M.A. Kleen

As the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia staggered toward Williamsport, Maryland, Brig. Gen. John D. Imboden was tasked with managing its wagon train of thousands of wounded soldiers from the Battle of Gettysburg. He placed artillery on strategic high ground around Williamsport while hundreds of wagons waited to cross the flooded Potomac River. Suddenly, on the morning of July 6, 1863, Union Brig. Gen. John Buford’s cavalry division appeared from the southeast advancing on Williamsport.

Imboden knew that if the Union army was able to capture Williamsport, Robert E. Lee’s army might be cut off from Virginia and destroyed. He organized a hasty defense, arming hundreds of teamsters and walking wounded and sent them to the front. To his dismay, Brig. Gen. H. Judson Kilpatrick and 4,000 cavalry, fresh from a skirmish in Hagerstown, arrived from the northeast to reinforce Buford. Just when it looked like Imboden’s improvised defense would collapse, Brig. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee arrived from the north with his cavalry brigade.

Though outnumbered, their sudden appearance on the Union right flank, coupled with approaching nightfall, made Kilpatrick order a withdrawal. The Confederate wagon train was safe, at least for the time being, at a cost of an estimated 14 killed, 117 wounded, and 47 captured or missing. Union forces lost approximately 172 killed or wounded.