On July 8, 1863, Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart fought the Battle of Boonsboro along the National Road while trying to find the Union cavalry and keep it from cutting Gen. Robert E. Lee’s line of retreat to Williamsport and the Potomac River after Gettysburg. Advancing with five brigades from the direction of Funkstown and Williamsport, Stuart first met Federal resistance at Beaver Creek Bridge, 4½ miles north of Boonsboro. By 11 a.m., the Confederate cavalry had pushed into mud-soaked fields where mounted fighting was nearly impossible, so Stuart’s troopers and the Union cavalry divisions of Gens. H. Judson Kilpatrick and John Buford dismounted and fought like infantry. By mid-afternoon, the Union left under Kilpatrick gave way as the Federals ran low on ammunition under mounting Confederate pressure. Stuart’s advance ended about 7 p.m. when Union infantry arrived, the first infantry to fight on a Maryland battlefield since Gettysburg. Stuart then withdrew north to Funkstown, but the action gained another day for Lee’s retreating army. Some Union cavalry used Spencer rifles with seven-cartridge magazines instead of traditional single-shot muzzleloaders, and Capt. James Kidd of the 6th Michigan Cavalry later recalled that one shot from a Spencer brought down a Confederate officer who had been urging his men forward from atop a stone fence.