Day 101. June 9, 1862. PORT REPUBLIC Battle.
101
their screams joined those of the men…
(note: doodle top of all three pages this entry encompasses: sticks again, each time four horizontal twigs are cut in half by three vertical)
June Monday 9th 1862
Quite a bright morning. The sun came up quite bright. I sleept very sound last night although we were in a bad position. Our men had a strong picket out last night. All things quiet last night. Early this morning the enemy commenced fireing on our men the cavalry. Our cannon soon opened with a shell noise with the yelling bomb shell whistling and them burst. The 84 & 110th Regt were supporting the Left of the Battaries. They filled up into the woods which was a hill. There was (note: in pencil, “three” is written over “two”) three of our cannon at the foot of the hill on a coal hearth and the rest were down in the grain fields. The 7 Indiana Regt Col Gavin commander fought 3 Regt of the enemy. They keept their ground for about one hour when they advanced. They made them retreat and fired on them all the way (note: word “Battle” at top). The 7 Indiana Regt. retreated but in good order. They kept fireing all the way on their retreat. The enemy took Part of Capt Clarksons Battary and our men retook them again. Our Cannoneers made desperate [illeg. maybe havoc] amoung the enemy with Grape and canister. Some of the cannoneers fired 40 rounds of grape and canister. The enemy came on our left Flank before our men saw them as the woods came to the road that goes to Port Republic as the fight took place within 1 ½ mile of the village. We lost a good many men. Some 250 to 300 wounded and 200 or 250 killed and some 500 missing. The enemy lost a grate many killed and wounded. Our men fought desperately like tigers but they were overpowered and our men to make a retreat fast. It was done In fine order. The 3 Brigade was in the Battle to day which consisted of the 5..29.. (note: “62” crossed out) 66…7 Ohio Regiments were in the Battle. The 4 Brigade consisted the 1st Va. 7 Ind. & 84 & 110th Regt. There was only some 3000 of our men in the Battle. I saw many wounded soldiers some fatally some that would soon try the realities. (note: letter “y” in “realitys” crossed out). We fell back 15 miles and there camped for the night. It was wet the ground very full of water. Although we had to do the best we could we are all very much woren out and need rest very bad. The wounded were all brot back to Lieurey in the Ambulances. Some of the wounded suffered very much. We lost our Medicine box to day and there was a grate many things lost. There was 7 pieces of our cannon captured by the Enemy. We took one of their Parrot cannon. There was 9 of our cannon taken and 6 caissons. We lost a good many muskets. The 7 Indiana Regiment lost 180 in all and the 110th took about 125 men into the fight and lost some 40 in all killed wounded and taken Prisners. Towards evenning Gen Freemont attacked them and routing them capturing a grater part of their cannon. The enemy burnt the most of their baggage train before Freemont could capture it and I don’t know if he captured any of their men or not. The shells came very close to me today. The destruction of Life was grate
Note: Ephraim wrote four pages today. Page one is the post header picture. Remaining three are at top of this page.
Port Republic was, as far as I’ve read, a three hour battle. Today it may be that the front line became so decimated that it got pushed back to where Ephraim was working as the 110th Hospital Steward, because he mentions how close the shells flew to his vicinity…. Or, he was on the field. Also, the insignia (& uniforms) the men wore was often random, despite attempts at a visual system of differentiation (see March 26), contributing to high mortality rates for stretcher bearers and ambulance drivers in battle as they went to wounded men’s aid. Also, both sides would deliberately pick off anyone they could, medical or not, with even instances of retaliation against wounded men in hospitals & hospital tents.
At any rate, the Louisiana Tigers came up on the crest; in close range man-on-man combat, Tyler’s men lost The Coaling. Frémont arrived but because Ewell burned the South Fork bridges when he retreated, his forces could not reinforce Tyler (imagine these men staring across the river & not able to do a thing). Minutes counted. And all they could do is stand helplessly & watch. See NYT coverage here June 13, too.
Note: In the back pocket of the diary, Ephraim stuck a map on thick paper that was not torn from the diary; he may have torn it from some kind of an account ledger, because there are, in addition to blue lines, red lines both horizontal and vertical running down one far side of the page. 12½ inches by 8, and it’s ripped, barely holding together, having been folded 160 years ago in seven places: once lengthwise, and three times width. Drawn maps are on both sides in pencil.
Note: Today’s battle on zoomable map: www.loc.gov/resource/g3884p.cwh00096/
https://bantarleton.tumblr.com/post/183383682150/the-battle-of-port-republic-june-9-1862-by-adam
https://www.nps.gov/cebe/learn/historyculture/battle-of-port-republic.htm
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/port-republic
Side 1: “Battle ground near Port Republic– June 8 & 9 1862.” Squiggly lines draw cannons, trees, houses, trees, hills, He wrote, “rising ground, enemy cannon, rising ground, 3 Regts enemies, 7 Indiana Regiment, 2 pieces of cannon, clear fields, 3 Brigade joined [illeg. because the lead has faded; maybe “brick”], house.
Side 2: The map flipped over: “Gen Carroll, Gen Tyler, Fought June 8 & 9 by 3000 USA + 25,000 C.S.” “25,000 CS” has a squiggly line box cutting it off from the rest of the page. His words in the map around the drawings: “woods, opposite side of river toward Harrisburg, Infantry, enemys cannon, drawing of the cannons (and repeating word “cannon”), Road from Leurey to Port Republic, woods, clear land, 7 Indiana Regt, grain, “Buck” or “Brick” house, Parrott cannon, grain fields, hill or mountain (he wasn’t decided on size), 3 Regts C.S.” and a large round circle that likely was the coaling, but he left it unidentified as such. Two tiny houses are drawn, cannons, squiggly line trees. More lines, dots, stacks of lines, trees, ground, large splotches of circles, squares, triangles. It’s all what stood out the most to him that day.
Lincoln Day by Day: A Chronology 1809-1865 Volume III: 1861-1865 C. Percy Powell P. 120
“June 9, 1862: Telegraphs Gen. Banks at Winchester, Va.: “We are arranging a general plan for the valley of the Shenandoah;…move your main force to the Shenandoah at or opposite Front-Royal as soon as possible.” Orders Gen. Frémont at Harrisonburg, Va.: “Halt at Harrisonburg, pursuing Jackson no farther;… stand on the defensive,… and await further orders.’”
The Civil War: The Story of the War With Maps M. David Detweiler P. 34
“June 9, surprised at Port Republic by Shields, and with much of his army barely able to stand, instead of withdrawing, which few could fault, Jackson fights an enormously risky battle. Way outnumbered, he will strike one pincer–Shields– then turn on the other– Frémont… Jackson neutralizes Shields in too many hours of bitter fighting (a small force of Yankees makes a Thermopylae-like stand). Then… but there isn’t enough Rebel energy left. Frémont also is content to leave off.
Dour, driven, driving, secretive, remorseless in war, Jackson has won immortality. He has buoyed the South’s spirits and tied in knots what might have been sufficient reinforcement even for McClellan.
Now Jackson is summoned by Lee to Richmond and the fight there.
Shields and Frémont drift north, ineffectual… they will continue hallucinating Jackson’s specter, at times be nearly incapacitated by it– long after he’s seventy miles away at Richmond.”
