The Battle of Yellow Tavern (11 May 1864) was a pivotal engagement of the American Civil War (1861 to 1865), not so much for any grand strategic reason than for the loss of Major General J. E. B. Stuart, the famed Confederate cavalry commander. Fought 6 miles (9.6 km) north of the Confederate capital of Richmond, the battle was part of a ploy by Union Major General Philip H. Sheridan to lure Stuart's cavalry corps out into the open, where it could be defeated. The ploy worked, as Stuart rode his tired troopers out to defend the capital. Hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned, the rebels were defeated after a full day of fighting. Stuart was mortally wounded by a shot to the abdomen and was taken to Richmond, where he would die the next day.

On 4 May 1864, the Union Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River to begin the Overland Campaign, its largest, most aggressive invasion of Virginia yet. Ahead of the 118,000-man host rode the cavalry corps under the command of Major General Philip H. Sheridan. A small, bandy-legged man with close-cropped hair and a dark mustache, Sheridan had recently been transferred from the West and was displeased with the way cavalry was being utilized in Virginia. Cavalry out here was little more than a glorified reconnaissance force, sent to scout ahead and gather information or kept close to screen the movements of the army. Sheridan believed that it should be used more aggressively and wanted to strike out on his own to harry the enemy supply lines and wreak havoc in the vicinity of Richmond.

On 8 May, amidst the first shots of the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, Sheridan rode to army headquarters to speak with Major General George Gordon Meade, commander of the Army of the Potomac. Meade, known for his brusqueness and quick temper, accused Sheridan of mishandling his cavalry thus far in the campaign, to which Sheridan vented his frustration at not being allowed to act with more aggression. He claimed that if he were unleashed, he could destroy the Confederate supply depots and railroads between General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and the capital of Richmond. But Sheridan was proposing more than just a raid: his true purpose was to draw out the Confederate cavalry corps under the legendary J. E. B. Stuart. If he could meet Stuart in open battle, Sheridan was confident he could use his superior numbers and equipment to decisively defeat the Southern cavalier and neutralize the Confederate cavalry altogether.

Meade, however, did not want to hear any challenge to his authority and, before long, the two were locked in a heated shouting match. Presently, Meade stormed off to find the general-in-chief, Ulysses S. Grant, who had made his headquarters in the army. Grant had known Sheridan from his time out West, and so when Meade explained the predicament, the general-in-chief sat back, chewing on his cigar. "Did Sheridan say that?" he asked. After mulling over the proposal for a moment or two, Grant shrugged. "He generally knows what he's about," he said. "Let him start right out and do it" (quoted in Foote, 201). Having thus been given his mandate to go out and 'whip' General Stuart, Sheridan wasted no time gathering three of his cavalry divisions and ordering them to make ready to ride the next morning.

After informing his division commanders that he expected "nothing but success," Sheridan set out with 10,000 cavalry troopers and 32 artillery pieces, the largest cavalry force yet seen in the Civil War's eastern theater. As they rode out on 9 May, they ran into the first hint of a problem – groups of rebel skirmishers along the main road. Sheridan asked if they were cavalry or infantry; when his scouts replied that they were indeed cavalry, he replied, "Keep moving boys…there isn't enough cavalry in the Southern Confederacy to stop us" (quoted in Catton, 101). Sheridan waved his hat, and his men whooped and cheered and broke through the rebel skirmish line like a knife through butter.

For the rest of the day, the Yankee horsemen moved down the Telegraph Road, the main highway to Richmond, at a slow walk. Sheridan was unconcerned with speed or discretion, knowing that nothing could oppose him here and that nothing less than a show of force would lure Stuart out into the open. After a 13-mile (21 km) jaunt, the Union cavalrymen made their way to Beaver Dam Station, the main Confederate supply depot along the Virginia Central Railroad. Most of the supplies there had already been destroyed by the depot guards before they evacuated. Undeterred, Sheridan added to the destruction, burning railroad cars, destroying locomotives, and cutting telegraph wires. He also managed to free 400 Union prisoners of war, who had been taken at the Battle of the Wilderness several days before.

