Day 23. March 23, 1862. KERNSTOWN.
23
Ephraim wrote 5 pages 160 years ago today. Page 1 is the post header. Unfortunately, the ink is slight on these pages, so I’m not sure what happened there. The more I handle this diary, the worse off it will get in the long run, so I really don’t like taking it out for selfies. Yes, that’s a piece of cat hair on it. See what I mean? Anyway, this entry is the longest yet. 
For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost….
Note: Ephraim is in Tyler’s small brigade today. Despite stealing one hen (the horror), & being whittled down to 1,800 (terrible odds), Tyler’s men were the only ones able to get Jackson on the run, & in the opposite direction. After the war, some of the men present today will form the “Winchester Club” because they were so proud to have been the only Union force to beat Jackson. They gathered annually on March 23 for “a jolly, good time [of]… hard tack, coffee, stories, and fun.” “Cherished for the remainder of their lives….” Just to emphasize: Kernstown was a Tyler fight; Shields was not present the entire time yet took credit for the action. Shields, his grave went unmarked for 30 years, until locals in Missouri got him some granite up.
Ephraim drew a map on blue-lined paper torn in half, also stuffed in the back pocket of the diary. The paper was not torn out of the diary, but came from another source. The paper is 8 by 5 inches. On one side Ephraim wrote (“1st” is crossed out) “Battle of Winchester VA March 23 1862.” It is folded up twice; inside the folds hills, fields, and woods are drawn. There are jagged squares, lines in a small neat row stacked one atop the other, and small circles, with one tiny circle that has a dot in the middle. Squiggly lines like he tried to draw trees. These are the words he wrote: “Rebble battarys, (illegible: possibly “straw”), and sticks, stone (then illegible right after), woods, rebble battaries, woods, rough field, stone fence, field, woods, woods.”
March Sunday 23
Quite cold this morning and damp and mudy. This morning we found our Regiment 110 PV along with 3 Brigade at Winchester at the north end of town. There all night without tents. We was ordered back to camp as we had no provision along. We got back at 10oclock and got our breakfast and got provision and at 2oclock the 3 Brigade took up the line of march towards Winchester and on out on the Strausburg Pike 4 miles. Our Battaries were fireing on the enemy all morning. We flanked off to the right about one ½ mile from the Pike then marched forward through the woods and at 20 minutes to 5oclock the 29 & 7 Ohio Regt 110th Regt P.V. 7th Indiana 1st Va. opened on the enemy with musketry at a furious rate and kept driving them back. They were behind a stone fence routing them made them retreat and followed them up until dusk when our men came back camped on the battlefield for the night. The doctors was buissy dressing the wounded men. We was running around until 12oclock at night. It was a hard fought battle our men taking several pieces of cannon and it was a hard looking battle field the dead the dying the wounded groaning with their cries yet many a brave man fell and killed and wounded. The number has not been ascertained yet but I think the enemy killed 300 and wounded 150 men. Col Murray of the 84 Regt was killed in the engagement. Capt [illeg. possibly Gallagher] Co E 84 Regt killed 1st Lieut (note: he left a long blank space in the journal) 1st Lieut Linsey of the 14 Indiana Regt wounded 1st of the 14 wounded 1 Capt wounded 1 Lieut wounded of the 14 Indiana Lieut A Hopkins wounded Lieut Cogesberger wounded Lieut acting adjutant wounded Lieut acting adjutant wounded. The 110th Regt suffered [illeg.] heavy according to the number of men. We captured 235 prisnors and more taken on Sunday evening and we lost somewheres near a 100 men killed and 200 wounded. It was a very heavy fire and a very bold fight by both parties they made a heavy stand. The battle was supposed to have been one of the hardest fights that men generally get into. We lost a good many men and officers. I have saw men wounded in most all parts of their bodies head and the enemies were nearly all shot in the head that men killed on the old battleground. The trees have the bark all cut loose. I saw one man that had the whole top of his head blowen off* by a shell. The fight lasted 1 ¾ hours and was a hard fight and a desperate one and our men captured 2 cannon 4 caisons and the dead was being thick on the ground and the wounded also. The enemy here lost is supposed 300 killed 500 wounded and 237 prisnors. It is awful to think that we must have war among ourselves and so many families must suffer. Our loss in this fight is 100 killed 200 wounded and some have died of their wounds since the fight. There was 70 killed and 175 wounded of our forces
*Likely, this is the same unfortunate soldier Strother will write of tomorrow.
