USA > Indiana > The soldier of Indiana in the war for the union, Vol. I > Part 38
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WINCHESTER HEIGHTS.
ments, lay Tyler's brigade. All slept on their arms, except two or three regiments which formed a double line of senti- nels, arranged like the brigades, the Sixty-Seventh Ohio in front and to the left of Kimball, the Thirteenth Indiana from the Cedar Creek to the Front Royal road in front of Sullivan.
The night which hid the movements of Kimball, also favored the plans of Jackson. He arranged his force to cover a line two miles in length. He placed Ashby on and east of the Strasburg turnpike, with Colonel Burk's brigade as a support, and also as a reserve. General Jackson himself, with several batteries, took his stand in the center of his line, on a hill nearly a mile south of Kimball's battery hill. Colonel Ful- kerson's brigade was on his left in a field, which was sur- rounded by a stone wall. A thick grove covered the slope in front of the wall, and as far to the west as the Cedar Creek road. An old, little used road ran through the grove. The wall and the wood were first a screen, afterwards a shelter to Jackson's left. Garnett's brigade in the wood and behind the field formed a support to Fulkerson. A battery commanded the Strasburg road, and one protected each wing of the Con- federate army. A stone wall also covered the right. Jackson was thus very skilfully posted.
Both Jackson and Kimball worked so entirely in the dark that neither was aware of the movements, number or prox- imity of the other. Dawn revealed nothing. The ravines and hillsides, woods and walls concealed the carefully arranged batteries and bayonets, horse and foot, and presented their ordinary peaceful appearance. The forces were nearly equal. Each afterwards claimed the smaller number, but each con- sisted of three brigades of infantry, six batteries, and a body of cavalry. In the character of the cavalry the Confederates had the advantage. Ashby, the commander, was a keen, fiery little man, fitted for his position by the hardihood, coolness and skill which he had acquired in a life devoted to fox-hunt- ing and horse-racing. He rode a milk-white steed, which seemed inspired by his own bold spirit. His men had had like training, and as horsemen were unequaled, as soldiers unsurpassed by any in the Confederacy.
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
The National cavalry force, on the other hand, was made up of pioneers from the woods and villages of the young State of Michigan,-good, sturdy men, who were accustomed to ride and to hunt, but more as a business than as a pastime. They knew little of the leaping, the prancing, the caricoling, the dashing, reckless, headlong speed and fire which made up the life and glory of Ashby and his troop.
But again Jackson was deceived as to the Union force, imagining it to be not more than five or six hundred, and his troops were fatigued by their rapid march. The sun came up slowly, and as late as eight or nine o'clock an Ohio officer, Colonel Mason, who had been sent out toreconnoiter, reported that none but Ashby's force was in front, and that no sound was to be heard but a somewhat brisk picket firing. So General Banks and General Shields, who were holding an anxious consultation by the bedside of the latter, concluded that Ashby was simply amusing himself by giving a false alarm, and General Banks no longer hesitated to follow the last division he had sent towards Washington.
But neither Colonel Mason's eyes nor ears were good, for as early as eight artillery firing began on the hills, and Kim- ball was anxiously endeavoring to discern the length and posi- tion of the rebel line, one end of which was slowly moving on towards his left. His left, the Eighth and Sixty-Seventh Ohio, did not seem to share his anxiety. The two regiments marched steadily to meet the enemy, and engaged shortly in a sharp contest. Clark's battery came rattling up the turn- pike, with the Fourteenth Indiana shouting behind it. Sulli- van's brigade drew in from right and leftand rear, concentrated before the toll-gate, then pushed on behind the Fourteenth
Colonel Ashby, who led the Rebel advance, paused at the sight of a force so unexpectedly large. He did not retreat, but he did not move on, and as the Union force was little less surprised, it also paused. The firing slackened, and almost died away. Near noon Jackson began to draw his reserve up towards his center, and increase his artillery firing, while, at the same time, Ashby withdrew from the left, and Garnett advanced to flank Kimball's right. Just then Tyler's brigade, which was sent forward as soon as Shields became
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VICTORY.
aware of the attack, reached the ground. An order met it, "Go to our right. Take the batteries on the hill." These were the batteries in the field with Fulkerson's brigade.