Stuart was at Spotsylvania with Lee when news arrived that Sheridan had struck out behind their lines. The situation indeed sounded dire – 10,000 Yankee cavalry could not be allowed to ride unchecked so close to Richmond. Though he had only three brigades at his immediate disposal – some 4,500 men – Stuart felt that he had no choice but to ride out and see if he could hinder Sheridan's progress. He had faced long odds before. Two summers ago, he had ridden around the Army of the Potomac in its entirety, taking prisoners, loot, and information in the process. A few months later, he did it again. Stuart's career had been filled with such dashing storybook raids, which, combined with his flashy style of dressing, turned him into a household name throughout the South, the last cavalier from a lost age of chivalry.

And so, he struck out, hoping to insert himself between Sheridan's blue horsemen and Richmond. He ordered a detachment under Major General Fitzhugh Lee – the 28-year-old nephew of Robert E. Lee – to follow Sheridan's column and snip at their heels, while he brought his other brigades down the Telegraph Road to get in front of them. Stuart knew he was hopelessly outnumbered but was in correspondence with General Braxton Bragg in Richmond, who hinted that he might be able to send over some of the city's garrison as reinforcements. At 8 a.m. on 11 May, Stuart made his way to the crossroads of Telegraph and Mountain roads, about 6 miles (9.6 km) north of Richmond. There stood an abandoned stagecoach inn called Yellow Tavern, which may well have been yellow once, before the paint had begun to fade and peel. After wiring Bragg that he had gotten ahead of Sheridan, Stuart began to position his troops for the fight he knew was coming.

By 10 a.m., the bulk of Stuart's troopers had come up, and he began to get them in position. He deployed his two brigades along the 'Y' formation where the two roads intersected. One brigade, under Lunsford L. Lomax, took up the left while the other, under Williams C. Wickham, was on the right. The rebel troopers waited, dismounted, for the enemy to ride into sight. Only one regiment, the 1st Virginia Cavalry, remained mounted, so that it could rush in and reinforce whichever part of the line needed its help the most. A little over an hour later, Sheridan's cavalry approached from the southeast. Sheridan must have been pleased to see Stuart's ragged brigades formed up, awaiting his arrival – this, after all, was what he had wanted when he had first set out two days ago.

Sheridan spent the next few hours poking and prodding the rebel line, making a few small charges here and there to test for weaknesses. Then, at 2 p.m., he made his move, hurling three full brigades against Lomax's one on the left flank. Lomax's rebel troopers tried their best to absorb the assault, but they were outmatched by the Yankees, who were armed with rapid-fire Spencer carbines. Before long, Lomax was pushed back, forced to reform his men on a ridge near where Wickham was also now deployed. Following this clash, there was a brief lull, during which Stuart received a message from Bragg promising that reinforcements from Richmond were forthcoming. Buoyed by this news, Stuart resolved to continue holding his ground, even as the blue troopers geared up for another attack.

At 4 p.m., Sheridan made another massive charge. This time, he concentrated on the center of the Confederate line and tasked George Armstrong Custer, a young, long-haired brigadier general, with breaking through. Custer's two regiments came on fast and succeeded in piercing through the rebel line. This, however, was the moment the 1st Virginia had been waiting for. They rushed in on their horses to plug the gap, the shrill rebel yell protruding from their throats. Stuart was among them, shouting orders, giving encouragement, firing his pistol into the throngs of Yankee troopers before him. Before long, the Union cavalrymen began to withdraw. But as Stuart continued to ride back and forth yelling to his men, he felt a sharp pain in his abdomen. He pitched forward and slid off his saddle as his officers surrounded him to see what was wrong. He had been shot by a 45-year-old private of the 5th Michigan Cavalry named John A. Huff. Huff had been an infantry sharpshooter before transferring to the cavalry and had had no difficulties lining up his killing shot, from a distance of less than 30 yards (27 m).

Scores of rebel troopers began to gather around their fallen commander as he was being loaded into the back of an ambulance. Noting this, Stuart forced himself to sit up. "Go back!" he yelled. "Go back and do your duty, as I have done mine, and our country will be safe" (quoted in Foote, 231). The ambulance then went off, in the direction of Richmond. For a time, it was followed by an 18-year-old private on horseback who would remember his general's sorrowful appearance:

He was laying flat on his back in the back of the ambulance, the mules running at a terrific pace and he was being jolted most unmercifully. He opened his eyes and looked at me and shook his head from side to side as much as to say, "It's all over with me."