Destruction and Reconstruction: Personal Experiences of the Late War Richard Taylor New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1879 P. 73-76
“The following morning, Sunday, June 9, my command passed the bridge, moved several hundred yards down the road, and halted. Our trains had gone east over the Blue Ridge. The sun appeared above the mountain while the men were quietly breakfasting. Suddenly, from below, was heard the din of battle, loud and sustained, artillery and small arms. The men sprang into ranks, formed column and marched, and I galloped forward a short mile to see the following scene:
From the mountain, clothed to its base with undergrowth and timber, a level—clear, open, and smooth—extended to the river. This plane was some several thousand yards in width. Half a mile north, a gorge, through which flowed a small stream, cut the mountain at a right angle. The northern shoulder of this gorge projected farther into the plain than the southern, and on an elevated plateau of the shoulder were placed six guns, sweeping every inch of the plain to the south. Federal lines, their right touching the river, were advancing steadily, with banners flying and arms gleaming in the sun. A gallant show, they came on. Winder’s and another brigade, with a battery, opposed them. This small force was suffering cruelly, and its skirmishers were driven in on their thin supporting line. As my Irishmen predicted, “Shields’s [sic] boys were after fighting.” below, 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 reins on his horse’s neck, seemingly in prayer. Attracted by my approach, he said, in his usual voice, “Delightful excitement.” I replied that it was pleasant to learn he was enjoying himself, but thought he might have an indigestion of such fun if the sixgun battery was not silenced. He summoned a young officer from his staff, and pointed up the mountain. The head of my approaching column was turned short up the slope, and speedily came to a path running parallel with the river. We took this path, the guide leading the way. From him I learned that the plateau occupied by the battery had been used for a charcoal kiln, and the path we were following, made by the burners in hauling wood, came upon the gorge opposite the battery. Moving briskly, we reached the hither side a few yards from the guns. Infantry was posted near, and riflemen were in the undergrowth on the slope above. Our approach, masked by timber, was unexpected. The battery was firing rapidly, enabled from elevation to fire over the advancing lines. The head of my column began to deploy under cover for attack, when the sounds of battle to our rear appeared to recede, and a loud Federal cheer was heard, proving Jackson to be hard pressed. It was rather an anxious moment, demanding instant action. Leaving a staff officer to direct my rear regiment—the 7th, Colonel Hays—to form in the wood as a reserve, I ordered the attack, though the deployment was not completed, and our rapid march by a narrow path had occasioned some disorder. With a rush and shout the gorge was passed and we were in the battery. Surprise had aided us, but the enemy’s infantry rallied in a moment and drove us out. We returned, to be driven a second time. The riflemen on the slope worried us no little, and two companies of the 9th regiment were sent up the gorge to gain ground above and dislodge them, which was accomplished. The fighting in and around the battery was hand to hand, and many fell from bayonet wounds. Even the artillery-men used their rammers in a way not laid down in the Manual, and died at their guns. As Conan said to the devil, “Twas claw for claw.” I called for Hays, but he, the promptest of men, and his splendid regiment, could not be found. Something unexpected had occurred, but there was no time for speculation. With a desperate rally, in which I believe the drummer-boys shared, we carried the battery for the third time, and held it. Infantry and riflemen had been driven off, and we began to feel a little comfortable, when the enemy, arrested in his advance by our attack, appeared. He had countermarched, and, with left near the river, came into full view of our situation. Wheeling to the right, with colors advanced, like a solid wall he marched straight upon us. There seemed nothing left but to set our backs to the mountain and die hard. At the instant, crashing through the underwood, came Ewell, outriding staff and escort. He produced the effect of a reinforcement, and was welcomed with cheers. The line before us halted and threw forward skirmishers. A moment later, a shell came shrieking along it, loud Confederate cheers reached our delighted ears, and Jackson, freed from his toils, rushed up like a whirlwind, the enemy in rapid retreat. We turned the captured guns on them as they passed, Ewell serving as a gunner. Though rapid, the retreat never became a rout. Fortune had refused her smiles, but Shields’s [sic] brave “boys” preserved their organization and were formidable to the last; and had Shields himself, with his whole command, been on the field, we should have had tough work indeed.
Jackson came up, with intense light in his eyes, grasped my hand, and said the brigade should have the captured battery. I thought the men would go mad with cheering, especially the Irishmen. A huge fellow, with one eye closed and half his whiskers burned by powder, was riding cock-horse on a gun, and, catching my attention, yelled out, “We told you to bet on your boys.’”
Note: Richard Taylor writes in the next paragraph, “While Jackson pursued the enemy without much effect, as his cavalry, left in front of Frémont, could not get over till late, we attended to the wounded and performed the last offices to the dead, our own and the Federal. I have never seen so many dead and wounded in the same limited space. A large farmhouse on the plain, opposite the mouth of the gorge, was converted into a hospital.”
Note: Hays will die at the Wilderness, May 5, shot in the head, aged 44. There is an Alexander Hays Road in Bristow, Virginia adjacent to the Bristoe Station Battlefield, & a statue of him at Gettysburg.
How the South Could Have Won the Civil War: The Fatal Errors That Led to Confederate Defeat Bevin Alexander P. 74
“General Erastus B. Tyler had posted his force ably behind a sunken road and small stream running to the river. On the Federal left up against the Blue Ridge was an open “coal hearth” where charcoal was prepared on the flat surface of a hill one hundred or so feet above the valley. Here Tyler had placed seven cannons that commanded the field. Jackson sent two Stonewall Brigade regiments and a battery to assault the guns from the Blue Ridge flank. Mountain laurel slowed the men, however, and the Union gunners and guarding infantry, hearing them coming, drove them back with rifle and canister fire.
Jackson sent the rest of the Stonewall Brigade and a Louisiana regiment directly against the Union forces along the stream and sunken road. Firing from their protective cover, the Federals cut up the Confederates, who retreated back in haste. The Union line advanced with shouts, leading two of Ewell’s regiments to hurry forward. They drove in the Union flank briefly, but the Union troops pushed them off and were on the verge of breaking the Confederate line.
Jackson saw that the heavy fire coming from the coal hearth was the key to the battle, and ordered the main body of Richard Taylor’s Louisiana brigade, just coming up, to assault those guns. Moving by way of a forest path they discovered, the Louisianians crashed without warning onto the guns and seized the battery. Federal infantry rushed forward and drove off Taylor’s men, but some of them, aided by two regiments under Ewell that had also come through the forest, stormed the hearth once more, and this time drove off the Federals.
Union General Tyler saw that he must retake the battery or withdraw. Otherwise the guns, in Southern hands, would dominate his entire position. But he sent his reserves forward too late. Ewell’s main body had reached the field, and a brigade moved toward the hearth. As the Federal soldiers advanced, they saw their own cannons turned on them– with Ewell himself serving as a gunner.
The Northerners broke for the rear, pursued by Jackson’s cavalry, not absent this day as it had been in Winchester. The horsemen pursued Tyler’s force for nine miles until they reached Shields, who had marched desperately toward the sound of the guns and formed a line there.
Jackson, realizing he now had no chance of going back and dealing with Frémont, ordered the small force guarding Frémont to retreat to Port Republic, burn the bridge, and join the army on the south bank. Fearing Frémont might try to join Shields, Jackson called off pursuit of Tyler and marched the whole army to safety into the lower cove of Brown’s Gap.”
TYLER:
HERE’S HOW THE CLEVELAND MORNING LEADER reported today’s events on June 20, 1862:
Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command Volume 1 Douglas Southall Freeman Scribner, 1942 P. 454
“From field headquarters in rear of the center of the line, Jackson had been watching the artillery duel and the futile attempt of Winder’s men to advance along the road and to the East of it. His battle blood was up. He knew now that the issue was close. With reluctance, he had abandoned all hope of finishing off Shields in time to attack Frémont. Two couriers were spurring toward Cross Keys, with orders for Trimble to hurry to Port Republic, to burn the bridge over North River, and to join Jackson. Soon word came from Winder that he was greatly outnumbered and must have reinforcements. How were they to be provided? Had the crossing of the South Fork been repaired? Were officers hastening the march of troops that surely were strong enough to overwhelm Shields?”
The Civil War, A Narrative: Fort Sumter to Perryville Shelby Foote P. 461
“Winder went forward, driving hard, but entered a maelstrom of bullets and shells that stopped the charge in its tracks. Once more, at Kernstown against these same men, Jackson’s brigade had to pay in blood for his rashness. What was worse, by way of indignity– though he did not know it– there were only two small brigades before him, fewer than 3000 soldiers. But they made up in fury and grit for what they lacked in numbers. Their commander, Brigadier General E.B. Tyler, had placed six of his sixteen guns in a lofty charcoal clearing on his left. While the blue infantry held in front, these guns delivered a rapid and accurate fire, enfilading the stalled ranks of the attackers. Winder sent two regiments to flank and charge the battery, but they were met by volleys of grape and flung back with heavy losses. All this time the Stonewall Brigade was being decimated, its ranks plowed by shells from the guns in the coaling.”
