Another Round

had left the Army of Northern Virginia badly damaged. Now with thousands of stragglers, wounded, and sick scattered across the lower end of the Shenandoah Valley, General Robert E. Lee needed time to restructure his army. He had to absorb newly arriving conscripts and recovered sick and wounded from the Peninsula Campaign; collect his stragglers; evacuate his sick and wounded; and gather supplies. It was a tall order, and to achieve it Lee needed the Union Army of the Potomac to leave him alone. A conventional commander would have withdrawn closer to his army’s rail communications at Staunton, Va., some 90 miles to the south,