(ibid)

Within the hour, Sheridan made another charge and broke through the Confederate lines. Shaken by the wounding of their valiant commander, the rebel cavalry scattered, running from the field as an icy rain began to pour down from the heavens.

The Battle of Yellow Tavern had been a minor affair, as far as late-stage Civil War battles went – the Union had lost 625 killed or wounded, the Confederates around 450 killed or wounded and another 300 captured. But while Sheridan did not yet know that he had succeeded in knocking Stuart out of the war permanently, he saw that the grand prize lay in front of him: Richmond, only six miles away, seemed ripe for the taking. It was "the greatest temptation of my life," Sheridan would later recall. "I should have been the hero of the hour. I could have gone in and burned and killed right and left" (quoted in Foote, 232). But alas, this was only a pipe dream. Sheridan knew that, even if he succeeded in taking Richmond, he could not hold it long with the force he had. Besides, Fitzhugh Lee was still somewhere in his rear with a fresh cavalry division, and, for all he knew, Bragg was mustering a large force in Richmond to oppose him.

Resisting this temptation, Sheridan instead turned east, away from Richmond and toward the Chickahominy River. Coming across a field laden with land mines – or 'torpedoes' – laced with trip wire, Sheridan was only stopped momentarily. He brought out a few dozen Confederate prisoners and forced them to get down on their hands and knees. He then ordered them to crawl through the field, feeling for the wires in the dark. Once the torpedoes had been discovered and unearthed in this way, Sheridan continued on, his cavalry's hooves thundering across the damp Virginian countryside.

They came upon the bridge over the Chickahominy, only to discover that it had been burned. Sending some men back to hold off Fitz Lee, whose own cavalry troopers were closing in fast, Sheridan ordered the bridge repaired. This was swiftly done, and Sheridan's men were across the river before Fitz Lee had had time to mount a proper attack. By 24 May, Sheridan had returned to the Army of the Potomac. By now, news had broken that Stuart was dead, and Sheridan was surely pleased to rub Meade's nose in his latest, greatest success.

Stuart was taken from the battlefield in the back of an ambulance. To avoid capture, it was forced to take the long road back to Richmond, leaving the dashing cavalier to endure six long, agonizing hours of being jostled in the back of the ambulance over bumpy backcountry roads. At 11 p.m., the ambulance arrived at the home of Stuart's sister-in-law on Grace Street. The wounded cavalry commander was brought inside, tended to by four of the city's best physicians. But even their presence would be of little help: the bullet had caused heavy internal bleeding and had probably pierced his liver and stomach as well. It was clear that Stuart had mere hours to live.

Not that he looked like a dying man. Confederate President Jefferson Davis, visiting Stuart's bedside, could hardly believe that the wound was mortal, later recalling that the debonair general still looked "so calm, and physically strong" (quoted in Foote, 234). Indeed, Stuart still had his wits about him, inquiring after the distant sound of cannon fire – which turned out to be Fitz Lee skirmishing with the rear of Sheridan's force – and sending for his wife and children. But even a tough old soldier like Stuart could not ward off death forever. The afternoon of 12 May, his condition began to worsen, and the doctors told him he likely would not last the night. "I am resigned, if it is God's will," Stuart said in response to the news. "I would like to see my wife. But God's will be done." He hung on until 7:30 p.m., when he repeated the words "I am resigned; God's will be done" (quoted in Foote, 235). He then drew his final breath and died at the age of 31. His wife, Flora, did not arrive at his side until after he was dead.

General Lee received word of Stuart's death later that day. His soldiers had just suffered through some of the most intense fighting of the war at the Spotsylvania Bloody Angle, and news of the cavalry general's loss was almost too much for the weary old general to take. "I can scarcely think of him without weeping," Lee would remark (quoted in Foote, 224).

Indeed, the loss of Stuart at this critical moment was a huge blow to Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. Lee had lost one of his most trusted and daring officers at a time when such daring would be needed more than ever. But for the Union, the death of Stuart offered a glimmer of hope and showed that a little bit of aggression – like Grant was showing in his blood-drenched Overland Campaign, like Sheridan had showed in his ride to Yellow Tavern – was what was needed to finally bring this long, horrific war to a close.