Author: Kati Singel

The Mine Run Campaign, fought between November 7 and December 2, 1863, during the American Civil War (1861–1865), was another unsuccessful attempt by Union general George G. Meade, after the Battle of Bristoe Station, to capitalize on the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous July. United States president Abraham Lincoln and general-in-chief Henry W. Halleck both were concerned that Meade had not been aggressive enough after pushing Confederate general Robert E. Lee out of Pennsylvania, and urged him to confront the Army of Northern Virginia. Bristoe Station, while a nominal victory for the Army of the Potomac, did not result in any real advantage. At the price of even greater casualties for both sides, Mine Run purchased the same result. Meade declined an opportunity for an all-out assault, fearing another Battle of Fredericksburg (1862). Lee, meanwhile, was frustrated to be on the defensive and fretted that his corps commanders Richard S. Ewell, A. P. Hill, and (temporarily) Jubal A. Early were not serving him as well as they might.

The Battle of Kernstown on March 23, 1862, set the stage for Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson‘s successful Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862 during the American Civil War (1861–1865). While a tactical defeat for the Confederates, and Jackson’s only loss, the battle nevertheless was an important strategic victory. In order to deal with Confederates in the Shenandoah Valley, the Fifth Corps of Union general Nathaniel P. Banks was forced to stray even farther away from the bulk of the Army of the Potomac, which was advancing up the Peninsula and threatening the Confederate capital at Richmond. Jackson’s pugnacious actions also contributed to U.S. president Abraham Lincoln‘s anxieties that Confederates might swarm out of the Valley and strike at Washington, D.C. Finally, the battle provided a compelling example of Jackson at his most inflexible and quarrelsome: when his subordinate, the popular Confederate general Richard B. Garnett, withdrew his troops without explicit orders, Jackson had him arrested.