Starting as a chance meeting engagement on July 1, the Confederates were initially successful in driving Union cavalry and two infantry corps from their defensive positions, through the town, and onto Cemetery Hill.

[9] Lee was overconfident of the morale and equipment of his "invincible" veterans as a result of their performance at Chancellorsville; he fantasized about a definitive war-winning triumph: [The Yankees will be] broken down with hunger and hard marching, strung out on a long line and much demoralized when they come into Pennsylvania.

It wanted Lee to reduce Union pressure threatening their garrison at Vicksburg, Mississippi, but he rejected its suggestions to send troops to provide direct aid, arguing for the value of a concentrated blow in the Northeast.

Stuart had taken all Lee's best cavalry, leaving the main army with two third-rate, ill-equipped, poorly led brigades that could not handle the reconnaissance challenge in hostile country.

When Lee finally got news of the approaching Federal army, he ordered his scattered forces to concentrate at Gettysburg, a crossroads junction in heavily wooded areas.

The vast majority of the 700,000 Federal soldiers (except for Grant's 70,000 near Vicksburg) were noncombatants that held static defensive posts that Lincoln feared to uncover, or like Rosecrans at Nashville, they were afraid to move.

[22] With more Union reports intimating that Lee had moved a large portion of his army, Hooker ordered Sedgwick to conduct a reconnaissance in force across the Rappahannock River.

A small skirmish began shortly after 5:00 p.m. as Vermont and New Jersey troops, supported by a heavy Federal artillery bombardment, paddled across the river and overran Confederate positions on the southern bank.

The same day as Federal troops crossed the river, General Buford wrote that he had received credible information that "all of the available cavalry of the Confederacy" was in Culpeper County.

[24] On June 7, George H. Sharpe, head of the Bureau of Military Information, erroneously reported to Hooker that, while J. E. B. Stuart was preparing a large cavalry raid, Lee's infantry would be withdrawing to Richmond.

[note 4] Lee rejoined the leading elements of his army in Culpeper on June 7 and ordered Albert G. Jenkins' cavalry to advance northward through the Shenandoah Valley.

[note 5][28] He also wrote to John D. Imboden and ordered him to attract Union forces in Hampshire County and to disrupt their communications and logistics as well as acquire cattle for use by the Confederate Army.

[note 8] On June 9, Lee ordered Stuart to cross the Rappahannock and raid Union forward positions, screening the Confederate Army from observation or interference as it moved north.

The Union garrison was commanded by Major General Robert H. Milroy and consisted of 6,900 troops posted in Winchester itself and a detachment of 1,800 men ten miles (16 km) east in Berryville, Virginia.

[53] While the fighting occurred at Aldie, the Union cavalry brigade of Col. Alfred N. Duffié arrived south of Middleburg in the late afternoon and drove in the Confederate pickets.

During their invasion of Pennsylvania, Confederate troops abducted up to 1,000 African Americans (most of them free people of color with a few being fugitive slaves), all of whom were forcibly sent southwards and sold into slavery.

"Rooney" Lee) between the Union army and Washington, moving north through Rockville to Westminster and on into Pennsylvania, hoping to capture supplies along the way and cause havoc near the enemy capital.

[68] Unfortunately for Stuart's plan, the Union army's movement was underway and his proposed route was blocked by columns of Federal infantry from Hancock's II Corps, forcing him to veer farther to the east than either he or General Lee had anticipated.

This prevented Stuart from linking up with Ewell as ordered and deprived Lee of the use of his prime cavalry force, the "eyes and ears" of the army, while advancing into unfamiliar enemy territory.

After a 20-mile (32 km) trek in the dark, his exhausted men reached Dover on the morning of July 1, the same time that his Confederate infantry colleagues began to fight Union cavalrymen under John Buford at Gettysburg.

The fighting at Hanover, the long march through York County with the captured wagons, and the brief encounter at Carlisle slowed Stuart considerably in his attempt to rejoin the main army.

Hampton moved into position astride the Hunterstown Road four miles (6 km) northeast of town, blocking access for any Union forces that might try to swing around behind Lee's lines.

[74] As Lee's offensive strategy became clear, Union general-in-chief Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck planned a countermove that could take advantage of the now lightly defended Confederate capital of Richmond.

[82] Heavy fighting in Herbst's Woods (near the Lutheran Theological Seminary) and on Oak Ridge finally caused the Union line to collapse.

Gen. John D. Imboden was entrusted to escort the miles-long wagon train of supplies and wounded men that Lee wanted to take back to Virginia with him, using the route through Cashtown and Hagerstown to Williamsport, Maryland.

However, despite casualties of over 20,000 men, including a number of senior officers, the morale of Lee's army remained high and their respect for the commanding general was not diminished by their reverses.

[91] Imboden's journey was one of extreme misery, conducted during the torrential rains that began on July 4, in which the 8,000 wounded men had to endure the weather and the rough roads in wagons without suspensions.

[95] As Meade's infantry began to march in pursuit of Lee on the morning of July 7, Buford's division departed from Frederick to destroy Imboden's train before it could cross the Potomac.

He once again called a council of war with his subordinates on the night of July 12, which resulted in a postponement of an attack until reconnaissance of the Confederate position could be performed, which Meade conducted the next morning.

He also suffered humiliation at the hands of his political enemies in front of the Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, questioning his actions at Gettysburg and his failure to defeat Lee during the retreat to the Potomac.