The Bristoe Station Campaign- Battle of Auburn

On the morning of October 13th Lee ordered Stuart to ride east in search of the Army of the Potomac. Stuart left with his own division and Brigadier General Lunsford Lomax’s brigade toward Catlett. Stuart left Lomax at Auburn and rode on to Catlett Station. There he discovered the Army of the Potomac’s supply chain. He also learned that the Union III Corps was headed toward Lomax in Auburn. In short order the III Corps pushed Lomax out of the town. The II Corps was behind the III as seen on the map below.

**From- A Want of Vigilance The Bristoe Station Campaign October 9-19, 1863. Emerging Civil War Series. by Bill Backus and Robert Orrison.**

Stuart rode back toward Auburn and discovered the Federals in charge of the town. His route back to Warrenton was completely blocked. Lomax had ridden west to join Fitz Lee near Warrenton. On the night of the 13th Stuart chose to hide his two cavalry brigades in a small ravine a few hundred yards east of Auburn where his 1,000 men spent the night. He sent 5 separate couriers to Warrenton to alert Robert E. Lee of his predicament.

The bivouac area extended north to this area along Old Auburn Road (shown below)- 38.7032386, -77.6942674.

**Robert Knox Sneden’s drawing of Auburn. This view would be looking north toward modern day Rogues Road and the GPS coordinates- 38.7031358, -77.7012865**. **The hill is Coffee Hill. The house at the base of the hill is the Stephen McCormick house, to the left is the Miller’s house.**

Comparable pictures taken from the same area today are shown below.

**The Stephen McCormick house is no longer standing but would have been on the other side of the intersection.**

I turned left on Rogues Road and the road leads uphill to a higher elevation as can be seen in Sneden’s drawing.

After a short distance I came to the sign below on the right side of the road.

This road leads to the top of the hill which is on private property.

Not shown in Sneden’s sketch is the mill.

At 4:00 AM one of Stuart’s couriers arrived at Robert E. Lee’s tent. Shortly thereafter Ewell was marching toward Auburn to extricate Stuart. Lee ordered Hill to march north toward Manassas and Centreville. The Federals were also marching north. French’s III Corps had cleared Auburn and was north at Greenwich. There was a gap between French and Warren’s II Corps. The first of Warren’s men to reach Auburn was the division of Brigadier General John Caldwell who crossed Cedar Run and camped on Coffee Hill just a few hundred yards away from where Stuart was hidden.

Ewell was approaching from the west and south. Lomax’s cavalry was in advance of Robert Rodes division when they encountered the 10th NY Cavalry along the Double Poplars Road. Hearing that Ewell had arrived, Stuart’s horse artillery under Major Robert Beckham opened fire on the Union division.

Beckham’s Artillery Position (shown below)- 38.7038715, -77.6932311

Stuart had hoped that he and Ewell could destroy Caldwell’s division before he could be reinforced but Alexander Hays division arrived from the south. Stuart seeing that his path west was once again closed sent the 1st NC forward, where in a field just east of the Auburn Mill they ran into the 126th NY and the 12th NJ. The 1st NC was routed when the 12th NJ, concealed behind a fence, unleashed a murderous volley.

Shown below is the field across which the 1st NC charged along Old Auburn Road- 38.7031096, -77.6955130.

With Warren’s attention focused on Ewell’s infantry Stuart escaped to the southeast. Warren’s problem was worsened when Early’s division appeared from the northwest. He quickly advanced the remainder of his Corps over Cedar Run and then headed east on the St. Stephen’s Church Road to Catlett Station to join the rest of Meade’s army that was moving up the Orange and Alexandria Railroad.

Cedar Run shown below from the bridge

The rear guard action that allowed the II Corps to escape was fought by part of the 1st MA Cavalry. Most of the 100 reported Union casualties in the battle were from the 1st MA men captured as they protected the Union withdrawal. They were imprisoned at Belle Island in the James River in Richmond. Many of the Massachusetts men died there, but some, stricken with smallpox, were exchanged at City Point and evacuated to Annapolis where they died and were buried in the National Cemetery there.

The tablet below describes the Second Battle of Auburn.

Ewell’s Corps, who Lee was riding with, moved north to Greenwich and did not pursue Warren. Stuart, however, was escaping south moving for the moment in the opposite direction from the rest of Lee’s forces.

Sites in Greenwich