Note: Ephraim is right there with Tyler:
“Jackson was dismayed, seeing his hopes dissolve in the boil and swirl of gunsmoke. Frémont by now must have attacked in response to the uproar, and Ewell was nowhere in sight. It seemed likely that McDowell might be coming up with the rest of his 20,000 troops: in which case there was nothing to do but concentrate everything against him for a decisive battle right here, or else retreat and put a sorry ending to the month-long Valley campaign. Stonewall chose the former course, sending couriers to hasten Ewell’s march and inform the holding force at Cross Keys to fall back through Port Republic, burning the North River bridge behind them so that Frémont, at least, would be kept out of the action. Meanwhile, Winder must hang on. His men were wavering, almost out of ammunition, but he held them there, perhaps remembering what had happened to his predecessor after falling back from a similar predicament.
Presently the unaccustomed frown of fortune changed suddenly to a smile. Taylor appeared, riding at the head of his Louisianians; he marched toward the sound of firing. Jackson greeted him with suppressed emotion, saying calmly: “Delightful excitement.” Taylor looked at the hard-pressed front, then off to the right, where smoke was boiling up from the hilltop clearing. If those guns were not silenced soon, he said, the army “might have an indigestion of such fun.” Stonewall agreed, and gave him the job.
Winder’s troops advanced, the skirmishers recoiling before them, and took up a new position behind a snake-rail fence. Here they were even worse exposed to the shells that tore along their line. Wavering, they began to leak men to the rear. A gap appeared. Rapidly it widened. Soon the brigade was in full retreat– past Winder, past Jackson, past whatever tried to stand in their way or slow them down. It was a rout worse than Kernstown.
But fortune’s smile was ready. The men of Ewell’s brigade, arriving on the left soon after Taylor’s men filed off to the right, replaced Winder’s and blocked a Federal advance. As they did so, a terrific clatter erupted at the far end of the line. It was Taylor; he had come up through a tangle of laurel and rhododendron. Three charges he made against double-shotted guns, and the third charge to them, though the cannoneers fought hard to the last, swinging rammer-staffs against bayoneted rifles. Then, as the Union commander attempted a left wheel, intending to bring his whole force against Taylor, Ewell’s third brigade arrived in time to go forward with the second. Outnumbered three to one, fighting now with both flanks in the air and their strongest battery turned against them, the Federals fell back, firing erratically as they went. For the Confederates it was as if all the pieces of a gigantic jigsaw puzzle had fallen suddenly into place of their own accord. Eyes aglow, Stonewall touched Ewell’s arm and pointed: “He who does not see the hand of God in this is blind, sir. Blind!”
It was now 11 o’clock; a good eight hours of daylight remained for pursuit. Pursue was easier said than done, however. Tyler’s men withdrew in good order, covering the retreat with their ten remaining guns. Jackson had to content himself with gleaning 800 muskets from the field while the cavalry pressed the retreating column, picking up prisoners as they went. Soon the ambulances were at work. When all the wounded Confederates had been gathered, the aid men gave their attention to the Federals. However, this show of mercy was interrupted by Frémont. Free at last to maneuver, he put his guns in position on the heights across the river and, now that the battle was over, began to shell the field. Jackson, much incensed, ordered the ambulances back. Federal casualties for the day were 1,018, most of them inflicted during the retreat, including 558 prisoners; Stonewall’s were in excess of 800, the heaviest he had suffered.
The battle was over, and with it the campaign. Jackson put his army in motion for Brown’s Gap before sundown, following the prisoners and the train, which had been sent ahead that morning. By daylight he was astride the gap, high up the Blue Ridge, well protected against attack from either direction and within a day’s march of the railroad leading down to Richmond, which the past month’s fighting in the Valley had done so much to save. He intended to observe Shield and Frémont from here, but that turned out to be impossible: Lincoln ordered them withdrawn that same day. Frémont was glad to go– he had “expended [his troops’] last effort in reaching Port Republic,” he reported– but not Shields, who said flatly: “I never obeyed an order with such reluctance.” Jackson came down off the mountain, sent his cavalry ahead to pick up 200 sick and 200 rifles Frémont abandoned at Harrisonburg, and recrossed South River, making camp between that stream and Middle River. There was time now for rest, as well as for looking back on what had been accomplished.
“God has been our shield, and to His name be all the glory,” he wrote his wife. Not that he has not cooperated. To one of his officers he confided that there were two rules to be applied in securing the fruits which the Lord’s favor made available: “Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible. And when you strike and overcome him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow; for an army routed, if hotly pursued, becomes panic-stricken, and can then be destroyed by half their number. The other rule is, never fight against heavy odds if by any possible maneuvering you can hurl your own force on only a part, and that the weakest part, of your enemy and crush it. Such tactics will win every time, and a small army may thus destroy a large one in detail, and repeated victory will make it invincible.
Application of these strategic principles, plus of course the blessing of– particularly in the form of such meteorological phenomena as cloudbursts and hailstones large as hen-eggs– had enabled Stonewall, with 17,000 troops, to frustrate the plans of 60,000 Federals whose generals were assigned the exclusive task of accomplishing his destruction. Four pitched battles he had fought, six formal skirmishes, and any number of minor actions. All had been victories, and in all but one of the battles he had outnumbered the enemy in the field, anywhere from two- to seventeen-to-one. The exception was Cross Keys, where his opponent showed so little fight that there was afterwards debate as to whether it should be called a battle or a skirmish. Mostly this had been done by rapid marching. Since March 22, the eve of Kernstown, his troops had covered 646 miles of road in forty-eight marching days. The rewards had been enormous: 3,500 prisoners, 10,000 badly needed muskets, nine rifled guns, and quartermaster stores of incalculable value. All these were things he could hold and look at, so to speak. An even larger reward was the knowledge that he had played on the hopes and fears of Lincoln with such effect that 38,000 men– doubtless a first relay, soon to have been followed by others– were kept from joining McClellan in front of Richmond. Instead, the greater part of them were shunted out to the Valley, where, fulfilling their commander’s prediction, they “gained nothing” and “lost much.”
Beyond these tangibles and intangibles lay a further gain, difficult to assess, which in time might prove to be the most valuable of all. This was the campaign’s effect on morale, North and South. Federals and Confederates were about equally fagged when the fighting was over, but there was more to the story than that. There was such a thing as a tradition of victory. There was also such a thing as a tradition of defeat. One provoked an inner elation, espirit de corps, the other an inner weariness. Banks, Frémont, and Shields had all three had their commands broken up in varying degrees, and the effect in some cases was long-lasting. The troops Stonewall had defeated at McDowell were known thereafter, by friend and foe, as “Milroy’s weary boys,” and he had planted in the breasts of Blenker’s Germans the seeds of a later disaster. Conversely, “repeated victory” – as Jackson phrased it– had begun to give his own men the feeling of invincibility. Coming as it did, after a long period of discouragement and retreat, it gave a fierceness to their pride in themselves and in their general. He marched their legs off, drove them to and past exhaustion, and showed nothing but contempt for the man who staggered. When they reached the field of battle, spitting cotton and stumbling with fatigue, he flung them into the uproar without pausing to count his losses until he had used up every chance for gain. When it was over and they had won, he gave the credit to God. All they got in return for their sweat and blood was victory. It was enough. Their affection for him, based mainly on amusement at his milder eccentricities, ripened quickly into something that very closely resembled love. Wherever he rode now he was cheered. “Let’s make him take his hat off,” they would say when they saw him coming. Hungry as they often were, dependent on whatever game they could catch to supplement their rations, they always had the time and energy to cheer him. Hearing a hullabaloo on the far side of camp, they laughed and said to one another: “It’s Old Jack, or a rabbit.’”
Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson S.C. Gwynne P. 323-325
Note: Gwynne calls Tyler a formidable opponent, & Carroll daring. Both were Ephraim’s leaders. Starts out writing of Jackson:
“But he was so fatigued and impatient that instead of waiting for his five full brigades– some eight thousand men in total– he marched boldly up the small river valley with only four of the Stonewall Brigade’s five regiments (the Stonewall) and two batteries under the command of Charles S. Winder. Facing him were two Federal brigades under Brigadier General Erastus B. Tyler, a wealthy Ohio fur merchant and one of the tougher Union fighters in the valley, and Colonel Samuel Carroll, who had made the daring raid that almost netted Jackson. Shields, who should have been with them, was stuck in Luray, forty miles north, preparing to fight yet another ghostly apparition of General James Longstreet. Though he repeatedly assured Tyler and Carroll that “I will be with you soon,” he would never show up.
