"Lee is undoubtedly bullying you," one of Meade's superiors goaded.

Lee's army--severely bloodied at Gettysburg--did not have quite the offensive capability it once possessed, yet Lee's aggressive nature could not be quelled. He looked for the chance to strike out at Meade.

In mid-October, 1863, both men shifted their armies into motion. Each surprised the other. Quickly, Meade found himself racing northward for safety along the Orange & Alexandria Railroad, with Lee charging up the rail line behind him.

Last stop: Bristoe Station.

Authors Robert Orrison and Bill Backus have worked at the Bristoe Station battlefield, which is now surrounded by one of the fastest-growing parts of Virginia. In A Want of Vigilance, they trace the campaign from the armies' camps around Orange and Culpeper northwest through the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and along the vital railroad--to Centreville and back--in a back-and-forth game of cat and mouse: the "goggle-eyed snapping turtle" versus "the old gray fox" pitted against each other in one of the most overlooked periods of the war."