Union General John Pope was doing what he could to concentrate his Army of Virginia at Culpeper Court House. He knew that Stonewall Jackson's entire force of 22,500 was rapidly moving towards him from the south, and suspected that General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia would be along shortly. While his own army, roughly 45,000-strong, was enough to deal with Jackson, it was not enough to deal with both Confederate commanders.
The plan, then, was to stall Jackson near Cedar Mountain, eight miles south of Culpeper, with General Samuel Crawford's Brigade and some cavalry while the rest of his army gathered to defeat the Rebel legend. After Jackson was whipped, he would move back against the Blue Ridge Mountains and await Lee and hope for McClellan's Army of the Potomac, removed from the Peninsula, to even the score.
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