For the first three months of 1864 General Lee and his staff routinely rode 20 miles through the mountains and foot hills of Orange County Virginia inspecting the winter quarters of his army. Lee’s staff members included Major Walter Taylor, Major Charles S. Venable, and Major Charles Marshall. Occasionally accompanying Lee was his old friend and secretary, Armistead Lindsay Long, who was now a Brigadier General placed in command of the artillery in General Ewell’s Second Corps.

General Lee had an abundance of work to do during these winter months. Preceding battles had lost him many of his best commanding officers, such as Generals Jackson, Pender, Armistead and Pettigrew. Many other officers had been taken out of action with crippling wounds. The slow process of promotion bothered experienced officers ready to take on higher rank. It was General Lee’s job to re-organize and prepare his army for the critical and decisive campaign that was to come. Affectionally know by his troops as “The Old Gray Fox”, General Lee had big plans for his army when the season changed, believing like his men, the war could still be won.

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