“The enemies were nearly all shot in the head,” which means they got up close & personal. Either that, or they had excellent aim from afar.
Ephraim, seemingly nonplussed, gives us a weather report before the outrageous situation he lived through with all these men today. “One of the hardest fights that men generally get into.”
Note: Zoomable map of today: https://www.loc.gov/item/99446755/
https://pixels.com/featured/1-battle-of-kernstown-1862-granger.html
http://www.kernstownbattle.org/kernstownhistory/1stbattleofkernstown.html
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/369506344399893457/
Ephraim lists on another page of the diary those who fought today. These men were important to EB, & it’s touching he wrote out this list:
March 23, 1862
In the Battle of Winchester out of Company D 110th P.V.
Cap’t S.L. Huyett (EB’s close friend from home. Same sleeping quarters with EB sometimes. Huyett will get called before Hammond & Stanton, et al., at the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War in mid-June of this year. Huyett will be a character witness for Dr. Hays, whom EB works directly under as Hospital Steward. Huyett’s testimony June 21 is included here)
Lieut Isaac T. Hamilton Duncansville (EB sometimes stays at night in the “markee” as Hamilton; EB says in a letter home on 5/27 that Hamilton & Huyett don’t get along)
Lieut A Weaver Mt Union (EB’s friend. 5/27 letter home, EB says Weaver talks of resigning, but he’s only “jesting”)
Thos Ruggles Duncansville
Rob Stewart Shavers Creek
W. J. Cunningham Huntingdon
Latherow Hartslog Valley
Sam Kinley Wounded arm Mary Hill
Edward Plimpton Water Street (One of EB’s friends from home; writes of another Plimpton 3/5. EB considers himself from Water Street, or Sinking Valley.)
James Welch Hartslog Valley
Died Anthony Kimlin Wounded in thigh
Thomas Mulhollen Clearfield
Edward Lee Duncansville
A Weaver Mt Union
(Illeg.) Sam C. Baker Died of Sickness
(Illeg.) David Baker Wounded (EB says a “Baker” of Co. D dies 4/27, who had a fever & had been unwell for some time.)
E. Burket Sinking Valley (EB! Lists himself.)
Luther Moore Shaver’s Creek
George Orner Duncansville
Theo. Rockey Wounded
(Illeg.) Brown slight head wound side of
Jacob Miller Johnstown
Ed Helm Shaver’s Creek
Peter Linn
John Walker Huntingdon
Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign Peter Cozzens P. 160
“SUNDAY, MARCH 23, dawned cloudy and chill in the Lower Valley. Kimball had his men awakened at 4:00 A.M. In the distance the church bells of Winchester sounded morning worship; otherwise, all was quiet. Supposing Ashby had retired far up the Valley, the groggy Federals took heart. There seemed time to pause and enjoy nature. “Spring is here, the birds are singing and the grass is starting, and the buds is a swelling, which makes it very cheering to us soldiers,” a Ringgold cavalryman wrote his wife.”
Note: The following also refers to Ephraim’s 110th:
“At daybreak Col. Sam Carroll ordered the tents of his 8th Ohio brought forward, then started for Martinsburg to bring his wife and children to Winchester. North of Winchester, the soldiers of Tyler’s brigade drew three days rations and were told to be ready to move at a moment’s notice to join the army at Centreville.”
Note: Strother was away from Kernstown today visiting his wife in Charles Town.
Note: See May 24, June 8, 9, and the 13th for notes on Carroll.
A Virginia Yankee in the Civil War The Diaries of David Hunter Strother David Hunter Strother P. 18-19
“MARCH 23, SUNDAY.—Cloudy…. In the afternoon walked with my wife on the turnpike. Returning we met the Henderson girls in their carriage. They passed without saluting us. Nothing can exceed the infatuated insolence of these miserable people. But the cup of sorrow and humiliation which they have prepared for themselves and which they must drain to the dregs is not yet fully tasted.”
