The Wagoner’s Fight wayside marker is southeast of Williamsport is about 1.5 miles southeast of Williamsport on Lappan Road (Maryland Route 68) and about 0.6 mile east of the Interstate 81 interchange, next to the parking area of the Williamsport Red Men Lodge.
The marker shows the location of the defensive line Confederate General John Imboden formed with his brigade, augmented by wagon drivers and the injured during Lee’s retreat to Virginia in the Gettysburg Campaign. The marker can only hint as to the 1863 battlefield since it has been almost completely transformed since then by industrial parks, subdivisions and the rerouting of roads.
From the marker:
The Wagoners’ Fight
Teamsters Help Save the Army
Gettysburg Campaign
More bad news arrived for the Confederates retreating from Gettysburg on July 6, 1863—Union cavalry was in hot pursuit. With the flooded Potomac River preventing Gen. John D. Imboden’s escape at Williamsport, and lacking Gen. Robert E. Lee’s main infantry column (still miles away) and significant Confederate cavalry support, Imboden had to make a stand along.
Improvising reinforcements, Imboden organized about 700 of his wagoners into infantry companies under wounded officers, and commissaries and quartermasters. He positioned these makeshift soldiers on his right and left flanks and then bolstered the center of his line with 2,100 dismounted cavalrymen and 24 cannons, establishing a three-mile perimeter on a crescent-shaped ridge a half-mile west of Williamsport.
Meanwhile, two Union cavalry divisions almost 7,000 strong, galloped toward Williamsport to destroy the wagon train and cut off the Confederate escape route. Gen. John Buford’s division arrived first and attacked along this road at 4 p.m. For the next five hours, Buford probed Imboden’s line with carbine and artillery fire but failed to dislodge it. As darkness neared, word passed that Confederate cavalry reinforcements were arriving, and the Federals then retreated. The “Wagoners’ Fight” had prevented the capture of 4,000 Confederate wagons and 10,000 animals and had kept open the Army of Northern Virginia’s path of retreat.
“As we could not retreat further, it was at once made known to the troops, that unless we should repel the threatened attack we should all become prisoners, and that the loss of his whole transportation would probably ruin General Lee”
—Gen. John D. Imboden
Map and directions to the marker
The marker is about 1.5 miles southeast of Williamsport on Lappan Road, Maryland Route 68. Turn south into the driveway of the Williamsport Red Men Lodge about 0.6 mile east of the Interstate 81 interchange. The marker is on the north side of the Red Men Lodge parking area on the west side of the driveway. (39°34’45.8″N 77°48’29.6″W)