While the battle raged and the Confederate line shuddered along its length, Jackson, who now understood that just about everything was going wrong, made two critical moves. He sent orders to Isaac Trimble to abandon Cross Keys as quickly as possible, cross the North River bridge, burn it down, and join the rest of the army east of Port Republic. Frémont, stuck on the other side of the river, would be unable to follow. Jackson, his light eyes blazing with the glow of battle– the men were beginning to call him “Old Blue Light” – also grabbed his mapmaker, Jed Hotchkiss, and ordered him to gather the rest of Taylor’s 1,700 Louisianans, who had just appeared on the field, and, in his words, “take that battery.” By that he meant those Federal guns on the Coaling that were tearing his men apart.
Thus began the final drama of Stonewall Jackson’s valley campaign.
The fighting soon centered on those Federal batteries and their cannons, limbers, caissons, horses, artillerists, and supporting infantry. Much of the combat was brutally personal, bayonet against bayonet, clubbed musket against clubbed musket, men killing men and being covered in the blood of their enemies. Artillerymen swung their rammers– normally used to load cannons– in the absence of anything better. Horses were bayoneted and shot to keep the Union from removing its guns, and their screams joined those of the men. “It was a sickening sight,” recalled one of the Louisianans, “men in gray and blue piled up in front of and around the guns and with the horses dying and the blood of men and beasts flowing almost in a stream.” Said Taylor, “I have never seen so many dead and wounded in the same limited space.” Three times the Federal batteries were seized and then lost, and soon the entire focus of the battle had shifted from the wheatfield to the Coaling. The great Federal counterstroke against Winder stalled.
At about 10:00 a.m., with a final mighty surge, Taylor, reinforced now by two regiments under Ewell, finally took the last gun, while Winder, on the plain below him, with pieces of various regiments, swept forward. The Union line staggered, then broke, and the bluecoats turned and headed hastily back up the road they had come in on. Jackson took a moment to pray, with his head bowed and his right hand in the air, as was his custom. And then he unleashed his artillery– deadly, bone-and-sinew-shredding canister from the equivalent of giant shotguns– on the receding blue column. A four-mile chase netted 450 prisoners, 800 muskets, and a field gun. But the land soon became thickly wooded for further pursuit. The battle was over.
Somehow it was perfectly in keeping with Frémont’s character that he should arrive, bayonets bristling, on the ground across the South Fork of the Shenandoah, where he could only watch helplessly as the Confederates marched their prisoners to the rear. It had escaped his notice, some hours before, that an entire Confederate division had left his front. At about ten o’clock he finally got up the courage to form his army in battle line and move forward, only to find that there was not a single enemy picket in sight. All he found was a church full of dead and dying men, with the now familiar pile of stacked arms and legs outside. Undaunted, Frémont marched crisply to the North River, where he discovered that the bridge had been burned. In the absence of any other obvious course of action, he mustered his impressive force on the riverbank opposite the battlefield. “In the afternoon he had advanced into the open ground near the river,” recalled Confederate chaplain J. William Jones, “and as I gazed on his long line of battle, his bright muskets gleaming in the rays of the sun, his battle flags rippling in the breeze, I thought it was the finest military display I had ever seen.”
P. 326
It was also entirely pointless. Frémont decided to open fire with his artillery anyway, which sent Jackson into a fury because many of the shells fell among the casualties. Frémont, he wrote later, “opened his artillery upon our ambulances and parties engaged in the humane labors of attending to our dead and wounded of the enemy.” Jackson wrote a personal note to Union major general Irvin McDowell to complain about it. In the battle he had suffered 800 casualties to Tyler’s 1,018– disproportionately high considering he had outnumbered his opponent. Even his staunchest supporters on his staff thought his tactics that day were too impetuous.
In any case, the Battle of Port Republic was over, and he had won it decisively. Usually, in the oddball logic of Stonewall Jackson’s valley campaign, victory meant that some form of hunt and chase would begin anew. Not this time. On June 8, ironically just as Ewell was being attacked by Frémont at Cross Keys, Lincoln and Stanton had finally decided that they has had enough of this rogue rebel general marching and countermarching in the valley and twisting their war policies into knots. Lincoln had concluded, possibly correctly, that with Jackson’s skills and daring he could probably distract Union authorities indefinitely from the real business at hand: the assault on Richmond, the end of the war. “It is the object of the enemy to create alarms every where else and thereby divert as much as our force from that point as possible,” wrote Lincoln to Stanton. “On the contrary, we should stand on the defensive every where else, and direct as much force as possible to Richmond.” And so that day new orders went out recalling both Frémont and Shields, though they were not received until the next day. Shields was to join McClellan as soon as possible. Frémont was to withdraw to Harrisonburg and assume a defensive position. He was so scared that Jackson might pursue him that he went an additional twenty-five miles, to Mount Jackson. He did not have much of a future. Less than a month later, when he was placed under the command of a former subordinate– John Pope– Frémont angrily resigned. Shields, who continued to try to blame his defeat at Port Republic on Samuel Carroll– to the increasing disgust of Shields’s peers– was put on the shelf and quickly disappeared from public view.
P. 327
Jackson, meanwhile, was master of all he surveyed. Two Union forces were withdrawing from his front. There was a certain beautiful symmetry to it. The campaign, which started with a single enemy army pursuing Jackson southward through the valley, would end with two beaten Union armies withdrawing from him in a northerly direction. A week later, Jackson, in one of his most famous utterances, advised his mapmaker, Hotchkiss, to “never take counsel of your fears…’”
Note: The 7th Indiana is fighting alongside the 110th today; Union Sgt. John Hadley, 7th Indiana said, “They poured a volley into our ranks when we without delay returned the compliment…Here was the place to try mens [souls].”
Note: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/data/batches/dlc_franklin_ver01/data/sn82016187/00211102949/1889062701/0004.pdf
Diary of James E. Beard, of Augusta County Virginia.
Note: Beard joined the 5th VA. Infantry in August, 1861. Hit in his leg at Second Manassas, “taking out some pieces of bone,” but he survives the war to go back to farming, & dies in Augusta County in 1906. He is 37 writing here. See: The Valley of the Shadow Project by Edward Ayers at valley.lib.virginia.edu/papers/AD1008.
Note: Having noted yesterday’s Cross Keys fight continued until dark, James writes June 9th, in the morning, that “we left camp at dawn and marched down the river, crossed South River at Port Republic and went down the same about 2 miles where we encountered the enemy and commenced an attack which was very severe. It lasted about 2 hours, our regiment fought on the river bank against great odds, we had to give back at one time but reinforcements coming up we recovered. [illeg.] then we lost John Brubeck, and James Berry were killed dead on the ground, some 12 wounded, more or less severely. We succeded in getting our dead and wounded off of the field, we took some 300 prisoners, our Regiment lost some 72 in killed and wounded and missing.”
His next entry reads:
“[June 10 to June 12]
We fell back to the top of mountain at Brown’s Gap, and are still there on the morning of 11th (June 1862). It rained all day yesterday, we stayed all day on the mountain and left soon on the morning of the 12th (June 1862) and came to about 4 miles above Port Republic and camped for the night.”
Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command Volume 1 Douglas Southall Freeman Scribner, 1942 P. 461-462
“A close action this Battle of Port Republic had been, and a costly! The Federals, it developed, comprised two small Brigades that numbered no more than 3000 men, and sixteen guns. The infantry, under Brig. Gen. E.B. Tyler and Col. S.S. Carroll, acting Brigadier, were from Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Indiana, and they had fought admirably. Those fine guns on the coaling had been three of Clark’s regulars, 4th U.S. Artillery, three of Huntington’s and one of Robinson’s Ohio Batteries. The combined force of eight infantry regiments, three batteries and 150 cavalry had been hurried forward by General Shields in an attempt to reach Waynesboro, where he thought there were a depot and a bridge, the destruction of which would be fatal to Jackson. It had been the advanced units of this column, led by Colonel Carroll, that had entered Port Republic on the 8th. Upon his retirement, Carroll had reached the van of General Tyler, who had pushed forward to his support. Tyler, perhaps injudiciously, had decided to remain in his advanced position overnight. Early in the morning on the 9th, he had received orders from Shields to return to Conrad’s Store, but before he could do so, Jackson had been upon him. In the battle itself, Tyler’s killed and wounded were few. On his retreat he had lost about 20 percent of his force as prisoners. His total casualties were 1018. The remnant that made its way back to Luray was in sad plight. Jackson, for his part, had suffered in excess of 800 casualties, which were more than he had sustained in any other action of the campaign.”
