This little-known Civil War cavalry battle in northern Virginia played a key role in the Gettysburg Campaign’s opening phase.
The Battle of Aldie was fought on June 17, 1863 between Union cavalry commanded by Brig. Gen. Hugh Judson Kilpatrick and Confederate cavalry commanded by Col. Thomas T. Munford in Loudoun County, Virginia during the American Civil War. An inconclusive prelude to the Battle of Middleburg, the Battle of Aldie was part of the Gettysburg Campaign and resulted in approximately 424 casualties.
On June 1, 1863, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia slipped away from the Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, and headed north to invade Pennsylvania. Lee entrusted his cavalry commander, Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, to screen his army’s movement from the enemy. Stuart’s cavalry fanned out across the Loudoun Valley in northern Virginia.
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M.A. Kleen 