On Tyler's right was the Seventh Ohio, on his left the Twenty-Ninth, the First Virginia in his center, the Seventh Indiana in the rear of the right, the One Hundred and Tenth Pennsylvania on the rear of the left. Colonel Tyler marched towards the west, then with his right flank on the Cedar Creek road, and his left on the old road through the woods, he turned and moved steadily and silently almost half a mile. Turning again towards the left, he faced Garnett's brigade, Jackson's extreme left. A blinding fire met him, and his men threw themselves flat on the ground, behind a ridge. But they rose as soon as the first volley had passed over their heads, and gave back shot for shot, and shout for shout. Garnett's brigade was sheltered by the trees, and Fulkerson's by the stone wall. At first they merely held their ground, but soon Garnett advanced, and was followed by Fulkerson. Tyler withstood the two Rebel brigades nearly three hours, then he yielded slowly, and they pressed forward. The day seemed lost, when near and nearer came a shout. "That shout was worth a thousand men," said Colonel Tyler after- wards. It stopped shrinking feet; it nerved failing hands, and when the fiery faces of the Fourteenth Indiana came up out of the woods, following the war cry, loud, long and terrible, rose again the din of battle. No orders could be heard, but through all, and over all, penetrated and swelled the shout of on-coming troops, behind the Fourteenth Indiana, the Eighty- Fourth Pennsylvania, the Thirteenth Indiana, the Sixty- Seventh and Fifth Ohio.
Now it was Garnett's turn to fall back, and now the stone wall could no longer shelter Fulkerson. But Fulkerson did not fly, he marched slowly and bravely across the field.
The sun set, and the deepening shades of twilight made pursuit impossible; the Rebels, therefore, retired safely to their wagons. The Union soldiers slept on the field. It was the first real battle of most of the troops engaged, and, though in the flush of victory, many a man lay down that night sick at heart, because of the blood and horror about him.
30
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
The Union loss in the engagement was one hundred and three killed, four hundred and fifty-one wounded. In killed and wounded the Seventh lost forty-four, the Thirteenth thirty-seven, and the Fourteenth fifty-four, a quarter of the whole.
The Confederate loss is not certainly known. Pollard statesit at one hundred killed, two hundred wounded and three hundred prisoners; but as he greatly over-estimates the Fed- eral loss, his statement is not probably correct.
The Confederates also lost two guns and four caissons. One of the guns was afterwards presented to the Fourteenth by General Banks, but it was never taken from Winchester.
Captain Kelly, of the Fourteenth, was mortally wounded, and shortly afterwards died.
General Jackson was bent on repossessing the valley. To him it was the heart of the Confederacy, and its loss was the loss of all. It was, therefore, slowly and sullenly that, on the night after the battle, he turned his back on the broad fields of the lower Shenandoah, already ripening for the harvest.
General Banks, who returned from Harper's Ferry on receiving intelligence of the battle, bringing back with him the division of General Williams, was on the pursuit the next day. But he was forced to move slowly. The country people gave good words to Jackson, the bridges afforded him safe and easy passage over the streams; the mills supplied him with flour, and the sleepless and restless Ashby hovered pro- tectingly over his rear. Banks, on the contrary, received scowls and curses from the inhabitants; found no grain in the mills, and was constantly checked by the mountain rivers as they rushed along, bearing the ashes of burning bridges; while always disappearing over the hill-tops before him were the flying horsemen of Ashby. Now and then from the artil- lery, which lumbered along with Ashby's troop, a shell or a ball fell among the pursuers; on the bank of some stream, at the entrance of some village, for round about every village the mountains form a wall, or at some turn in the road, a skir- mish took place, but Jackson, especially in the upper part of the valley, made as little delay as possible, and consequently there was no important fighting.
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UP THE VALLEY.
Banks pressed on to Middletown, to Strasburg, to Wood- stock, to Mount Jackson, to New Market, and last to Har- risonburg. During the latter part of the route news came of the victories on the field of Shiloh, at Island No. 10, at Fort Pulaski and New Orleans. At Harrisonburg an enthu- siastic celebration was held, and all hearts and voices pro- claimed the war near its close.
