Aftermath: The Invasion of Maryland
There was no tactical resolution to the battle. A small force of Union soldiers had battled to a standstill a much larger Confederate force. The Confederates held their positions. The Union troops withdrew during the night to Jermantown and Fairfax Court House, leaving behind hundreds of wounded. The next day they retreated to the fortifications of Washington.
After the battle, Major General James Longstreet’s wing arrived at Chantilly to join Jackson’s wing and reunite the Army of Northern Virginia. General Lee rested his army on September 2. The Confederate camps sprawled over much of western Fairfax County from Ox Hill to Chantilly and beyond.
On September 3rd Lee’s army marched to Dranesville, then to Leesburg and the Potomac River fords. There, on September 4-7, Confederate troops crossed into Maryland and flanked the Washington fortifications, drawing the Union army out of Virginia. Meanwhile, Gen. McClellan, without orders, merged his Army of the Potomac with Pope’s Army of Virginia and marched the consolidated force through Washington and northwest into Montgomery County, Maryland.
Lee’s invasion of Maryland moved the war into Union territory with access to fertile fields for foraging, a promise of further victories, and hoped-for European recognition and support. The Maryland Campaign was now underway. The bloody battles of South Mountain and Antietam (Sharpsburg) lay ahead.