Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded. In a violent
denouement to the enormous set-piece battles of Second Bull Run
and Antietam in the summer of 1862, that fall cavalry clashes
raged across Northern Virginia. In dozens of farm villages and
crossroads communities, roving bands of Union and Confederate
horsemen engaged in a series of brief and often bloody
skirmishes. One such fight took place near the hamlet of Little
Washington on Nov. 8, 1862. The action began when a squadron of
Union Army regulars collided with an enemy picket composed of a
Georgia lieutenant and 10 of his men. The Yankees charged the
outnumbered rebels, but the rebels “gallantly met the onset,
falling back slowly to a narrow lane, stubbornly contesting the
ground,” reported an unidentified Confederate in a pamphlet
published during the war. The mingled sounds of battle were
heard by the main body of Georgia troops at their nearby camp,
who hurriedly formed a column and rode to the relief of their
endangered comrades. Among the fir