May 6th, the Union pickets southeast of Harrisonburg were driven in, and Colonel Foster was sent the next day with his regiment to discover the strength of the enemy. He was directed to avoid an engagement, and accordingly after driving a small body of the enemy from Honeyville beyond Somer- ville, he turned to withdraw with the expectation of a general attack on the morrow. Captain Conger, of the First Vermont cavalry, joined him, and was ordered to bring up the rear. He did not obey, and suffered the usual punishment of dis- obedience. When Colonel Foster had gone two or three miles, he received the following dispatch from Conger: "We are surrounded, come to our assistance;" and at the same time a dispatch from General Sullivan: " Do not pursue the enemy; beware of a surprise." The order was imperative, the entreaty no less, and Foster turned and marched to the assistance of the hot-headed Vermonter. He found him almost overwhelmed by a superior force, and only extricated him at the expense of a half hour's terrible fighting, and with the loss of twenty-eight men.
At Harrisonburg, Banks was connected with Milroy, who was at McDowell, forty miles west, by a good public road. The situation of itself suggested a union of the two forces, and an advance on Staunton, which commands the direct road through the mountains to Richmond, and which was less than sixty miles distant. Banks was ordered to hold himself in readiness for this movement, awaiting a signal from McClellan.
Jackson saw the situation with extreme anxiety. He seemed to have called troops which were on their way to the front of Richmond, only to lead them by a longer but easier route to its rear. Yet hope rose over fear. The very extremity of the danger opened a way to brilliant success. If he could
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
ensnare Banks here, or drive him back to the mouth of the valley, he would at least give Lee time to finish the fortifica- tions of Richmond, and to organize and train the raw soldiers the late conscript law had put into the ranks. He dared to indulge a still bolder hope, by a sudden dash down the valley, to capture or scatter the army of Banks, and to spring upon Washington before National troops could have time to come to its rescue, and thus save Richmond, win Washington, turn the face of the Army of the Potomac northward, and drive the war from Virginia to Maryland and Pennsylvania.
To prepare for the execution of this daring conception, he called General Ewell with a full division from Gordonsville to the front of General Banks, and himself repaired to Staun- ton, where he reinforced his army with a corps of cadets, under the command of the Principal of the Virginia Military Institute, and with a division under General Edward John- ston, made its number something like forty thousand.
At this juncture of affairs, Banks was ordered to send to McClellan's assistance the whole of Shields' division, the most experienced and active part of his corps. He protested, yet when his scouts reported that Jackson had disappeared among or beyond the mountains, he admitted to the President his belief that the valley was almost cleared of Confederate troops, and that Jackson was on his way to Richmond. This opinion was confirmed by the skirmishes of the succeeding days, in which the prisoners taken were from Ewell's corps.
May 12th Shields' division started east. It marched stead- ily, reached Falmouth in ten days, and went into camp oppo- site Fredericksburg, but only to be immediately ordered back to the Shenandoah Valley.
General Fremont, when he succeeded Rosecrans in the command of the Mountain Department, as the district over which he was placed in authority was now called, made his headquarters at Wheeling, where he remained nearly two months, engaged in organizing his little army, before he was by General Jackson's last attempt to gain the valley, sud- denly summoned into the field. His corps consisted of Gen- eral Milroy's and General Schenck's brigades, of an incomplete brigade which was under the command of Colonel Cluseret,
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MILROY MARCHES FORWARD, FLIES BACK.
and of General Blenker's division. Blenker's division would make a curious chapter in the history of the war, if its march from the Army of the Potomac to join Fremont was a sam- ple of its proceedings. It lost itself among the mountains, and was not found until General Rosecrans made an extended and systematic search. It had marched and counter-marched, during nearly two months of extraordinary rains, without tents or shelter. General Rosecrans re-clothed it as far as was possible in a few days, and hastened its progress to Peters- burg, West Virginia. Fully one half the men on their arrival at this place were unsupplied with overcoats and blankets, and the whole division was reported by the medical director to be in a condition of starvation and incipient scurvy.
General Milroy left his bleak and windy eyrie on the Cheat mountains as soon as the opening of spring allowed an advance. On the 1st of May, having driven a small oppos- ing force before him, he was at McDowell, a little village sit- uated in a deep basin among the hills, and his advance guard was east of the Shenandoah mountain.
In consequence of the movements described, at the begin- ning of the last act of the campaign, the Union forces which were drawn into action were widely scattered. Banks at Harrisonburg, with four or five thousand men, and one thous- and men at Winchester, formed the only Union troops in the Valley. Fremont was at Wheeling, with the body of his army at Petersburg and Franklin, and the advance at McDowell. Shields was at Fredericksburg.
