flank. During that exciting race, several skirmishes occurred in the mountain passes; when Lee, by a quick and skillful movement while Meade was detained at Manassas Gap by a heavy skirmish, darted through Chester Gap, and crossing the  Rappahannock, took a position between that stream and the Rapidan. Meade advanced cautiously, and at the middle of September, he crossed the Rappahannock and drove Lee beyond the Rapidan, when the latter took a strongly defensive position. Meanwhile the National cavalry under Buford and Kilpatrick had been active between the two rivers, and had frequent skirmishes with Stuart's mounted troops.
Lee now attempted to turn the right flank of the Army of the Potomac to gain its rear and march rapidly on Washington. He had moved some distance for this purpose before Meade discovered his peril. Then a third race for the National Capital by the two armies over nearly the same course occurred. The Army of the Potomac won it, reaching Centreville Heights on the 15th of October. It was a race marked by the most stirring incidents, for there was much scouting and skirmishing on the way. At Jeffersonton, the National cavalry under General Gregg were routed; and at Auburn, the seat of John Minor Botts, a prominent Virginia statesman, Stuart, with two thousand Confederate cavalry, came very near being captured. From that point to Bristow's Station the race was sharp, for Centreville Heights was the goal. At Bristow's, a severe engagement occurred between the corps of Generals Warren and Hill. The latter was joined by that of Ewell; but before they could fall upon Warren, he withdrew in the night (October 14) and joined Meade at Centreville on the morning of the 15th.
The race was ended at Bristow's Station. Lee was beaten, and fell back to the Rappahannock, destroying the railway behind him. Meade repaired the road, and following Lee slowly, attacked him at Rappahannock Station early in November. A very sharp battle ensued. It was fought by detachments of the Fifth and Sixth corps, under General Sedgwick; and it was ended by a gallant charge on a redoubt and rifle-trenches. These were carried in the face of a tempest of grape-shot and minie bullets, when the Nationals swept down to a pontoon bridge, cut off the retreat of the Confederates from the abandoned works, made over sixteen hundred of them prisoners, and drove Lee's army toward Culpepper CourtHouse. There the latter had proposed to go into winter quarters; but this disaster alarmed him, and he sought safety from his pursuer behind the Rapidan. His force was then fifty thousand strong, and Meade's numbered seventy thousand. With these the latter crossed the Rappahannock and lay quietly between the two rivers until late in November, while Lee occupied a line of strong defences along Mine Run.
Feeling strong enough for the enterprise, Meade proceeded, on the 26th of November, to attempt a dislodgment of his antagonist. He crossed the Rapidan on that day, and pushed on in the direction of his foe. General Warren, in the advance, opened a battle; but Meade soon perceived that the Confederates were too strongly intrenched and weighty in numbers to give him hopes of success, and he withdrew. The Army of the Potomac went into winter-quarters on the north side of the Rapidan: and so was ended the campaign of that army for the year 1863.
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