Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
through the thickets, found a stronger force of infantry within the
forest; the guns opened with grape at a range of one hundred yards, and
the Confederates, threatened on either flank, fell back in some
confusion.
The remainder of Winder’s line had meanwhile met with a decided check.
The enemy along the hollow road was strongly posted. Both guns and
skirmishers were hidden by the embankment; and as the mists of the
morning cleared away, and the sun, rising in splendour above the
mountains, flooded the valley with light, a long line of hostile
infantry, with colours flying and gleaming arms, was seen advancing
steadily into battle. The Federal Commander, observing his opportunity,
had, with rare good judgment, determined on a counterstroke. The
Louisiana brigade was moving up in support of Winder, but it was still
distant. The two regiments which supported the Confederate batteries
were suffering from the heavy artillery fire, and the skirmishers were
already falling back. “Below,” says General Taylor, “Ewell was hurrying
his men over the bridge; but it looked as if we should be doubled up on
him ere he could cross and develop much strength. Jackson was on the
road, a little in advance of his line, where the fire was hottest, with
the reins on his horse’s neck. Summoning a young officer from his
staff, be pointed up the mountain. The head of my approaching column
was turned short up the slope, and within the forest came speedily
to a path which came upon the gorge opposite the battery.[13]
But, as Taylor’s regiments disappeared within the forest, Winder’s
brigade was left for the moment isolated, bearing up with difficulty
against overwhelming numbers. Ewell’s division had found great
difficulty in crossing the South River. The bridge, a construction of
planks laid on the running gear of waggons, had proved unserviceable.
At the deepest part there was a step of two feet between two axletrees
of different height; and the boards of the higher stage, except one,
had broken from their fastenings. As the men passed over, several were
thrown from their treacherous platform into the rushing stream, until
at length they refused to trust themselves except to the centre plank.
The column of fours was thus reduced to single file; men, guns, and
waggons were huddled in confusion on the river banks; and the officers
present neglected to secure the footway, and refused, despite the order
of Major Dabney, to force their men through the breast-high ford.
So, while his subordinates were trifling with the time, which, if
Frémont was to be defeated as well as Shields, was of such extreme
importance, Jackson saw his old brigade assailed by superior numbers in
front and flank. The Federals, matching the rifles of the Confederate
marksmen with weapons no less deadly, crossed over the road and bore
down upon the guns. The 7th Louisiana, the rear regiment of Taylor’s
column, was hastily called up, and dashed forward in a vain attempt to
stem the tide.
A most determined and stubborn conflict now took place, and, as at
Kernstown, at the closest range. The Ohio troops repelled every effort
to drive them back. Winder’s line was thin. Every man was engaged in
the
firing line. The flanks were scourged by bursting shells. The deadly
fire from the road held back the front. Men and officers were falling
fast. The stream of wounded was creeping to the rear; and after thirty
minutes of fierce fighting, the wavering line of the Confederates,
breaking in disorder, fell back upon the guns. The artillery, firing a
final salvo at a range of two hundred yards, was ordered to limber up.
One gun alone, standing solitary between the opposing lines, essayed to
cover the retreat; but the enemy was within a hundred yards, men and
horses were shot down; despite a shower of grape, which rent great gaps
in the crowded ranks, the long blue wave swept on, and leaving the
captured piece in rear, advanced in triumph across the fields.
In vain two of Ewell’s battalions, hurrying forward to the sound of
battle, were thrown against the flank of the attack. For an instant the
Federal left recoiled, and then, springing forward with still fiercer
energy, dashed back their new antagonists as they had done the rest. In
vain Jackson, galloping to the front, spurred his horse into the
tumult, and called upon his men to rally. Winder’s line, for the time
being at least, had lost all strength and order; and although another
regiment had now come up, the enemy’s fire was still so heavy that it
was impossible to reform the defeated troops, and two fresh Federal
regiments were now advancing to strengthen the attack. Tyler had
ordered his left wing to reinforce the centre and it seemed that the
Confederates would be defeated piecemeal. But at this moment the lines
of the assailant came to a sudden halt; and along the slopes of the
Blue Ridge a heavy crash of musketry, the rapid discharges of the guns,
and the charging yell of the Southern infantry, told of a renewed
attack upon the battery on the mountain side.
The Louisianians had come up in the very nick of time. Pursuing his
march by the forest path, Taylor had heard the sounds of battle pass
beyond his flank, and the cheers of the Federals proved that Winder was
hard pressed. Rapidly deploying on his advanced guard, which, led by
Colonel Kelley, of the 8th Louisiana, was already in line, he led his
companies across the ravine. Down the broken slopes, covered with great
boulders and scattered trees, the men slipped and stumbled, and then,
splashing through the stream, swarmed up the face of the bank on which
the Federal artillery was in action. Breaking through the undergrowth
they threw themselves on the guns. The attention of the enemy had been
fixed upon the fight that raged over the plain below, and the thick
timber and heavy smoke concealed the approach of Taylor’s regiments.