Suddenly Milroy's van came flying back over the moun- tains, and in his front, on his right, and on his left appeared overwhelming numbers of the Confederate army. He was almost surrounded before he had warning of the approach of danger.
His little army looked with dismay on the bristling hills, but caught the resolution of their commander, " We'll not yield a foot to treason!" and repeated his welcome, " You are just in time!" to General Schenck, who hastened from Frank- lin to his assistance, marching thirty-four miles in one day. Schenck, however, was the ranking officer, and when he saw that after a three hours' battle the Confederates did not lose
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
ground, and did increase in numbers, he ordered a retreat, which he conducted to Franklin with rapidity and skill. General Fremont, who had left Wheeling on the first intelli- gence of Milroy's danger, arrived at Franklin at the same time.
General Jackson was satisfied to prevent the union of Mil- roy with Banks, and he went back, as rapidly as he had ad- vanced, to finish his preparations.
Meantime General Banks retired to Strasburg to the joy of the inhabitants of Harrisonburg, who illuminated their houses the night he departed. He began to fortify his new position, and sent troops, less than a thousand in number, to Front Royal in the mountains, twelve miles east, to guard the Manassas railway at that point, and also arranged guards along the railway from Front Royal to Strasburg. One com- pany of the Twenty-Seventh Indiana was stationed five miles east of the latter place.
He had no reason to anticipate unusual danger, as Ashby, who was continually in his front, was making no more than his usual demonstrations, when, on the evening of the 22d of May, he was startled by the report that Front Royal was attacked, and the commandant of the post with all his men captured or slain. Incredulous, but prudent, he dispatched as large a number of reinforcements as he could spare, while he reflected on his mode of proceeding should the tale prove true. But one way was open, a race for dear life, and for that he prepared. Late at night scouts reported the enemy in overwhelming numbers bearing down on every road from the east to Strasburg, and sweeping along more distant routes to Winchester. Cavalry and infantry set off before day, escorting wagons and hundreds of disabled men who had been left by General Shields, and before noon all the Union force was out of Strasburg. Donnelly's brigade was fore- most, Gordon's was next, and General Hatch, with cavalry and artillery, was last. Now the race was in earnest. Ashby's cavalry gained the Winchester road in front of the wagons, which to escape them hastened to the rear, and then turned off on another road, while Donelly, followed by Gordon, cut through the opposing troops to Winchester. Gordon turned
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BETWEEN THE CUP AND THE LIP.
back to meet and defend the train. The enemy swarmed about it, and the troops burned many of the wagons while they fought their way forward with all they could protect. It was two in the morning when they reached Winchester. Before dawn the roar of artillery called them from their short rest to another Sunday's battle on the wave-like heights south of the town.
The officers most actively engaged under General Jackson were Generals Ewell, Elzey, Taylor and Winder. Donnelly had the left wing of General Banks' army, was southeast of Winchester, and received the first attack, which was made by General Ewell. Taylor and Winder together fell upon Gor- don, who was on the ridge southwest of the town, with the Third Wisconsin, the Second Massachusetts, the Twenty- Ninth Pennsylvania, and the Twenty-Seventh Indiana. Ewell, making no impression on Donnelly, changed his tac- tics, and, in co-operation with General Elzey, who had the Confederate left, stretched and curved his line preparatory to an assault upon the Union flanks. The movement was well executed, but it was observed, and the National troops with- drew, the Massachusetts and Indiana regiments bringing up the rear. In the streets of Winchester the ranks were thrown into confusion by firing from the houses, and as they emerged from the town the confusion was increased by a heavy dis- charge of artillery.
Again Jackson saw the cup of success just at his lips. A few moments more and his swift, bold troopers would cut off the last hope or chance of escape to the Union army. But Ashby's gallant men, who had never failed before, failed him now. They were in the rear pillaging the captured wagons. Their failure could not be retrieved, and General Banks escaped the greatest danger which had yet assailed him.
One army and then the other passed through Martinsburg, which, when they entered, and when they left, was as still as the grave, and more empty, for all the inhabitants had fled. Already the people of the valley had seen enough of war, but they afterwards saw many a darker day than the Sunday on which Jackson chased Banks through their streets.
At sundown General Banks mustered his forces on the
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
southern shore of the Potomac. "A thousand camp-fires were burning on the hill sides; a thousand carriages of every description were crowded on the banks of the broad river which rolled between the exhausted troops and their coveted rest." Civilians, men and women, white and black, carrying bundles and babies, trundling wheel-barrows, driving carts and leading lean horses on which were strapped the old and the sick, hung on the rear of the army. At noon of the next day, by the aid of the ford and the ferry, and a pontoon bridge which had been brought from Strasburg in the wagons, all were on the northern side of the Potomac.
