Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
action on the ridge, the remainder engaged the hostile batteries with
effect. Meanwhile, breaking their way through the ragged undergrowth of
the bare March woods, the infantry, in two lines, was pressing forward
along the
ridge. On the right was the 27th Virginia, supported by the 21st; on
the left, Fulkerson’s two battalions, with the Stonewall Brigade in
second line. The 5th Virginia remained at the foot of the ridge near
Macauley’s cottage, in order to connect with Ashby. Jackson’s tactics
appeared to be succeeding perfectly. A body of cavalry and infantry,
posted behind Pritchard’s Hill, was seen to be withdrawing, and the
fire of the Federal guns was visibly weakening.
4.30 p.m. Suddenly, in the woods northward of the Confederate
batteries, was heard a roar of musketry, and the 27th Virginia came
reeling back before the onslaught of superior numbers. But the 21st was
hurried to their assistance; the broken ranks rallied from their
surprise; and a long line of Federal skirmishers, thronging through the
thickets, was twice repulsed by the Southern marksmen.[19]
Fulkerson, further to the left, was more fortunate than the 27th.
Before he began his advance along the ridge he had deployed his two
battalions under cover, and when the musketry broke out on his right
front, they were moving forward over an open field. Half-way across the
field ran a stone wall or fence, and beyond the wall were seen the
tossing colours and bright bayonets of a line of battle, just emerging
from the woods. Then came a race for the wall, and the Confederates
won. A heavy fire, at the closest range, blazed out in the face of the
charging Federals, and in a few moments the stubble was strewn with
dead and wounded. A Pennsylvania regiment, leaving a colour on the
field, gave way in panic, and the whole of the enemy’s force retreated
to the shelter of the woods. An attempt to turn Jackson’s left was then
easily frustrated; and although the Federals maintained a heavy fire,
Fulkerson’s men held stubbornly to the wall.
In the centre of the field the Northern riflemen were sheltered by a
bank; their numbers continually increased,
and here the struggle was more severe. The 4th and 33rd Virginia
occupied this portion of the line, and they were without support, for
the 2nd Virginia and the Irish battalion, the last available reserves
upon the ridge, had been already sent forward to reinforce the right.
The right, too, was hardly pressed. The Confederate infantry had
everywhere to do with superior numbers, and the artillery, in that
wooded ground, could lend but small support. The batteries protected
the right flank, but they could take no share in the struggle to the
front; and yet, as the dusk came on, after two long hours of battle,
the white colours of the Virginia regiments, fixed fast amongst the
rocks, still waved defiant. The long grey line, “a ragged spray of
humanity,” plied the ramrod with still fiercer energy, and pale women
on the hills round Winchester listened in terror to the crashing echoes
of the leafless woods. But the end could not be long delayed.
Ammunition was giving out. Every company which had reached the ridge
had joined the fighting line. The ranks were thinning. Many of the
bravest officers were down, and the Northern regiments, standing
staunchly to their work, had been strongly reinforced.
Ashby for once had been mistaken. It was no rearguard that barred the
road to Winchester, but Shields’ entire division, numbering at least
9,000 men. A prisoner captured the day before had admitted that the
Confederates were under the impression that Winchester had been
evacuated, and that Jackson had immediately moved forward. Shields, an
able officer, who had commanded a brigade in Mexico, saw his
opportunity. He knew something of his opponent, and anticipating that
he would be eager to attack, had ordered the greater part of his
division to remain concealed. Kimball’s brigade and five batteries were
sent quietly, under cover of the night, to Pritchard’s Hill. Sullivan’s
brigade was posted in support, hidden from view behind a wood. The
cavalry and Tyler’s brigade were held in reserve, north of the town, at
a distance where they were not likely to be observed by the
inhabitants. As soon as the Confederates came in sight, and Kimball
deployed across the pike, Tyler was brought
through the town and placed in rear of Sullivan, at a point where the
road dips down between two parallel ridges. Shields himself, wounded in
the skirmish of the preceding day, was not present at the action,
although responsible for these dispositions, and the command had
devolved on Kimball. That officer, when Jackson’s design became
apparent, ordered Tyler to occupy the wooded ridge; and it was his five
regiments, over 3,000 strong, which had struck so strongly at the
Confederate advance. But although superior in numbers by a third, they
were unable to make headway. Kimball, however, rose to the situation
before it was too late. Recognising that Ashby’s weak attack was
nothing more than a demonstration, he hurried nearly the whole of his
own brigade, followed by three battalions of Sullivan’s, to Tyler’s
aid, leaving a couple of battalions and the artillery to hold the pike.
