JULY 2: Custer Is Knocked Off His Horse
On July 2, 1863, Confederate Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart orders Brig. Gen. Wade Hampton's brigade to take a position astride the Hunterstown Road four miles northeast of Gettysburg to cover the left rear of the Confederate battle lines. Hampton moved into place, blocking access for any Union forces that might try to swing around behind Gen. Robert E. Lee's lines.
Two brigades of Union cavalry from Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick's division, under Brig. Gens. George Armstrong Custer and Elon J. Farnsworth, were probing for the end of that Confederate left flank later the afternoon of July 2.
U.S. Cavalry horse during the Civil War.
(Credit: Library of Congress)
Custer's men collided with Hampton on the road between Hunterstown and Gettysburg. As Custer led a charge of Company A, 6th Michigan Cavalry, he fell under his wounded horse and was saved by his orderly, Norvell F. Churchill.
Hampton wanted to escalate the action, positioning most of his brigade along a ridge in readiness to charge Custer's position. At that stage, Elon Farnsworth arrived with his brigade. Hampton did not press his attack, and an artillery duel ensued until dark when Hampton withdrew towards Gettysburg. This was a smaller skirmish, a prelude to the larger Battle of Gettysburg, where Custer and his men engaged and repelled Wade Hampton's Confederate cavalry the following day.
On July 2, 1874: Custer begins his Expedition into the Black Hills of Dakota Territory, part of the Great Sioux Reservation established by the U.S. government with the Treaty of Fort Laramie, signed April 29, 1868. This expedition departed from Fort Abraham Lincoln, located on the western side of the Missouri River near present-day Bismarck, ND.
It is from this same fort that Custer and the U.S. 7th Cavalry will begin their final expedition on May 17, 1876. It’s his final trail, culminating in the deaths of Custer and 210 of his men at Battle of the Little Bighorn in southeastern Montana Territory on June 25, 1876.
Custer’s wagon train in the Black Hills. (Credit: Library of Congress)
Confederate Maj. General JEB Stuart
Confederate Brig. General Wade Hampton III
Union Brig. General Elon Farnsworth
(Credits: Library of Congress)
