Battle of Shepherdstown

E178932

The Battle of Shepherdstown was a minor but strategically important American Civil War engagement in September 1862, marking the Confederate rearguard action as Robert E. Lee’s army withdrew across the Potomac River after the Maryland Campaign.

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All labels observed (1)

Label Occurrences
Battle of Shepherdstown canonical 1

Statements (46)

Predicate Object
instanceOf American Civil War battle
battle
alsoKnownAs Battle of Boteler’s Ford
surface form: Battle of Blackford’s Ford

Battle of Boteler’s Ford
artilleryUsed Confederate artillery on bluffs above Boteler’s Ford
belligerent Confederate States of America
Union (United States)
surface form: United States (Union)
campaignTheater Eastern Theater of the American Civil War
casualties heavy for size of engagement
combatant Army of Northern Virginia
Army of the Potomac
commander A.P. Hill
surface form: A. P. Hill

Fitz John Porter
George McClellan
surface form: George B. McClellan

Robert E. Lee
commemoratedBy Shepherdstown Battlefield
ConfederateCasualtiesApproximate about 300 total (killed, wounded, missing)
ConfederateObjective to protect Army of Northern Virginia’s withdrawal from Maryland
conflict American Civil War
country United States of America
surface form: United States
currentState West Virginia
date September 19–20, 1862
endDate September 20, 1862
followedBy relative lull in operations in the Eastern Theater in late 1862
heritageStatus listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of Shepherdstown Battlefield
location Boteler’s Ford
Potomac River
near Shepherdstown, Jefferson County, Virginia (now West Virginia), United States
month September 1862
notableEvent severe losses of 5th New York Infantry during Union withdrawal
notableUnit 5th New York Infantry (Duryee’s Zouaves)
partOf Maryland Campaign
precededBy Battle of Antietam
result Confederate victory
Union forces repulsed from Virginia side of Potomac
riverCrossing Potomac River
startDate September 19, 1862
stateAtTime Virginia
strategicSignificance covered Confederate retreat from Maryland after the Battle of Antietam
discouraged further Union pursuit into Virginia after Antietam
marked the end of the 1862 Maryland Campaign
terrainFeature high bluffs on Virginia side of Potomac
type rearguard action
UnionCasualtiesApproximate about 360 total (killed, wounded, missing)
UnionObjective to destroy or capture Confederate rearguard and artillery across the Potomac
year 1862

How these facts were elicited

The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.

Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10.

# Requirements
- If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list.
- If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list.
- Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf".
- Do not get too wordy.
- Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Battle of Shepherdstown
Description of subject: The Battle of Shepherdstown was a minor but strategically important American Civil War engagement in September 1862, marking the Confederate rearguard action as Robert E. Lee’s army withdrew across the Potomac River after the Maryland Campaign.

Referenced by (1)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Battle of Antietam followedBy Battle of Shepherdstown