The retreat of fifty-three miles was effected in forty-eight hours, with cheerfulness, mutual confidence on the part of officers and privates, and perfect order, except in the few moments immediately after the battle. Everything at Front Royal was lost, and much was left in the hands of the enemy at Winchester. Fifty-five wagons were either burnt or cap- tured. The total loss in killed, wounded and missing was nine hundred and five; of these, one hundred and four were from the Twenty-Seventh Indiana.
Several surgeons voluntarily remained in the hospitals, which fell into the hands of the enemy, and on the battle- fields at Front Royal and Winchester. Dr. Gillespie, of the Seventh Indiana, and Dr. Johnson, of the Sixteenth, were both made prisoners in this way.
General Jackson, having seen General Banks beyond the Potomac, tried to effect a crossing for himself, but he could not find an unguarded ford, nor could he allure the Federal troops from their strong defensive positions. On a dark and stormy night he fiercely attacked Harper's Ferry, but he was repulsed with equal fury, and at last was forced to turn his back on the Potomac, on Washington and on his vision of rolling the streams of war back from the South over the golden fields of the North. Now had he need of a fleet foot, a wary step and a sharp eye. From far and near troops were spring- ing towards him. The sun, which rose on the battle of Win- chester and sunk on the crossing of the Potomac, saw nearly half a million patriots start to arms, and at almost the same moment the army of Fremont at Franklin on the west, and
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"ONWARD THEY DRIVE, IN DREADFUL RACE."
the division of Shields at Fredericksburg on the east, turn their faces towards the valley of the Shenandoah.
Fremont and Shields, the latter with the addition of a brigade under Bayard, from McDowell's corps, both left their trains behind. Without incumbrance, they were able to go fourteen, eighteen and twenty-two miles a day, often in rain, often over roads which were steep and sharp and rough. Fre- mont's route was across the mountains.
Tuesday Shields met at Manassas Junction a few troops which had escaped from the surprise at Front Royal. The sight of them inflamed the ardor of his men. Friday at noon Kimball, who led the advance, routed the enemy at Front Royal.
Only twelve miles now were between Shields' division and the road which Jackson was pursuing. If Fremont was near, the great Confederate chieftain and his bold followers would return no more, or only after a terrific battle, to the hills of the South.
Fremont was not near. He marched twenty miles Friday, in spite of a rain, which made progress exceedingly difficult, but only reached the western base of the last ridge of moun- tains. Saturday he spent in climbing this barrier. At dark he came to a point where the road divides, the right branch turning southeast towards Strasburg, the left northeast towards Winchester. Burning heaps of wood along the Strasburg road designated that as the route to be pursued, and gave to the troops the intelligence, which as yet they had but sus- pected, that they were really in pursuit of Jackson. At the same time a report, said to be from scouts, passed along the lines that Jackson was but a few miles south of Winchester, though moving as rapidly as only he could move. Fatigue could not restrain, and darkness could not conceal, the gen- eral enthusiasm. As the soldiers came pouring down the mountains, out of the darkness, in a ceaseless stream, they burst into song. Above the thundering tramp of almost twenty thousand men, and long before their faces or forms were visible, rose the mighty chorus, "HURRA! HURRA! HURRA!" The General dismounted and stood by a huge fire. His face had the same sad, intense look it wore in the Mis-
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
souri campaign, and was lighted up with the same noble sym- pathy and confidence. Around him was his gallant escort of Indiana men.
The day's march closed at this point. The men lying down to sleep in slanting or swimming fields. The next day was Sunday. General Fremont early put his men in line of battle, and sent Cluseret with his advance to prevent the entrance of Jackson into Strasburg. Cluseret soon fell in with a body of the enemy, made an attack, and, after a brisk engagement, fell back, with the expectation of drawing Jack- son's army to Fremont's front. But Jackson had already entered Strasburg, and it was his rear instead of his advance with which Cluseret was engaged. Of course the rear could not be allured from the line of the retreat. When General Fremont discovered the mistake he hastily resumed his march. But the opportunity was gone. It had come and gone while Fremont was climbing the last ridge of mountains.
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