How the South Could Have Won the Civil War: The Fatal Errors That Led to Confederate Defeat Bevin Alexander P. 74
“The next day, Shields withdrew to Luray, while Frémont, followed by Confederate cavalry, retreated hastily to Harrisonburg and, ultimately, all the way to Middletown, ten miles south of Winchester. Shields blamed his departure on supposed orders to march with Irvin McDowell’s corps to Richmond. But McDowell was going nowhere and had authorized Shields to remain if he had a reasonable chance of defeating Jackson.
In this strange and anticlimatic way the Shenandoah Valley campaign came to an end. His army now alone and umolested, Jackson brought down his men from the Blue Ridge on June 12, pitched camp just below Port Republic, and gave them a much-needed five-day rest.”
Make Me a Map of the Valley: The Civil War Journal of Stonewall Jackson’s Topographer Jedediah Hotchkiss P. 55
“Monday, June 9th. Our troops were all brought over North River before day, only a few cavalry were left ready to check any advance of the enemy. As soon as all our troops had passed over we burned the bridge over North River and having made a foot bridge of wagons across South River, our troops crossed that and marched down towards Lewiston, to fight Shields’ advance.
We routed them completely; took at one point a battery of 5 guns; we drove, or rather pursed the enemy, with our cavalry, some 12 miles, capturing some 300 prisoners. The day was fine until late in the afternoon when we had a tremendous rain. Frémont drew up his army in line of battle on the north side of the Shenandoah, after we had whipped Shields, and opened his artillery on the ambulances that were gathering the wounded of both armies and on the burial parties.”
We Are In For It! The First Battle of Kernstown Gary L. Ecelbarger P. 232
“Nearly one-third of Jackson’s May and June losses fell at Port Republic. Adding these to his Kernstown casualties, the Southerners realized that nearly half of Jackson’s total campaign losses– over 1,500 men– were caused by Shields’s men. Inevitably, some of Jackson’s people offered comparisons of the fighting quality of Shields’s troops to that of other Federal armies in the Valley. Henry Kyd Douglas of Jackson’s staff considered Shields’s men of like mettle to Jackson’s people, and criticized Stonewall for believing that he could defeat Tyler’s two brigades at Port Republic as easily as he handled General Frémont’s men at Cross Keys the day before. After watching an Ohio regiment change front to rear on first company while under a heavy fire early in the battle, Douglas realized that Jackson underrated his opposition by impetuously battling “an army of such troops” as Shields’s men.”
For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War James M. McPherson P. ix
Note: It bears worth repeating:
“The best way to tell who fought is to look at casualty figures. The fighting regiments were those with the highest casualties; the fighting soldiers were those most likely to get killed.”
Note: Stahel’s brigade loses 300 men in less than 1 minute. General Trimble did a surprise attack on Victory Hill during Cross Keys, a “massacre” that “shocked Frémont” & contributed to his lack of success on the field (supposedly). The two official records of the incident are the following:
General Jackson writes in his report:
“While the forces of Shields were in full retreat, and our troops in pursuit, Frémont appeared on the opposite bank of the south fork of the Shenandoah with his army, and opened his artillery upon our ambulances and parties engaged in the humane labors of attending to our dead and wounded, and the dead and wounded of the enemy.”
General Frémont writes in his report to Edwin Stanton (& published in the NYT June 11, 1862) with the dramatic headline: A Battle in the Shenandoah Valley.; Jackson Overtaken by General Frémont and Compelled to Fight. A DESPERATE STRUGGLE Jackson Driven from his Chosen Position with Heavy Loss. MOVEMENTS BEFORE THE BATTLE. Severe Losses of the Enemy in the Skirmishes Near Harrisonburgh. DEATH OF THE FAMOUS GEN. ASHBY. OFFICIAL REPORT OF GEN. FRÉMONT. To E.M. Stanton, Secretary War: https://www.nytimes.com/1862/06/11/archives/a-battle-in-the-shenandoah-valley-jackson-overtaken-by-general.html
“HEADQUARTERS ARMY IN THE FIELD,
CAMP NEAR PONT REPUBLIC, June 8-9 A.M.
(No. 40.) — The army left Harrisonburgh at 6 this earning, and at 8 1/2 my advance engaged the rebels about seven miles from that place, near Union Church. The enemy was very advantageously posted in the timber, having chosen his own position, forming a smaller circle than our own, and with his troops formed en masse. It consisted undoubtedly of Jackson’s entire force.
The battle began with heavy firing at 11 o’clock, and lasted with great obstinacy and violence until 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Some skirmishing and artillery firing continuing from that time until dark.
Our troops fought occasionally under the murderous fire of greatly superior numbers; the hottest of the small-arm fire being on the left wing, which was held by STAHL’s Brigade, consisting of five regiments.
The bayonet and canister shot were used freely and with great effect by our men.
The loss on both sides is very great; ours is very heavy among the officers.
A full report of those who distinguished themselves will be made without partiality.
I desire to say that both officers and men behaved with splendid gallantry, and that the service of the artillery was especially admirable.
We are encamped on the field of battle, which may be renewed at any moment.
(Signed) J.C. FRÉMONT., Maj.-Gen.”
Note: There’s no business like show business, let’s carry on with the show….
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War Volume 2: The Struggle Intensifies “Century Magazine” P. 296
“Editor’s note: It is hardly necessary to state that intentional shelling of an ambulance and relief parties is denied by Union officers.”
Note: The same as maps were not standardized, neither were either side’s uniforms, so various State militias would shoot at their own troops, thinking their garb indicated an enemy. Even Hotchkiss gets arrested May 21 due to his blue clothes.
Frémont writes in his report of his action at Port Republic:
“Parties (Confederate) gathering the dead and wounded, together with a line of prisoners, awaiting the movements of the rebel force near by, was all, in respect to troops on either side, now to be seen. A parting salvo of carefully aimed rifle-guns, duly charged with shell, hastened the departure of the rebels with the unlucky though most gallant convoy, and the whole were speedily out of sight.”
The Civil War A Narrative Fort Sumter to Perryville Shelby Foote P. 461
“The North had lost 684 men, nearly half of them lying dead of their wounds in the grainfields; the South had lost 288, only 41 of them killed. Jackson’s trust in Old Bald Head was confirmed. Except for a quick ride out, to see how things were going, he had let Ewell fight his own battle while he himself remained on the heights above Port Republic. Asked if he did not think there was some danger that Shields would advance to help Frémont, whose guns were within earshot, Stonewall gestured toward his batteries and said grimly: “No, sir; no; he cannot do it! I should tear him to pieces.” As he stood there, listening to the sound of Ewell’s battle, intoxicated as if by music, he remarked to his ministerial chief of staff: “Major, wouldn’t it be a blessed thing if God would give us a glorious victory today?” One who overheard him said that as he spoke he wore the expression “of a child hoping to receive some favor.”
But, childlike, having received it, he was by no means satisfied. He wanted more. That night he issued orders for Ewell to leave a reinforced brigade in front of Frémont and march the rest of his division through Port Republic to join the other wing for a combined assault on the Union troops beyond the river. Once Shields was properly broken up, they could both return and fall on Frémont, completing the destruction Ewell had begun today.”
“THE SHENANDOAH BATTLES.; The Battle of Cross Keys, between Frémont and Jackson. Full Particulars from Our Special Correspondent. The Enemy Posted Entirely Under Cover. The Field won by the Superior Fighting of Our Troops. The Battle of Port Republic, between Shields and Jackson. THE HOTTEST FIGHT OF THE WAR. PARTIAL LIST OF CASUALTIES. https://www.nytimes.com/1862/06/16/archives/the-battle-of-port-republic.html
June 16, 1862, Page 1 The New York Times Archives
BATTLE-GROUND OF THE CROSS KEYS, Monday Morning, June 9, 1862.
