 "go with the Artl tomorrow and at daylight towards the Rapidan river & see to its being placed in position to defend the fords”Summary: Earlier in the day on September 13, 1863, the Union cavalry led by George A. Custer had routed J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry in the Battle of Culpeper Court House. General Meade’s army was across the Rappahannock and moving closer. In this letter to his chief of artillery, written at 9 p.m., Lee orders General Pendleton to place his artillery in position at daybreak to defend the Rapidan River fords against Meade’s forces. The letter also reveals Lee’s strategy for placing Ewell’s and A. P Hill’s forces to their best advantage to repel Meade. Robert E. Lee. Autograph Letter Signed to William N. Pendleton. [Virginia], September 13, 1863. 1 p. Inventory# 21553.01 $28,500 Complete Transcript: 9 P.M. 13 Sept ‘63
Genl Pendleton
Commd G Genl I wish you to go with the Artl tomorrow and at daylight towards the Rapidan river & see to its being placed in position to defend the fords-- Ewells Corps will move towards Raccoon ford & Hills towards Rapidan
Very respt &c
R E Lee / Genl
Genl Pendleton Historical Background: After General George Meade’s failure to pursue Robert E. Lee’s retreating army after the Battle of Gettysburg, he planned new offensives in the fall to correct this. Lee had retreated across the Potomac to Virginia and positioned his army behind the Rapidan River. In early September 1863 he sent two divisions under General James Longstreet to fight in Georgia. Sending Longstreet to Georgia would play a large role in the Confederate Army’s victory at the Battle of Chickamauga, while in the meantime weakening his own forces. General George Meade planned to take full advantage of Lee’s vulnerability, especially since Meade had been roundly condemned for failing to pursue Lee’s army to the finish after Gettysburg. Meade crossed the Rappahannock River in August and on September 13 pushed columns of troops toward the Rapidan, intending to confront Lee. Early in the morning of September 13, 10,000 Union cavalry under General Alfred Pleasanton had approached Culpeper, where Stuart’s headquarters were located in the Court House. Constant skirmishing was brought to full battle when around 1 p.m. Custer led a cavalry charge against the main Confederate line. The Union troops drove the Confederates toward the Rapidan with heavy skirmishing, and by nightfall Lee’s troops had retreated across the river to Raccoon’s Ford. The victorious Union army camped at Cedar Mountain. The maneuvers outlined so briefly in Lee’s letter gave the Confederate army sufficient strength to discourage Meade’s army from advancing further into Virginia. After two days of reconnaissance, Meade concluded that the rebels’ position was too strong to break. Meade’s forces would also become weakened as he received orders from Washington that two corps of the Army of the Potomac were to be immediately sent Tennessee after the Union’s defeat at Chickamauga. However, the federal victory at Culpeper gave Meade a launching area for the Bristoe and Mine Run Campaigns, a series of battles fought in Virginia during October and November 1863. Both Ewell and A. P. Hill fought Meade’s army at Bristoe Station on October 13-14. When the two armies retired to winter quarters, Meade controlled the area around Brandy Station and Culpeper, and Lee had pulled back south of the Rapidan. In the context of the war, this brief communication had an important effect. It helped to break Meade’s momentum, which forced him to follow-up with his unsuccessful Bristoe and Mine Run campaigns in October and November. Meade’s failure to destroy Lee’s army during these months convinced Lincoln to appoint Ulysses S. Grant as General-in-Chief of the Union Army. Grant’s strategy of total war in 1864 and 1865 eventually forced Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Robert E. Lee (1807-1870). Knowing in 1860 that Civil War was inevitable, President Lincoln had offered Lee command of the Union army. Lee declined and submitted his resignation out of loyalty to his home state of Virginia. In 1861 he served as senior military advisor to Jefferson Davis, and he was later appointed commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. By February 1865, he was named commander-in-chief of the entire Confederate army. Overcome by the North’s superior numbers and resources, he surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in 1865. William Nelson Pendleton (1809-1883) graduated from West Point in 1830, a native Virginian who resigned from the U.S. Army in 1833 to teach and become a minister. He served in the Confederate Army as an artillery captain in 1861 and was promoted to brigadier general in March 1862. For most of the war he was the chief of artillery for the Army of Northern Virginia, and later in command of the reserve ordnance. After the war he returned to the ministry.
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