“The struggle,” says Shields, “had been for a short time doubtful,”[20]
but this reinforcement of 3,000 bayonets turned the scale. Jackson had
ordered the 5th and 42nd Virginia to the ridge, and a messenger was
sent back to hurry forward the 48th. But it was too late. Before the
5th could reach the heights the centre of the Confederate line was
broken. Garnett, the commander of the Stonewall Brigade, without
referring to the general, who was in another part of the field, had
given the order to fall back. Fulkerson, whose right was now uncovered,
was obliged to conform to the rearward movement, and moving across from
Pritchard’s Hill, two Federal regiments, despite the fire of the
Southern guns, made a vigorous attack on Jackson’s right. The whole
Confederate line, long since dissolved into a crowd of skirmishers, and
with the various regiments much mixed up, fell back, still fighting,
through the woods. Across the clearing, through the clouds of smoke,
came the Northern masses in pursuit. On the extreme right a hot fire of
canister, at a range of two hundred and fifty yards, drove back the
troops that had come from Pritchard’s Hill; but on the wooded ridge
above the artillery was unable to hold its own. The enemy’s riflemen
swarmed in the thickets,
and the batteries fell back. As they limbered up one of the
six-pounders was overturned. Under a hot fire, delivered at not more
than fifty paces distant, the sergeant in charge cut loose the three
remaining horses, but the gun was abandoned to the enemy.
Jackson, before the Federal reinforcements had made their presence
felt, was watching the progress of the action on the left. Suddenly, to
his astonishment and wrath, he saw the lines of his old brigade falter
and fall back. Galloping to the spot he imperatively ordered Garnett to
hold his ground, and then turned to restore the fight. Seizing a
drummer by the shoulder, he dragged him to a rise of ground, in full
view of the troops, and bade him in curt, quick tones, to “Beat the
rally!” The drum rolled at his order, and with his hand on the
frightened boy’s shoulder, amidst a storm of balls, he tried to check
the flight of his defeated troops. His efforts were useless. His
fighting-line was shattered into fragments; and although, according to
a Federal officer, “many of the brave Virginians lingered in rear of
their retreating comrades, loading as they slowly retired, and rallying
in squads in every ravine and behind every hill—or hiding singly among
the trees,”[21] it was impossible to stay the rout. The enemy was
pressing forward in heavy force, and their shouts of triumph rang from
end to end of the field of battle. No doubt remained as to their
overwhelming numbers, and few generals but would have been glad enough
to escape without tempting fortune further.
It seemed almost too late to think of even organising a rear-guard. But
Jackson, so far from preparing for retreat, had not yet ceased to think
of victory. The 5th and 42nd Virginia were coming up, a compact force
of 600 bayonets, and a vigorous and sudden counterstroke might yet
change the issue of the day. The reinforcements, however, had not yet
come in sight, and galloping back to meet them he found that instead of
marching resolutely against the enemy, the two regiments had taken post
to the rear, on the crest of a wooded swell, in order to cover the
retreat. On his way to the front the colonel of the 5th Virginia had
received an order from Garnett instructing him to occupy a position
behind which the fighting-line might recover its formation. Jackson was
fain to acquiesce; but the fighting-line was by this time scattered
beyond all hope of rallying; the opportunity for the counterstroke had
passed away, and the battle was irretrievably lost.
Arrangements were quickly made to enable the broken troops to get away
without further molestation. A battery was ordered to take post at the
foot of the hill, and Funsten’s cavalry was called up from westward of
the ridge. The 42nd Virginia came into line on the right of the 5th,
and covered by a stone wall and thick timber, these two small
regiments, encouraged by the presence of their commander, held stoutly
to their ground. The attack was pressed with reckless gallantry. In
front of the 5th Virginia the colours of the 5th Ohio changed hands no
less than six times, and one of them was pierced by no less than
eight-and-forty bullets. The 84th Pennsylvania was twice repulsed and
twice rallied, but on the fall of its colonel retreated in confusion.
The left of the 14th Indiana broke; but the 13th Indiana now came up,
and “inch by inch,” according to their commanding officer, the
Confederates were pushed back. The 5th Virginia was compelled to give
way before a flanking fire; but the colonel retired the colours to a
short distance, and ordered the regiment to re-form on them. Again the
heavy volleys blazed out in the gathering twilight, and the sheaves of
death grew thicker every moment on the bare hillside. But still the
Federals pressed on, and swinging round both flanks, forced the
Confederate rear-guard from the field, while their cavalry, moving up
the valley of the Opequon, captured several ambulances and cut off some
two or three hundred fugitives.
As the night began to fall the 5th Virginia, retiring steadily towards
the pike, filed into a narrow lane, fenced by a stone wall, nearly a
mile distant from their last position, and there took post for a final
stand. Their left was commanded by the ridge, and on the heights in the
rear, coming up from the Opequon valley, appeared a large mass of
Northern cavalry. It was a situation sufficiently
uncomfortable. If the ground was too difficult for the horsemen to
charge over in the gathering darkness, a volley from their carbines
could scarcely have failed to clear the wall. “A single ramrod,” it was
said in the Confederate ranks, “would have spitted the whole
battalion.” But not a shot was fired. The pursuit of the Federal
infantry had been stayed in the pathless woods, the cavalry was held in
check by Funsten’s squadrons, and the 5th was permitted to retire
unmolested.
The Confederates, with the exception of Ashby, who halted at
Bartonsville, a farm upon the pike, a mile and a half from the field of
battle, fell back to Newtown, three miles further south, where the
trains had been parked. The men were utterly worn out. Three hours of
fierce fighting against far superior numbers had brought them to the