The last engagement of the Gettysburg Campaign took place at Manassas Gap on July 23, 1863, as Union Gen. George G. Meade and the Army of the Potomac pursued Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia during its retreat south through the Shenandoah Valley. After Meade began what he called another race with Lee on July 14, Lee's men marched toward Chester Gap to escape to Central Virginia while Meade's soldiers followed east of the Blue Ridge in the Loudoun Valley. On July 21, Union Gen. Wesley Merritt's cavalry approached Linden Station on the Manassas Gap Railroad, and the 17th Virginia Infantry, including Company B, countered them near the Wapping house in the only time a Warren County infantry unit fought on its home soil. At dawn on July 23, Confederate Col. Edward J. Walker of the 3rd Georgia Infantry led a brigade to guard the army's left flank as it passed through Front Royal. Union Gen. William H. French arrived at 10 A.M. with almost 20,000 men but did not attack until 2 P.M. The outnumbered Confederates retreated west as six guns under Lt. Col. Thomas H. Carter held off the Federals of the Excelsior Brigade under Gen. Francis B. Spinola, who rallied and flanked Walker. The Confederates then fell back toward Front Royal under cover of Carter's fire. On July 24, Federal forces reconnoitered to Front Royal but found that the Confederates had escaped, ending the fight there. Lt. Walter Scott Roy of Company B, 17th Virginia Infantry, was captured there on July 21, 1888, with 15 other members of the 17th, told his captors he would escape, then the next night rolled away from the campfire, took a cavalry horse, and rejoined his unit on the night of July 30 near Culpeper. Front Royal diarist Lucy Buck wrote that the 17th Virginia Infantry had repulsed a much larger body of dismounted cavalry, old U.S. regulars, and praised the regiment for finally fighting near its homes in the Valley.