We Are In For It! The First Battle of Kernstown Gary L. Ecelbarger P. 122-123
“Tyler’s five-regiment brigade of approximately 2,300 effectives had been active, but not engaged, throughout the morning; they were the only portion of Shield’s division that was not exposed to Stonewall Jackson by 2:00 p.m. Tyler had spent the morning with his troops at Camp Shields three miles north of Winchester. The men had barely finished eating their late breakfasts when Tyler received Shield’s order to take his men south of Winchester and support Kimball’s already-engaged regiments. This did not surprise the soldiers for they could hear the desultory cannonading six miles to the south. Tyler’s infantry regiments –the 7th Ohio, 7th Indiana, 1st West Virginia, 110th Pennsylvania, and 29th Ohio– packed three-days’ rations into their haversacks and were moving by 11:00 a.m.
Tyler’s men marched three miles southward from camp on the Martinsburg Pike and re-entered Winchester. The soldiers spiritedly sang “John Brown’s Body” to pace their march. A member of the 7th Ohio echoed the sentiments of many in the brigade by describing what he witnessed in passing through the town:
That march through the streets of Winchester remains in memory as one of the most weird and unnatural scenes witnessed during the war. The resident population remaining at home were substantially all women and children. From the time of our first occupation until now they had kept indoors and secluded. They were bitterly hostile to us, our cause, our people and institutions. Charleston, South Carolina, could not furnish a female and juvenile population imbued with more bitter sentiments towards the North and her soldiers than this city. As our brigade marched through the streets, the artillery firing became more rapid and heavier; the sky was overcast and a gloom seemed to be over everything except those rebel women and children. They went out on the sidewalks, on their verandas or looking out from open windows or doors, dressed in their best or gayest apparel, as if for a holiday. Not only that, but their faces, language, and conduct showed them to be in a holiday frame of mind, too. Numerous were such greetings from them as: “We’re going to give General Jackson and his men supper here tonight,” “Take your last look at Winchester, you Yankees,” etc.
Tyler’s brigade escaped the civilians and passed southward toward the foreboding sights and sounds of a deadlier enemy. The men reached Hillman’s Tollgate by 1:30 p.m. From here the command temporarily split up: the 7th Ohio and 7th Indiana climbed the northern portion of Prichard’s Hill and supported the Union artillery engaged with Jackson’s force in front. The 1st West Virginia and 29th Ohio advanced farther up the Valley Pike to support the left flank of Clark’s battery. The 110th Pennsylvania was held in reserve on the Cedar Creek Grade Road near the Valley Pike intersection.
P. 123-124
The heretofore unengaged regiments of Tyler’s brigade took their positions while General Jackson was carrying out the flanking movements with his artillery. The advantage of Jackson’s position was noted by Tyler’s command for they received Confederate artillery fire within half an hour of reaching their positions. The 1st West Virginia and 29th Ohio became too exposed and were subsequently ordered to return to the rear to join the 110th Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvanians were also uncomfortable in their reserve position. A continuous barrage of Southern artillery forced the regiment to fall to the ground to let the shells pass over, rather than through, their ranks.
P. 127
The heavily wooded terrain of Sandy Ridge forced Colonel Tyler to realign his brigade into massed column by divisions before moving them forward. This placed the regiments in a compact formation five divisions deep. Each division consisted of two double-lined companies with intervals between each company in the line and between each division. The regimental color bearer stood in the center of the regiment between the two companies that comprised the third (middle) line of the column.
P. 129
Tyler ordered his men into the woodline. His brigade angled into the woods, marching in a west-by-southwest direction to assure an entry behind the Southern guns. Lieutenant Colonel Joseph T. Copeland’s eight cavalry companies formed the rear of Tyler’s formation. Their mission was to charge the Virginia infantry once the artillery was captured by Tyler’s infantry. The brigade and the regimental officers remained on horseback and advanced slowly with the infantry. A foot soldier near the front of the column turned to look at its formation as it moved toward battle:
“Not a word was spoken, save for the low uttered commands of the officers; the beautiful colors flying to the breeze, and seeming to defy all earth in their pride and power; the step as regular as though the column were moving through the streets of a city, to the music of a band. The Colonel moved along the line and cautioned his men to aim low, stand their ground, and victory would be theirs– this, while a scout was sent over a slight eminence to observe the position of the enemy….”
Not everyone in Tyler’s brigade seemed to have his attention focused on the flank movement. The 110th Pennsylvania had earned a reputation as poachers from their dubious activities during the previous reconnaissance to Strasburg. Lieutenant Colonel Clark of the 29th Ohio, marching in the rear of the Pennsylvanians, was stunned to observe the continuation of the trend in this advance toward the cannons. He watched one of the soldiers of the 110th Pennsylvania tucking an old hen** under his arm. The bewildered and somewhat disgusted Clark had no idea where the man found the bird or why he was carrying it at this particular moment.
