Civil War

Buckland’s location on the Fauquier and Alexandria Turnpike often brought units of the competing Union and Confederate armies to the town. Sometimes Buckland was a waystop. At other times the commercial facilities and bridge over Broad Run made it a tactical postion to be occupied and controlled. Most residents sympathized with, if not openly supported, the Confederate cause, a majority having voted in support of Virginia’s secession from the Union. At the time, the owner of Buckland Farm was Richard Bland Lee, a cousin of General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Many Confederate units were organized in nearby communities and made up of local residents who had close relationships with Buckland.

The Battle of Buckland Mills

In October 1863, three months after the Battle of Gettysburg, General Lee initiated action to out flank General George E. Meade’s Army of the Potomac and threaten the U.S. Capital in Washington, DC. Meade successfully countered in blocking movements, including the Union Army’s victory at Bristoe Station on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Lee decided to retire and move his army back to camps 50 miles west of Buckland near Orange, Virginia. Confederate cavalry under General J. E. B. Stuart screened the retreat, moving westward from Manassas on the Fauquier and Alexandria Turnpike. Union cavalry under Generals Judson Kilpatrick, Henry E. Davies, Jr. and George A. Custer pursued and engaged Stuart’s forces.

On the morning of October 19, 1863, Stuart occupied Buckland and set up defenses and artillery batteries west of Broad Run. Custer massed his brigade on the east bank and deployed units over fords above and below the town. He positioned his artillery on the bluff in front of the Cerro Gordo plantation house and commenced shelling. Unknown to Kilpatrick and Custer, another Confederate cavalry brigade under General Fitzhugh Lee was positioned to move in from the south. Fitzhugh Lee had arranged with Stuart to draw the Union cavalry down the turnpike, and his brigade would move in behind to trap them in a pincer movement. As Stuart evacuated Buckland and marched westward toward New Baltimore, Kilpatrick ordered Davies and Custer forward. Davies pursued Stuart, while Custer stopped to rest and feed his men and horses. As a result, Custer’s brigade received the brunt of Fitzhugh Lee’s attack and was forced to retreat back over Broad Run. At the sound of gunfire, Stuart counterattacked and chased Davies’ troopers back along the turnpike several miles into the guns of Fitzhugh Lee’s men. Davies’ units scattered and fled. Having routed the Union forces, Stuart and Fitzhugh Lee continued their pursuit into the night to Gainesville and Haymarket. There the Union First Army Corps under General John Newton provided protection and the Battle of Buckland Mills ended after nearly sixteen hours. The Confederate cavalry numbered 8,000, the Union cavalry 4,000. Casualties were Confederates 41, Union 261. The battle, the last Confederate cavalry victory, became known as the “Buckland Races.” Stuart said the defeat was “the most complete that any cavalry…suffered during this war.” Custer called the day “the most disastrous this division ever passed through.”

155^th anniversary presentation of the battle by Society member John Browne.

A Documentary And Landscape Analysis Of The Buckland Mills Battlefield