Excerpt from Brief Sketch of the Battle of Gettysburg

The First Maine Cavalry under Kilpatrick was engaged in this battle in desperate conflict and in which it bore itself with great credit. This struggle at Brandy Station ended in defeating and driving the Confederate cavalry from the field, but on the arrival of Ewell's infantry from Culpeper, Pleasonton withdrew his forces and recrossed the river. By the capture of Stuart's headquarters Lee's orders were found that showed his movement was north beyond the Union lines.

On the tenth, Ewell's corps advanced beyond the Blue Ridge, passed north through Chester Gap, and marched rapidly up the Shenandoah Valley. Stuart's cavalry was directed east of the Blue Ridge, to guard the passes, mask Lee's movements, and delay the advance of Hooker's army. On the fourteenth, Ewell attacked General Milroy at Winchester, who was hemmed in without definite information of the movement of Lee's army up the valley. Milroy attempted early in the morning of the fifteenth to steal his way out, and although discovered by the Confederates, succeeded in breaking through and retreated in haste, with heavy losses in men and material.

Hill and Longstreet hurried northward, the latter covering the mountain gaps in his movements. On the sixteenth, Jenkins with two thousand Confederate cavalry penetrated into Pennsylvania as far as Chambersburg.

June 13th, Hooker put the Union army in motion and kept his command between the enemy and Washington. Pleasonton's cavalry encountered that of Stuart's on the seventeenth at Aldie, and on the nineteenth at Middleburg and on the twenty-first at Upperville. On each of these fields the First Maine Regiment of Cavalry won new honors. After a severe engagement at Upperville the Confederate cavalry fell back through Ashby's Gap, and Pleasonton rejoined the infantry. Lee now seemed convinced that Hooker would not attack him south of the Potomac, and on the twenty-second he ordered Ewell to cross the river into Maryland, where he came to the support of Jenkins, who being reinforced advanced again to Chambersburg. Here Rodes' and Johnson's divisions joined him on the twenty-third.

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