The clash at Hanover kept Confederate cavalry commander J.E.B. Stuart away from Robert E. Lee’s army at a critical moment in history—but there is more to the story.

Historians have made much of Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart’s role—or lack thereof—in the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863. Stuart failed to arrive at the battle in time to significantly assist leading Confederate general Robert E. Lee, having been delayed by another engagement 14 miles away in Hanover, Pennsylvania.

The precise impact of Stuart’s absence from Gettysburg has been hard to pin down. Many say that Stuart’s extended absence crippled Lee at a critical time, while others say the battle wouldn’t have been fought at all had Stuart been present. Both claims are reasonable, considering that the battle began after Union and Confederate scouting units accidentally ran into each other and summoned help; Lee was not looking for an engagement with the Army of the Potomac, and he showed uncharacteristic caution once the battle began. Those circumstances can be attributed to the fact that Lee was mostly ignorant of what he faced at Gettysburg, which affected his willingness to move boldly, even though the first day’s movements provided him the opportunity for a significant victory.

Lee’s battlefield audacity and bellicosity generally came from a superior knowledge of terrain and both armies’ disposition, which enabled that audacity at earlier engagements like Second Manassas and Chancellorsville. That superior knowledge partially came from fighting on his home turf in northern Virginia, which Lee knew well. But much also originated from Stuart, Lee’s talented and equally audacious cavalry commander. Stuart kept Lee informed about enemy movements and dispositions, giving the Army of Northern Virginia an advantage over its opponents. It was Stuart who identified Union General George B. McClellan’s open right flank when Richmond seemed about to fall in 1862. Stuart then rode around McClellan’s entire army, giving Lee the information necessary to launch and prosecute the Seven Days Battles, driving McClellan off the peninsula and back to the north.

Stuart’s reputation for being in the right place at the right time makes his absence at Gettysburg even more puzzling to the casual reader. Further study reveals that an initial questionable decision by Stuart led to a cascade of consequences that kept him separated from Lee for twice the time that both men envisioned. During that window, Lee blindly met the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg—and Stuart did not arrive until well after both armies were committed to the fight.

About the Battle of Hanover

Some casual historians point to the June 30, 1863 Battle of Hanover as the event that supposedly saved the Union at Gettysburg. Such an expansive claim is hard to defend. But one can say more confidently that Hanover was a critical link in the chain of consequences that led to Stuart’s absence from the battle following his initial maneuvering decisions.

Stuart’s 5,000-man column was toiling northeast, making for the city of York in south-central Pennsylvania, where he hoped to link up with General Richard Ewell’s Confederate Second Corps. His men were also shepherding a large Federal supply train captured near Rockville, Maryland, as they moved north. Lee had ordered Stuart to capture any supplies that would prove useful, and this train was, being mostly grain and fodder for horses that could feed the resource-strapped Confederates.

In hindsight, some of Stuart’s critics have argued that bringing the wagon train along hindered his movements, and it may have in terms of linear speed. On the other hand, the train’s contents, especially the grain, meant that his command spent less time foraging and grazing their horses. Grazing 5,000 horses means spreading out the column, then taking the time to reassemble. The ability to draw from the train’s cargo headed off that delay. In terms of the column’s timetable, its presence was probably a wash.

Whatever the case, as Stuart’s command approached Hanover on the morning of July 30, the 13^th Virginia Cavalry, part of John Chambliss’ brigade, encountered the Union’s 18^th Pennsylvania Cavalry near the town. That regiment was the rearguard for Union General Judson Kirkpatrick’s division moving north on the Army of the Potomac’s right flank.

As the Pennsylvanians fell back on Hanover, the 2^nd North Carolina Cavalry assailed their left flank, splitting them in two and driving them through the streets. Colonel William Henry Fitzhugh Payne, the 2^nd North Carolina’s commander, was thrown into a tanner’s vat when his horse faltered. This ignominious happenstance led to his capture by Union forces. The Confederates nonetheless briefly took control of the town as the horse artillery unlimbered and harried the retreating Federals. 

Stuart intended to rest and resupply in Hanover, but his adversaries weren’t finished. Hearing the gunfire, Union General Elon Farnsworth wheeled the 5^th New York Cavalry, sending them back toward the town. Elements of Chambliss’ brigade, along with Stuart himself, had moved into the farmland south of Hanover, when they found themselves suddenly surrounded by the charging New Yorkers. Stuart narrowly avoided capture when he and a staff officer forced their horses to leap a 15-foot-wide irrigation ditch before riding to safety.

Kirkpatrick hurried to the scene, pushing his horse so hard that it died upon arriving in Hanover’s town square. The Federals began barricading the streets, determined to deny it to the Confederates. Stuart consolidated his lines south and west of the town, strengthening them as General Wade Hampton’s brigade reached the field with its artillery.

Kirkpatrick matched Stuart’s dispositions—including a brigade under newly-promoted General George Armstrong Custer—which he ordered to probe Chambliss’ positions west of Hanover. Custer’s dismounted cavalry gained the Littlestown Road, though neither side made any more aggressive actions. That evening, Stuart disengaged, sliding around to the northeast toward York, where he believed he would link up with Jubal Early’s division, which was part of Ewell’s corps.