The glorious sun is looking over the hill-tops, and the smouldering ashes of our camp-fires grow gray in the early light, but the soldiers that slumber around me with their faces turned sky ward, know not that the night has passed and day dawned. Nor will they wake to the reveille, though bugle and drum play it ever so loudly. Poor pate faces, these, looking upward but seeing no sky, their lips parted as though to reproach the fate that stretched them here, but uttering no complaint. But yesterday and these men were busy with all the little problems that agitate the camp and the world, what should they eat, where should they sleep, were they well used, did their comrades encroach noon their individual rights and privileges. What care they now, whether rations are short or long, whether the supply train comes up in season or lags Behind, until the year has run its round? Their bitterest enemy, from whom yesterday they would not have borne a look, may now pluck them by the beard and no hand will be raised to resent the insult. They are wiser than they were a few hours ago; vaster problems occupy them, for they are now solving the mighty secrets that only the dead can know. The petty marches of a day will vex them no more, for they have gone on that long, eternal march whose end is never reached, and where the soldier carries neither canteen nor knapsack, musket nor blanket, — in this case, not even a winding-sheet.
I am writing on the ground where so many of the Eighth New-York met their doom. Seldom is a wheat field as terribly sown. The poor fellows lie around me in all postures and positions, some on the very spot where they fell, others propped up against the fences where they crawled to die. I think the horrors of the battle-field have been very much exaggerated. The features of these men, save where they have perished from strangulation or received wounds in the face, are as calm and placid as though they had died peacefully in bed. Many of them lie on their backs with their arms stretched wearily, carelessly out, in the attitude of men who have thrown themselves on the ground to rest and suddenly sunk into slumber. I noticed one man in this attitude very particularly. It was impossible to believe him dead, even when he failed to reply to repeated calls, until I endeavored to raise his head in a more comfortable position, and the rigidity of the body told that life was not there. The groans of the wounded, that form one of the great staple horrors, are mainly a fiction. Where the pain is very acute a low moaning is heard, but in the most cases they lie mutely wrapped up in their own thoughts, silent in despair. Their only request is water — this given them, and they sink back to silence or to death. I apprehend that from a bullet wound life must ebb unconsciously away, the sufferer not knowing that it is going. Hope is so strongly developed within us that I question whether any one ever really believed himself mortally wounded. To a strong man thus suddenly struck down, it seems impossible he should die, and his spirit floats away into space while he is thinking of the glory that will redound to him from his scars. Many of our wounded have lain upon the field all night, and it is questionable whether ambulances will come to their relief much before the middle of the day. I am glad to learn from their lips that they have been kindly treated by the Southern soldiers. Two Germans have just told me how the latter came during the night, covered them over with blankets, brought them water, and in some cases washed their wounds. What I have here witnessed, entirely dispels any faint faith I ever had in what is commonly termed “rebel barbarity.” When the news came of ASHBY’s death, one of our officers cried like a child — he was wounded on some field, and ASHBY, he said, came and sat by him all the night through, taking as tender care of him as though he were a brother. I am especially pleased to have learned the truth in this case from the lips of the wounded soldiers themselves, for one of the scouts came into camp a while ago saying that he had been over the field, and the wounded told him the rebels came down and teased them all night long, taking away their canteens and rifting their pockets. These stories arc rife on both sides; manufactured by knaves, they are told to [???] with the intention of engendering a mutual hate. Of nearly every prisoner taken within the past week the question has been asked: How about that courier of ours you blew away from the mouth of a cannon, Yesterday a Louisiana Tiger replied to his interlocutor: Why, you Northern men are as big fools as the Virginians we tell such stories as these about you to them, but didn’t expect to find you believing them!
I have been pretty much over the whole battle-ground of yesterday, and find my hastily-formed conclusions in only correct. The enemy in no case advanced to meet us, but lay in ambush in the wood and behind fences, pouring volleys into our advancing columns. In choosing his position, JACKSON showed a sylvan science that should entitle him to wear an [???] leaf for an [???], as General of the Woods. Every one knows what a horror men have of encountering an unknown force — of venturing into dark, [???] paths, where it is known that a [???] lurks, but nothing of his numbers or strength. I fancy that a [???] well posted in any respectable who is could [???] a [???] at bav — unless the brigade knew that only a regiment was there.
Yesterday I [???] our men as they entered a belt of forest. The enemy were shelling the woods from an opposite elevation, and huge bolts came crashing through the tree tops, scattering boughs and leaves in all directions, but of this open, known danger they seemed little afraid, breasting onward with resolute steps, but starting with nervous, convulsive fear if a leaf rustled or a twig cracked behind them. This is undoubtedly the reason that flank movements are so much dreaded. I apprehend that a hundred muskets suddenly opening fire in the rear of a regiment could scatter it in panic and confusion.
I should like to make a few remarks on the affair of yesterday, but it is so excessively mean to sit down and criticise a game after it has been played that I refrain. Certainly had we known that a force was posted here, and a platoon disposed there; that this edge of the woods was lined with rebels, and that lower down our path through the forest was unobstructed, we could have done better. But what use to tell over like beads hours that have fled.
In a former letter I gave you an order of battle. Gen. STAHEL, who, with his brigade, had the left, asked permission to advance. It was given him. He advanced, driving the enemy’s through a thin belt of woods and over an open wheat-field into quite a thick woods. It was while crossing this wheat-field in pursuit that his own Eighth New-York Regiment suffered such loss. The enemy, ambushed in the wheat on the edge of the field, behind the fence and in the woods, suddenly revealed themselves by a terrible fire that cut down nearly the whole of the two companies in advance. In accordance with their usual tactics they then gave way, and STAHEL drove them back at the point of the bayonet until he found his brigade with its batteries nearly surrounded. They pressed around the guns, but the pelting storms of grape and canister, with the rifles of my brave “Bucktails,” who were detailed to the support of the batteries, held them at bay. STAHEL’s command then fell back, at first in some confusion, but finally in good order, and took position on the open ground, expecting the enemy to follow, out they preferred the woods and made no pursuit.
MILROY, in the meanwhile, who had the centre, pressed steadily forward from the ground where he first took position, planting his guns each time nearer and nearer the enemy’s batteries. His artillery delivered its fire with a precision truly remarkable. I went over the ground where the enemy’s guns were planted, and it was furrowed with our shot and shell as with a plow, and where one battery stood I counted twelve dead horses. MILROY’s infantry deployed through the woods, taking advantage of a deep gully to cross a wheat field, where they were exposed, and charged gallantly up the hill where one of the opposing batteries was planted, cutting down the gunners with their fire. Had they been supported I think they would have captured a battery. They made the crest of the hill too hot to hold on the part of the enemy and held their position until recalled.
SCHENCE was disposed on the right, to support MILROY and Col. CLUSIRET — the latter had the extreme right and the advance. But our right wing, with the exception of CLUSIRET’s little Brigade, did not get into action, nor did STEINWAY, who had command of the reserve. JACKSON’s reserve was kept shifting from wing to wing during the engagement, as occasion demanded.
By 4 o’clock our whole forces were again in position, and had the enemy only chosen to attack, I imagine his rout would have been complete. But it seems only to have been his intention to hold us in check until his baggage train could cross the river, for he commenced crossing it while the engagement was still progressing. In the morning he had driven back SHIELDS’ advance from an attempt to burn the bridge; in the afternoon he came to the support of EWELL in the affair with us. Of course no accurate knowledge of the force opposed to us can be attained, but it greatly exceeded ours. JACKSON’s army proper numbers from 20,000 to 25,000 men. But they are greatly demoralized and poorly armed. In the action he had two brigades each on his right, centre and left, with a brigade in reserve that he kept in constant motion along his line. But his brigades are small. Each regiment was drafted up to 750 men, but desertions and straggling have so reduced them that they will probably average scarcely 500 each. Many of these are boys; of course in drafting all manner of material is taken, and drafted men never fight so well as those who go to battle voluntarily. With all his preponderance of numbers he was actually afraid to give us a fight. Our men were footsore and worn down by much marching, little sleep and few rations. But I really believe we came very near whipping hid whole force. Could STAHL have been supported — the fearful belt of fire to which he was at first exposed had been crossed and we were then fighting on equal footing in the woods — I think we would have driven his right back on the river. And MILROY’s gallant little brigade, if bolstered with an additional regiment or two, would have broken his centre and taken at least one battery.
But no one imagined he was going to retreat in the fashion he did, and it offered more chances of success to induce him to attack us than to go blundering through the woods blindly. Had we brought our whole reserve into action, and been defeated, the consequences would have been disastrous in the extreme. We were in an enemy’s country, exposed to attack from every quarter, our supply train could be cut off at any moment, and, among these woods and mountains, our little army, if dispersed, would have been captured, man by man.
