Fight at Monterey Pass

Fight at Monterey Pass (Gap)

Date	July 4–5, 1863
Location	Monterey Pass, Franklin County, Pennsylvania
Result	Union victory

Belligerents

USA (Union)

CSA (Confederacy)

Commanders and leaders

Judson Kilpatrick

William E. "Grumble" Jones
Beverly H. Robertson

Strength

4,500

wagon train, cavalry escort

Casualties and losses

43 (5 killed, 10 wounded, 28 missing)

1,300 captured

The Fight at Monterey Pass (or Gap) was an American Civil War military engagement beginning the evening of July 4, 1863, during the Retreat from Gettysburg. A Confederate wagon train of Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell's Second Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, withdrew after the Battle of Gettysburg, and Union cavalry under Brig. Gen. H. Judson Kilpatrick attacked the retreating Confederate column. After a lengthy delay in which a small detachment of Maryland cavalrymen delayed Kilpatrick's division, the Union cavalrymen captured numerous Confederate prisoners and destroyed hundreds of wagons.

General Robert E. Lee ordered his Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to begin withdrawing from Gettysburg following his army's defeat on July 3, 1863. When Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's Army of the Potomac did not counterattack by the evening of July 4, Lee realized that he could accomplish nothing more in his Gettysburg Campaign and that he had to return his battered army to Virginia. His ability to supply his army by living off the Pennsylvania countryside was now significantly reduced and the Union could easily bring up additional reinforcements as time passed, whereas he could not. Prior to the movement of the infantry and artillery, however, Lee was concerned with removing his long train of wagons, supplies, and wounded men over South Mountain and into the Cumberland Valley. He sent the majority of the wagons and ambulances under the direction of Brig. Gen. John D. Imboden over the Chambersburg Pike, which passed through Cashtown in the direction of Chambersburg and Hagerstown, Maryland.

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