The surprise, however, was a failure. The trails were swung round in
the new direction, the canister crashed through the laurels, the
supporting infantry rushed forward, and the Southerners were driven
back. Again, as reinforcements crowded over the ravine, they returned
to the charge, and with bayonet and rammer the fight surged to and fro
within the battery. For the second time the Federals cleared their
front; but some of the Louisiana companies, clambering up the mountain
to the right, appeared upon their flank, and once more the stormers,
rallying in the hollow, rushed forward with the bayonet. The battery
was carried, one gun alone escaping, and the Federal commander saw the
key of his position abandoned to the enemy. Not a moment was to be
lost. The bank was nearly a mile in rear of his right and centre, and
commanded his line of retreat at effective range. Sending his reserves
to retake the battery, he directed his attacking line, already pressing
heavily on Winder, to fall back at once. But it was even then too late.
The rest of Ewell’s division had reached the field. One of his brigades
had been ordered to sustain the Lousianians; and across the plain a
long column of infantry and artillery was hurrying northwards from Port
Republic.
The Stonewall Brigade, relieved of the pressure in front, had already
rallied; and when Tyler’s reserves, with their backs to the river,
advanced to retake the battery, Jackson’s artillery was once more
moving forward. The guns captured by Taylor were turned against the
Federals—Ewell, it is said, indulging to the full his passion for hot
work, serving as a gunner—and within a short space of time
Tyler was in full retreat, and the Confederate cavalry were thundering
on his traces.
It was half-past ten. For nearly five hours the Federals had held their
ground, and two of Jackson’s best brigades had been severely handled.
Even if Trimble and Patton had been successful in holding Frémont back,
the Valley soldiers were in no condition for a rapid march and a
vigorous attack, and their commander had long since recognised that he
must rest content with a single victory.
Before nine o’clock, about the time of Winder’s repulse, finding the
resistance of the enemy more formidable than be had anticipated, he had
recalled his brigades from the opposite bank of the Shenandoah, and had
ordered them to burn the bridge. Trimble and Patton abandoned the
battle-field of the previous day, and fell back to Port Republic.
Hardly a shot was fired during their retreat, and when they took up
their march only a single Federal battery had been seen. Frémont’s
advance was cautious in the extreme. He was actually aware that Shields
had two brigades beyond the river, for a scout had reached him, and
from the ground about Mill Creek the sound of Tyler’s battle could be
plainly heard. But he could get no direct information of what was
passing. The crest of the Massanuttons, although the sun shone bright
on the cliffs below, was shrouded in haze, completely forbidding all
observation; and it was not till near noon, after a march of seven
miles, which began at dawn and was practically unopposed, that Frémont
reached the Shenandoah. There, in the charred and smoking timbers of
the bridge, the groups of Federal prisoners on the plain, the
Confederates gathering the wounded, and the faint rattle of musketry
far down the Luray Valley, he saw the result of his timidity.
Massing his batteries on the western bluffs, and turning his guns in
impotent wrath upon the plain, he drove the ambulances and their escort
from the field. But the Confederate dead and wounded had already been
removed, and the only effect of his spiteful salvoes was that his
suffering comrades lay under a drenching rain until he retired to
Harrisonburg. By that time many, whom their enemies
would have rescued, had perished miserably, and “not a few of the dead,
with some perchance of the mangled living, were partially devoured by
swine before their burial.”[14]
The pursuit of Tyler was pressed for nine miles down the river. The
Ohio regiments, dispersed at first by the Confederate artillery,
gathered gradually together, and held the cavalry in check. Near
Conrad’s Store, where Shields, marching in desperate haste to the sound
of the cannonade, had put his two remaining brigades in position across
the road, the chase was stayed. The Federal commander admits that he
was only just in time. Jackson’s horsemen, he says, were enveloping the
column; a crowd of fugitives was rushing to the rear, and his own
cavalry had dispersed. The Confederate army, of which some of the
brigades and nearly the whole artillery had been halted far in rear,
was now withdrawn; but, compelled to move by circuitous paths in order
to avoid the fire of Frémont’s batteries, it was after midnight before
the whole had assembled in Brown’s Gap. More than one of the regiments
had marched over twenty miles and had been heavily engaged.
Port Republic was the battle most costly to the Army of the Valley
during the whole campaign. Out of 5,900 Confederates engaged 804 were
disabled.[15] The Federal losses were heavier. The killed, wounded, and
missing (including 450 captured) amounted to 1,001, or one-fourth of
Tyler’s strength.
The success which the Confederates had achieved was undoubtedly
important. The Valley army, posted in Brown’s Gap, was now in direct
communication with Richmond. Not only had its pursuers been roughly
checked, but
the sudden and unexpected counterstroke, delivered by an enemy whom
they believed to be in full flight, had surprised Lincoln and Stanton
as effectively as Shields and Frémont. On June 6, the day Jackson
halted near Port Republic, McCall’s division of McDowell’s Army Corps,
which had been left at Fredericksburg, had been sent to the Peninsula