As the a Hair went, it may be summed up thus: The enemy had every advantage of position, numbers, knowledge of the country, and of compelling us to become the attacking party. Our superiority in artillery was the only thing that went to place us on anything approaching equal terms, if not a victory on our part, it at least was not a defeat. The correspondents of some papers claim it as a victory, and telegraphed that we occupied the battle-ground. These gentlemen, whose feelings and sympathies so influence them that they cannot record faithfully, will have a long account to settle with history some day. It is not the common practice of victors to leave their dead and wounded on the field unattended to over night, and this we did. So far as occupation of the field of battle goes, we camped on the ground where we first formed in line. Certainly we drove the enemy’s pickets and skirmishers over It at first, but no attempt was made on the other side to support them. Where the fighting occurs, and the dead and wounded are strewn, the “battle-field” is and this was in the enemy’s possession all night. They had our dead and wounded in their hands, and can estimate our loss accurately, if disposed; we can only guess at theirs. We held our own so well in the affair that many of us incline to think that, had we pushed it more on the agressive, we should have won a complete victory. But the policy adopted by Gen. FRÉMONT was the wisest and the best; disaster was guarded against, and only an indisposition on the part of the enemy to continue the battle brought it to an end, without any actual result being obtained. Had he rushed in and hurled his little command like a [???] into the middle of the army opposed, to have it burned up and captured bodily, the old Missouri howl would have been revived to [???] through the mountains with a forty Blair-family power. Some day the public will learn how small the force actually is with which we have been chasing JACKSON down this valley, and then it will [???] wonder that he did not turn and tend us.
Our loss in the fight was heavy, very heavy, considering the numbers engaged and the time the fight lasted. 1 have sent you by telegraph as complete a list of the casualties as could be obtained on the field. I think you will find it to foot up between five and six hundred, Our Generals incline to estimate the enemy’s loss as much greater, and stories are told of three or four hundred of their dead being Counted in one pile. Chasing these stories up, I can only find the man who have told by another man that some one else told him, that at some certain spot in an uncertain field, that number of dead was guessed [???] their loss was as great as ours, we have no reason to complain. They were posted in woods, we [???] the open field, and they outnumbered us [???] not truth and common sense satisfy the popular craving, or is it always necessary to pander to the appetite that remands a victory in all cases, an assurance that the enemy lost at least one more man than we?
One thing is certain, JACKSON is equally eminent as a strategist and tactician. He handles his army like a whip, making it crack in out of the way corners Where you scarcely thought the lash would reach. This retreat of his, if retreat it can be called, has been conducted with marvelous skill. He has not much mercy on his men, but he gets extraordinary marches out of them on very short commons, I hope it will not be thought unchristian if I express a wish that he were well out of the way. ASHBY was a brave man and, according to report, a kindly-hearted one, but I think his removal to another sphere of action has shortened the war somewhat and saved an indefinite ratio of lives. Jersey mothers who have sons in the cavalry service can new sleep easier. Again, I repeat, I do not with to be unchristian, but so free am I from all sentimentality on the subject that, if it would but bring the war to a speedy close, I should have no particular objection to seeing President JEFFERSON DAVIS himself transferred to another and a — hotter world.
PORT REPUBLIC, Tuesday, Jane 10, 1862.
Yesterday morning we again marched in JACKSON’s wake, reaching the banks of the South Fork of the Shenandoah at this place a little before noon. The bridge had been fired some 2 1/2 hours previously, and we found only its charred and smoking remains. A long wagon train was visible in the distance, at which we threw a number of shells, but only to the depletion of our ammunition boxes. Quite a large force lay over in the valley, within easy range, which was at first set down as SHIELDS’. But it seemed singular to me that JACKSON should have placed his train thus in the rear, and near an enemy, without any guard, nor could I exactly see why SHIELDS should be so tardy in communicating with us. It now turns out that it is a portion of JACKSON’s army that confronts us. We are laying down a pontoon bridge, and the most intense eagerness is manifested among our boys to be over and at them. I repress my enthusiasm, for it is just dawning on my mind, that however anxious one may be to chase an enemy, it is sometimes a very unfortunate thing to overtake him, especially when, as in the present instance, he chances to be the biggest.
HARRISONBURGH, Wednesday, June 11, 1862.
Orders came from headquarters this morning, at 2 o’clock, to pack up our pontoons and fall back with all possible celerity. I suspect that something is wrong. SHIELDS, according to all stories, was whipped by overwhelming numbers yesterday morning a few miles below Port Republic. A prisoner we have captured, who was in the affair and wounded by a shell, says SHIELDS made a splendid fight, and drove them steadily back until they brought up their whole reserve, and crushed him by superior numbers. He says he has been in about all the Southern fights, but has not before seen anything “so little and yet so d — d hot.” It seems to be well established that JACKSON has been reinforced by LONGSTREET and SMITH. Any way, if SHIELDS, as rumor save, has been ordered hack, we have done the wisest thing possible. The river is fordable below, and we might have found a large inimical force in our rear, and our supplies cut off at any inconvenient moment There has been bad generalship somewhere in permitting JACKSON to escape, but it does not rest with this Department. Three large and well-appointed divisions were brought from Fredericks burgh, expressly to put upon his track. Only a fragment of one has been heard from. Where are the other two FRÉMONT has chased him with untiring energy, and fought him every time he came up with him. That we did not annihilate him is less wonderful than that he did not turn and annihilate us, inasmuch as he had the balance of power. We have marched our men without rations and without tents; we have built bridges where bridges were burnt, and constructed roads where before there were none. The junction which other forces were to have formed with ours has in no case been effected; the expected reinforcements did not come up, but still we maintained pursuit. That we have not retraveled this road earlier, in some confusion, may be explained by the fact that the popular idea has doubled — yes, more than doubled — the actual force under FRÉMONT’s command. I am not disposed to be argumentative, but if after this valley chase of a mountain fox, who, when occasion demands, ekes out the shortness of his skin with the lion’s, any of FRÉMONT’s foes come howling on his track, I shall make a few facts public, even at the risk of incurring a mild reproof from Secretary STANTON. C.H.W.
A version of this archives appears in print on June 16, 1862, on Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: THE SHENANDOAH BATTLES.; The Battle of Cross Keys, between Frémont and Jackson. Full Particulars from Our Special Correspondent. The Enemy Posted Entirely Under Cover. The Field won by the Superior Fighting of Our Troops. The Battle of Port Republic, between Shields and Jackson. THE HOTTEST FIGHT OF THE WAR. PARTIAL LIST OF CASUALTIES.”
Wikipedia, fwiw: “Sometime after noon, Frémont’s army began to deploy on the west bank of the South Fork, too late to aid Tyler’s defeated command, and watched helplessly from across the rain-swollen river. Jackson expected Frémont to cross the river and attack him on the following day, but during the night Frémont withdrew toward Harrisonburg. Jackson now has control of the upper and middle parts of the Shenandoah Valley. Union armies all retreated, so the southern armies were free to reinforce Lee before Richmond in the seven days battles.”
Wikipedia Battle of Port Republic Page:
“The Coaling was the first land acquisition of the modern Civil War battlefield preservation movement. The 8.55-acre site was donated to the Trust’s forerunner, the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites (the founding battlefield preservation organization) by the Lee-Jackson Foundation in 1988.”
nps.gov/abpp/shenandoah/svs3-6
“The Coaling, which was the key to the US defense, is located just northeast of the intersection of US 340 and rte. 708. The Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites (APCWS) owns about 8 acres of the Coaling, acquired from the Lee-Jackson Foundation. An 1880s house sits atop the Coaling where US batteries were deployed. Access to this property is encouraged but unmarked.
The village of Port Republic is listed as a historic district in the National Register. Several historic structures remain in the area, including Lynwood, Bogota, Frank Kemper House in Port Republic, and others. The Dr. Kemper house at the west edge of town, which served as Jackson’s headquarters, is no longer extant. The ruin of Mt. Vernon furnace in the area where Jackson’s army bivoucked after the battle is situated in Shenandoah National Park along rte. 659. A driving tour of Port Republic could be laid out to view the battlefield with stops at the village, at the railroad (rte. 708), and the Coaling. Because of the terrain, Port Republic can be interpreted from public roads. The portion of the Coaling preserved by APCWS allows an expanded interpretation of the battle. The areas of major infantry fighting along the river are in private hands, but the logic of the respective positions can be understood for the most part from public roads.
