At Kelly’s Ford on the Rappahannock River, pickets from opposing armies sometimes traded gunfire and sometimes exchanged Yankee coffee for Rebel tobacco. On St. Patrick’s Day, 1863, they did both as the cavalry commands of Union Gen. William Averell and Confederate Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, friends and former West Point classmates, fought here for nearly twelve hours. Averell crossed the ford into Culpeper County under orders to destroy Lee’s brigade of Virginia cavalry encamped nearby, and his division drove the Virginians back two miles along present-day Route 674 toward Elkwood. The battle featured numerous mounted saber charges, dismounted skirmishing, and the mortal wounding of John Pelham, J.E.B. Stuart’s young artillery commander. As nightfall approached, Averell withdrew back across the Rappahannock, but the fight heartened his previously maligned Federal troopers. Although technically a Confederate victory, the battle caused 146 Southerners killed, wounded, and missing, compared with a Federal loss of 85.
