Existing comment:
The Battle of Monterey Pass
The Battle Begins
At this location, Confederate Captain Robert Tanner deployed one Napoleon cannon to guard the eastern Summit of South Mountain.
At 9:00 p.m., the 5th Michigan Cavalry, leading the advance of union General Judson Kilpatrick's Cavalry Division, was fired upon by the Confederate cannon. Captain Tanner was supported by twenty-five cavalrymen of Captain George Emack's Company B, 1st Maryland Cavalry.
After five rounds of canister had been fired, Emack's men charged the 5th Michigan Cavalry and pushed them back past where the Claremont House once stood. After this brief engagement, Captain Emack ordered his men to fall back to the Monterey Inn.
Reorganizing, Kilpatrick ordered a squadron of the 18th Pennsylvania to dismount and advance on Tanner's artillery position. As the artillerists were repositioning the cannon, the 18th Pennsylvania Cavalry came out of the woods and captured the empty limber.
Seeing that he might be out flanked, Captain withdrew his force from the Monterey Inn (Monterey Lane and Charmian Road intersection) and redeployed them along the banks of Red Run, near the road where the Confederate wagon train was moving on.
"After passing the Claremont, the rebels fired three or four shots with grape and canister, and then pulled up their battery and retreated. I don't think they killed any of Kilpatrick's men with the battery, as they fired too soon and the grape and canister went over our men's heads; but it made some of our men retreat, and caused a great deal of confusion."
-- Charles Buhrman |