Perception of Threats to the Battlefield:
The bottomland south of the South Fork in the core area of the battlefield is owned by two or three large landowners. Several years ago the county denied one of the landowners a petition to establish a gravel quarry, partly because of concerns for maintaining battlefield integrity. Continuing integrity of the landscape is dependent upon landowners continuing to farm their properties.
Identified Sites and Features Associated with the Battlefield (unsurveyed*)
Baugher House (site of*)
Bogota
Brown’s Gap Road
Coaling
Deep Run
Dr. Kemper House (site of)
Frank Kemper House-niggersJAckson’s Prayer Tree
John Lewis House (site of)
Lawyer’s Road
Lewis’ Mill (site of)
Lewiston (site of)
Luray Road
Lynwood
Mt. Vernon Furnace (ruin)
New Haven
Pinky’s Ford
Port Republic Battle Monument
Port Republic
South Fork Bridge Site
South River
Wagon Bridge Site
Yost House (site of*)”
The National Park Service lists 9,500 total forces engaged: U.S., 3,500 C.S., 6,000 Estimated casualties: 1,818 total: U.S., 1,002 C.S., 816.
National Park Service:
“Description: Maj. Gen. T.J. Jackson concentrated his forces east of the South Fork of the Shenandoah against the isolated brigades of Tyler and Carroll of Shields’s division, Brig. Gen. Erastus Tyler commanding. Confederate assaults across the bottomland were repulsed with heavy casualties, but a flanking column turned the Union left flank at the Coaling. Union counterattacks failed to reestablish the line, and Tyler was forced to retreat. Confederate forces at Cross Keys marched to join Jackson at Port Republic burning the North River Bridge behind them. Frémont’s army arrived too late to assist Tyler and Carroll and watched helplessly from across the rain-swollen river. After these dual defeats at Cross Keys and Port Republic, the Union armies retreated, leaving Jackson in control of the upper and middle Shenandoah Valley and freeing his army to reinforce Lee before Richmond.
Preservation Priority: 11.2 (Class B) Good or fair integrity, low threats, less than 20% of core area protected. Port Republic shares the same status.”
Note: The Port Republic battle was mainly a Tyler’s Brigade fight against Jackson. Several historians called it the most costly battle in Jackson’s Valley Campaign. Stonewall came on at seven in the morning. The North retreated. The South could have chased, but they were exhausted. Stonewall then went to Brown’s Gap for the next week. I have not found a statistic for 110th casualties at both Cross Keys & Port Republic.
Sidenote: In February, 1986, I joined a group called PROPEACE on a walk across the country (L.A. to the White House, right up Pennsylvania Ave.). We too started out on March first, “The Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament.” A group of several hundred, we averaged 15 miles most days, & without enough food for all of us. In any weather out of the sky, we camped each night where we ended up. This was not a wartime situation, no one was firing at us; nothing can compare to the strenuousness of what Ephraim lived in these months. You freeze worse when you can’t eat enough because it’s not there, the food, to go in your stomach. And when you can’t get hot water on your skin, take a bath or shower, when your toes, fingers, your entire inner being shivers, it must be like sinking into a liminal space between life & death that takes over the mind on top of the fear of facing Confederates or Yankees the next day. And when these men got the little food they did, it was food they didn’t even want to eat most times; imagine not being able to eat what your body needs & craves month after month. It was deep-well hunger, surreal physical pain, sinking mental exhaustion, & my left knee I injured that persists. After a month of this, I dropped out, flew back to San Francisco, & my own brother didn’t recognize me when I stepped off the plane. And by that November, when I flew to D.C. for the arrival, the people I had walked with, well, I barely recognized them. I felt starved continuously for months after I left, catching up on food. Ephraim didn’t even have a cracker as he fought for the soul of the nation. Also, one aspect of the postwar years I haven’t run across in my research: It’s very hard, after living outside, to readjust to existing indoors within walls. You just don’t feel right inside for a long time after. At least I didn’t. Like I was no longer living in the real world. I was in some liminal space that posed for where I was supposed to live the whole time.
Though I will say one of the weirdest experiences of those weeks was– I think by then we had all walked to Barstow– but it was at a Denny’s, a table drinking coffee, a few of us, with a guy who looked a lot like that guy on Baretta, Robert Blake. As the conversation wore on, it slowly dawned on me it was Robert Blake. Before, naturally, Bonny Bakely. He seemed totally normal, pleasant, no red flags whatsoever. We sat & talked quite a while. He walked with us marchers for a while.
Below I took of the marchers down PA. Ave., etc. And me, looking hopeless.
This Hallowed Ground: The Story of the Union Side of the Civil War Bruce Catton P. 126
Note: Quoting a soldier’s recollection of marching through Mississippi: “You load a man down with a sixty-pound knapsack, his gun and forty rounds of ammunition, a haversack full of hardtack and sow belly, and a three-pint canteen full of water, then start him along this narrow roadway with the mercury up to 100 and the dust so thick you could taste it, and you have done the next thing to killing this man outright.”
Note: Today in 1863: 18,456 horsemen at Brandy Station, VA. (south of the Rappahannock River along the O&A rail line), making it the largest one day cavalry battle in U.S. history.
Note: And a year from today Lee starts walking toward Pennsylvania. He first moves west toward the Shenandoah Valley.
Note: Today, according to https://www.shenandoahatwar.org/history/battle-of-cross-keys/ forces engaged: Tyler: 3500 with 1002 casualties. Jackson: 6000 with 816 casualties. Today officially marks the end of Jackson’s Valley Campaign. His army is now leaving the Valley & headed to help Lee defend Richmond. “Living Historians” reenact today, in 2021: https://www.whsv.com/2021/06/26/living-historians-commemorate-battle-port-republic/
The Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation needs funds to preserve 107 acres; please throw them some cash if you can. https://www.nps.gov/places/shenandoah-valley-battlefields-national-historic-district.htm
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men fought desperately like tigers….
That moment they’re waiting for the shell to hit: that was the war itself. A black swan floating by, big wings folded against its back like the sky has black spotted wings, until midsky it squats itself down, ½ way across the sky, as if suddenly remembering it had to be somewhere else.
They had that hovering in the sky & what is all contained in the falling. Like movie cowboys in a deserted carved light, in the thick layers of sand and debris built-up on sets over the centuries they shoot then stop then shoot again toward a sky that if they don’t go outside to hold up will fall. Bit by bit the line shifts until it’s not even there anymore like glue that had failed. Ephraim, he turns back to see the thousands of men moving rearward from the front like something slingshot-out & boomeranged back fast. The smoke was blue. Who could see what?
But maybe there should be some place not able to be completely explained in words. Leave the mystery of the unknowable to a dark country road, the only road that crossed over the mountain from New Market to Luray, the road we now finish with. Maybe it is, in the end, enough for language to present what it can, & the faint drawn maps Ephraim sketched at Cross Keys, the “Fought June 8 & 9 By 3000 USA & 25,000 CS.” How the Confederate soldiers are in a squiggly line box cutting them off from the rest of the page. Final world.
Driving in the wavy heat lines rising up off State Route 253 in the thick of a Virginia summer, at the periphery of the road’s stitched white lines & the metallic bits of gas station touching the horizon line at Port Republic. The curio shop to the left, freak flag flying like a still-live totemic animal rebel without a cause, a KKK hood shaped like an Easter bonnet. Then the KFC to the right. All the hands on steering wheels, aided only by the standard interpretive guides. On every site where soldiers fought there will be a trace of something left. You may have to dig to find it, you may even miss it, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t there, & will continue to be so. We are here, too, the same standing ground, with ceremonial objects now, a ring of humans skulls & keep them around as souvenirs.
This is what we know: a year from today Lee starts ambling toward Pennsylvania, first veering west toward the Shenandoah Valley. It comes down to this: they could have sat in the South like ducks not quacking this whole time. But it’s way too late for that.
Hearings today.
And late tonight Shenandoah County School Board votes 3-3 against restoring names of 2 schools: Stonewall Jackson High School & Ashby-Lee Elementary (though I like the ring of the latter). 42 citizens spoke: 25 in favor of the Confederacy, in favor of the honorable Jackson; 16 for the Union, or, rather, the mountains & the honey. Black graduates of the high school stepped up about the racism they experienced while students.
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