Generals George Meade, Robert E. Lee, and The Battle of Bristoe Station

Despite losing one-third of his strength via Longstreet’s departure, Gen. Robert E. Lee took advantage of the Federal countermove by launching a daring offensive against Maj. Gen. George Meade’s Army of the Potomac, located inside a treacherous sideways ‘V’ created by the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers.  What followed was a fast based campaign of maneuver as Lee sought to land a crippling blow on his opponent, while Meade strove to avoid the thrust by rapidly withdrawing toward Centreville.  For a week the two armies engaged in a race, with violent cavalry actions taking place almost daily as Lee tried to head off Meade’s infantry before it slipped beyond his reach.  The campaign climaxed in a bloody rearguard action a place called Bristoe Station.

This campaign, never before studied in depth by Civil War historians, is the subject of the second book in author Jeffrey William Hunt’s Meade and Lee series of books examining the war in Virginia between Lee’s retreat over the Potomac after Gettysburg and the end of active campaigning

Jeffrey William Hunt is the Director of the Texas Military Forces Museum at Camp Mabry in Austin, Texas, which is the official museum of the Texas National Guard, and an Adjunct Professor of History at Austin Community College, where he has taught since 1988. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Government and a Master’s Degree in History, both from the University of Texas at Austin. Jeff is the recipient of the Chicago Civil War Round Table Edwin Cole Bearss Award for Outstanding Civil War Scholarship (2022).

Mr. Hunt, a prolific author, is the author of Meade and Lee After Gettysburg: The Forgotten Final Stage of the Gettysburg Campaign: From Falling Waters to Culpeper Court House (Savas Beatie, 2017, named Eastern Theater Book of the Year by Civil War Books & Authors)

This program is presented as a public service by  the North Jersey Civil War Round Table and is part of a four-part series The Winter of Gen. George Meade II (2024).

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