Corbit's Charge was a cavalry skirmish fought on June 29, 1863, in Westminster, Maryland, during the American Civil War. The engagement occurred as Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart's three brigades of cavalry moved northward toward Pennsylvania following the crossing of the Potomac River. Stuart's force had been threatening Washington, D.C., and was proceeding east of the main Confederate army while pursuing Union forces under loose instructions from Confederate Commander Robert E. Lee. In response to Stuart's advance, two companies of the 1st Delaware Cavalry—Companies C and D—had been dispatched from Baltimore to Westminster to guard the Western Maryland Railway junction and arrived the day before the battle.
On June 29, 1863, the Delaware cavalry companies, totaling less than 100 men and commanded by Major Napoleon B. Knight, encountered Stuart's cavalry force near the northwestern end of town. The Delaware companies had arrived unaware of Stuart's impending approach and found the town quiet upon their arrival. The following day, the engagement took place as Stuart's cavalry attacked the Union position.
The skirmish, also known as the Battle of Westminster, is thought to have contributed to the delay of Stuart's arrival in Gettysburg. This delay in Stuart's arrival at Gettysburg subsequently contributed to the defeat of Confederate forces at the Battle of Gettysburg, which occurred shortly after this engagement. The engagement thus held significant strategic consequences for the broader campaign and the outcome of the war's most pivotal battle.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
Union: 2 killed, several wounded, ~67 captured; Confederate: ~5 killed, ~20 wounded
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