Centreville, the Confederates retired slowly to the Rappahannock River, destroying the Orange & Alexandria Railroad as they went.

[6] After defeat at Bristoe Station and an aborted advance on Centreville, Stuart's cavalry shielded the withdrawal of Lee's army from the vicinity of Manassas Junction.

A surprise attack by Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick's VI Corps at dusk overran the Confederate bridgehead at Rappahannock Station, capturing two brigades (more than 1,600 men) of Maj. Gen. Jubal A.