Strategically, the Battle of Hanover was essentially a stalemate. Union casualties were twice as heavy as Confederate ones—215 for the Union, 117 for the Confederacy—but Kirkpatrick managed to deny possession of Hanover to Stuart, so one could call it a tactical victory for the Federals. More consequentially, the battle delayed Stuart for the better part of a day when the Confederates didn’t have a day to spare.

But Hanover alone did not prevent Stuart from joining Lee before the clash at Gettysburg. Let’s look briefly at the sequence in which it was nonetheless an important part.

J.E.B. Stuart’s Long Ride to Gettysburg

A few days earlier, Lee’s orders to Stuart directed him to move north from Salem Depot, Virginia, protecting Ewell’s right flank as his corps led the Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland and Pennsylvania. Lee and Confederate I Corps commander General James Longstreet suggested that Stuart cross behind the Union Army, which they believed was still encamped in the “Wilderness,” a heavily wooded area in northern Virginia, following its rout at Chancellorsville. They believed that Union scouts seeing Stuart moving west would alert them to the Confederate plans to move north to the west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Lee hoped to keep his opponents guessing as long as possible, and Stuart moving east and then north would further that aim.

Stuart broke camp on July 25, from which time he was out of touch with Lee and the main army. As he moved north, he found his planned route blocked by Union columns marching in front of him. Contrary to Lee’s forecast, the Army of the Potomac had moved sooner than expected, and they were using the roads Stuart needed. It was here that Stuart’s fortunes hinged on a single decision.

Moving behind the Federals was now out of the question. Stuart could move west to join the Army of Northern Virginia as it moved north, but he would have to share the mountain roads with the slower Confederate infantry, slowing his progress. His second option was to move southeast around the Union columns and use the open road networks to the east, allowing him to mostly bypass the mountains. That route would require him to circle around the Army of the Potomac, but it would keep him on course to meet Ewell at York, where Lee projected in his orders.

Stuart ultimately chose to move southeast. Almost immediately, he began to run into delays, beginning with the unforeseen initial move to skirt the Federal troops moving north. The extra distance, combined with being denied his planned crossing point on the Potomac, and adding a crossing of Occoquan Creek—not to mention a couple of skirmishes with Union infantry along the way—meant that Stuart took two full days to leave Virginia, double the projected time.

Capturing the wagon train and raiding federal infrastructure in Maryland took more time still. Stuart did not enter Pennsylvania until June 30, five days after he started, and at least a full day after the time Lee expected to hear from him. The encounter at Hanover took most of that day, denying Stuart any progress he might have made toward closing the gap.

Stuart’s command executed an all-night forced march roughly 18 miles to Dover, Pennsylvania, after disengaging at Hanover. He gained time, but the march was hard on his men and their horses. It was here that the wagon train’s contents helped, though one might argue that the forced march may have never taken place had Stuart beaten Kirkpatrick to Hanover. The delays added up, and Stuart first arrived in the vicinity of York on July 1, a day after Early’s division left to concentrate with the main army at Gettysburg.

Stuart then moved north to Carlisle, hoping to rest and resupply. But Federal troops fought back, forcing the Confederates to be content with burning the barracks and moving southwest, after Stuart finally learned of Lee’s location. The exhausted cavalry command finally linked up with Lee on the afternoon of July 2, a full day into the Battle of Gettysburg.

Stuart’s troopers were mostly ineffective during the battle itself. On July 3, they were easily repulsed by Custer’s troops as they operated behind Cemetery Ridge. On the other side of the ridge, Confederate General George Pickett decided the fate of the battle by charging his men headlong across open ground toward the Union lines—an attack that ended in disaster and led the remainder of Lee’s army to retreat into Virginia, inflicting a defeat on the Confederacy from which it would never recover.

In a Confusing Situation, Stuart Did the Best He Could

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder famously wrote that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Moltke was a student of the theorist Carl von Clausewitz, who always cautioned that plans and operations must always account for what the enemy might do. In other words, the enemy always gets a vote. Clausewitz also wrote about the “the fog of war,” in which commanders cannot clearly see or understand what is happening as events progress. Clausewitz understood that things move fast, and events around Stuart, Lee, and both armies were moving fast indeed in a time when information traveled slowly.

J.E.B. Stuart must shoulder the responsibility for his failure at Gettysburg. In late June 1863, he dismissed possible delays when he chose to move southeast instead of west on June 25. He clearly overestimated his ability to outpace the Federals, while discounting potential threats the long Union column posed to his command. Stuart sought to save time and preserve his freedom of movement by going east instead of west. In the end, that decision had major consequences. The Battle of Hanover was part of that consequence, but it was not the single, critical event that some historians have alleged kept Stuart from linking up with Lee.

We cannot know whether a more timely arrival of Stuart’s forces would have turned Lee from Gettysburg. It would certainly have given Lee a clearer picture of events, and provided him with a far more capable cavalry force once any battle was engaged. We can confidently say that the lack of those advantages influenced Lee’s actions leading up to the battle and during its initial stages. But that lack rests with Stuart’s fateful decision, not with the skirmish at Hanover.

About the Author: William Lawson

William Lawson is a military historian focusing on World War II and 20^th century conflicts and the American Civil War. His specialty is operational level warfare, especially American amphibious doctrine. He writes on history, politics, and firearms for multiple publications and historical journals. He serves on the editorial advisory board for the Saber & Scroll Journal and Military History Chronicles and is a member of the Society for Military History and the American Historical Association. Lawson is based in Virginia.

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