Sidenote: 
I like how Ecelbarger has Clark only “somewhat” disgusted about this hen, btw.
Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign Peter Cozzens P. 233
“A recovered General Shields complained to Banks on April 4 that a “want of discipline” in Gordon’s brigade had compelled his patrols to arrest several squads of men from the 3rd Wisconsin and 2nd Massachusetts found “scattered around and loitering” in the neighborhood of Edinburg. Nonsense, Gordon replied testily, his men were not loitering; the lack of rations had forced him to authorize foraging. Shield’s men, he added, were guilty of the same infractions.”
Back to Mr. Ecelbarger, P. 133
Bad luck cursed Tyler and his brigade during their advance. And the column marched seventy yards more westerly, they would have freed themselves from the crests and ravine that obstructed their progress. The ground at the western side of the ridge was nearly level and allowed quicker passage of massed troops. Tyler also would have better concealed his flanking approach to the Confederate batteries and would have come directly in their rear without a significant loss of valuable time. Even if noticed and opposed by the 27th Virginia, the Union regiments should have easily and swiftly overrun their outmatched foe on this portion of the field and ended the battle– and perhaps have destroyed Jackson’s Valley District army– that very afternoon.
Notwithstanding the adverse terrain features in their front, the Federal flanking force enjoyed a tremendous manpower advantage with a brigade that outnumbered one regiment by over ten-fold. Experienced commanders in this situation would have quickly deployed their regiments into double battle lines to sweep their foe from the field. Colonel Erastus Barnard Tyler was a courageous and amiable officer; however, he committed a grievous judgment error that cost the Federals an easy victory over a dispersed and outnumbered opponent. Without redeploying his troops from their cumbersome marching column, Tyler rode to the front of his men and yelled, “Charge bayonets!” With that order the massed column pulsed forward. The first two regiments in Tyler’s column, the 7th Ohio and 7th Indiana, launched from the woodline and charged to within 100 yards of their foe, the Buckeyes filling the air with redeeming shouts of “Remember Cross Lanes!”
Colonel Echols and the veterans of the 27th Virginia greeted their opponent with a unified volley of flaming musketry and taunted them by chanting “Bull Run” at the top of their voices. Carpenter’s iron guns supported the lone infantry regiment by belching rounds of shot and canister from their flanking position on the eastern crest of the ridge. Echol’s men spread out in such a way to appear larger in size than their actual strength of 200 men, rank and file. The Southerners were also helped by Tyler’s premature order to attack without previously deploying his regiments in a battle line.
The Confederate fire devastated the Union brigade. As the front of the column reached the ravine, it was hit by lead flying from three directions. A member of the 7th Ohio described the opening volley as “a most terrific roar of musketry.” The Confederate artillery rounds shook the earth around them and “tore through the solid ranks of the command with fearful certainty.” In a common impulse, the Union soldiers of the twin 7th regiments halted and hugged the earth; many of their comrades would never rise again.
P. 136
The devastation that the opening Confederate fire inflicted on the front of the column rippled through to the back. The rearward regiments flinched at the swarm of bullets that whistled by their faces and thudded into the surrounding trees, peeling branches from trunks and filling the air with showers of bark and twigs. The artillery blasts crashed above them to intensify the noise. Debris of metal and wood rained down upon them. The Southern resistance stymied the stunned column’s forward movement and the troops awaited orders that would get them out of their predicament.
Watch it: 
The 110th Pennsylvania had earned their reputation for poor discipline through fighting among themselves, excessive drinking, and raiding citizens’ supplies. They were under the dubious leadership of Colonel William D. Lewis and marched as the next-to-last* infantry regiment in the column. When the opening fire struck the front of the column, the Pennsylvanians knew exactly how to remove themselves from a potentially dangerous situation. The poorly disciplined mob of approximately 300 men fell to the ground* with the rest of the column and panic set in. When ordered to charge again, most of the regiment jumped up and fled rearward, passing through the ranks of the 29th Ohio which temporarily set that regiment into confusion. Although many of the Buckeyes managed to reform, the Irish Philadelphians and country boys from central Pennsylvania took cover behind trees several yards to the rear. The other regiments of the division considered the 110th Pennsylvania to be the “black sheep” of the division and would never forgive the Keystoners for this act of cowardice. Lieutenant Colonel Clark of the 29th Ohio noted that the 110th Pennsylvania “broke and scampered like sheep at the first fire” and wondered if the chicken thief he had seen moments earlier had managed to salvage his booty while on the run.
