The Run From The Potomac

Northern Eastern Virginia, Around Upperville on the Shenandoah River a tributary of the Potomac, June 23rd, 1863

The Civil war rages across the formerly United States.

And it seems clear that it is not going to end anytime soon as evident from the battles fought across Virginia throughout 1861-62 largely not resulting in any decisive victory for either side... or failures for the Union.

Rather it seems a growing and successful blockade by the Union is carrying a great deal of the success, as indicated by the recent successful capture of New Orleans.    

Meanwhile, Intelligence gathering by both sides has become more and more critical, largely focused on obtaining accurate army troop strengths, compositions, and movements.

For the union this has been till recently organized by Allen Pinkerton and his famed detective agency, but now after the failures of General McClellan in part due to gross overestimates of troop strength by Pinkerton and his agents, He has been replaced with the more effective Colonel George Henry Sharpe.

Sharpe has proven rather effective in the last few months, conducting a major prisoner exchange getting 4,000 Union troops out of captivity, and dispatching agents across northern Virginia to monitor Confederate forces.

Such monitoring has a critical, due to the Confederate Army of Northern Virigina led by General Robert E. Lee. Which has recently gone on the march moving from Fredericksburg as of June 3rd, using a cavalry screen to hide it’s movements from Union forces.

In the last few weeks there has been minor engagements across Eastern Virginia. Pitting the Confederate Army of Northern Virigina and Union forces of the Army of the Potomac under General Meade at Brandy Station, Aldie, Winchester, Middleburg, and here, two days earlier at Upperville, where Confederate forces are stationed.

And right now, are witnessing the Confederates march across the Potomac north, flanking Union positions and moving into heartland of the United States all this unknown to the Army of the Potomac.

You, however, are not a Union intelligence agent, no, rather you are a civilian stuck behind enemy lines loyal to the Union that is working as an informant.

Your goal is get north, tracking Lee's army along the way and gathering any information you can, to warn the Union Army of the Potomac at the city of Frederick,Maryland before it is too late.