The loss of the Pennsylvanians reduced the brigade’s effective fire by nearly 300 men.*** Additionally, six companies of the disrupted 29th Ohio stayed in reserve in the woods. The four right-hand companies of the Buckeye regiment moved forward, firing at will, aiming at Southern heads that periodically bobbed above the stone wall and woodpiles. Tyler’s brigade now numbered fewer than 1,800 participating members.
P. 137
Colonel Tyler worked desperately to remove his men from their awkward column by divisions. He passed along orders for a left-flank deployment, on line of first division, to place the front of his command into an effective battle line. By this time the Federals had returned fire, intensifying the volume created by the close-range fighting. Most of the men could not hear their officers over the rattling musketry. There were others that could hear, but they refused to move in line of first division since the front two companies were in the ravine– just eighty yards from the enemy.
P. 144
By 4:30 p.m. The Confederates had stalemated Tyler’s brigade. The Southerners packed 1,200 men at the stone wall while Tyler’s initial 2,000-plus-man brigade had been severely reduced by casualties, confusion, and cowardice. The 110th Pennsylvania could not yet be rallied and remained well to the rear in the woods. The other four regiments had suffered significant casualties, most of which were received in the first ten minutes of action. By this time Colonel Tyler had belatedly taken his men out of their cumbersome marching formation, but he had no more than 1,700-1,800 remaining soldiers to contest the Virginians behind the stone wall. The dispositions of the troops prevented any attempt to organize them for an assault. Tyler’s brigade was not arrayed in an organized battle line; instead, his men were dispersed along a 400-yard front that occupied ground from as close as twenty yards in front of the wall, to as far as 500 yards in the rear. Those farthest to the rear protected themselves in the trees, while the close-up men hid in terrain swales or behind thickets and limestone outcroppings. Cohesion was nonexistent as many fought– oftentimes without officers’ orders – as clusters from different companies and regiments.
There was no finesse whatsoever in this fight. The two sides traded blows like boxers throwing telegraphed punches at each other in the center of the ring. Captain J.F. Asper (7th Ohio, Company H), leading the front division, proudly wrote, “…every man fought with the determination and will that could not be made to quail.” A private in Company F of the 7th Indiana, fighting the Confederates from the ravine approximately eighty yards from the wall, was awestruck at the scene which surrounded him:
“The battle was on in all its fury. The woods were soon enveloped in smoke. First one one side and then the other a comrade was seen to yield up his life for the sake of his country; the crashing of shells shot and canister through the trees had left an impression on my mind that can never be effaced. By the indomitable pluck, coupled with the ignorance of the danger of our situation, and by utilizing every stone, stump and tree as a shield from the enemy’s fire, it became, as it were, a free-for-all. The regiments mixed up through and through each other, but never ceased to get rid of our 60 rounds of cartridges as fast as we could load and shoot.”
P. 148
With both sides pinned down, the 3,500 Union and Confederate soldiers contesting for Sandy Ridge filled the air with a crescendo of small arms fire which resonated for miles around.
P. 149
Most were taking part in their first battle-sized engagement and had never heard, nor were expecting, the noise that greeted their ears. A member of the 8th Ohio opposing Chew’s artillery east of the Valley Pike claimed to see smoke rise from Sandy Ridge and to hear the men roar while they were firing. Still another member of the 8th Ohio described the infantry fight raging one-half mile west of him as “the most violent thunder” he had ever heard.
The citizens of Winchester agonized at the sounds of battle four miles south of town. Mrs. Cornelia McDonald had heard general cannonading before, but this day was different because she could hear it “thunder louder and louder, and [come] nearer and nearer.” At 4:00 p.m. The cannons appeared to stop, but were replaced by “the most terrible and long continued musketry… not volley after volley, but one continued fearful roll….” Many attempted to observe the battle from their roof tops; others scaled an obstructing hill south of town to view the developing contest. Despite being surrounded by Union pickets on the hill, the Reverend B.F. Brooke could not control his excitement and prayed out loud, “Oh Lord, help Jackson!” another citizen noted that “the suspense was terrible and anxiety and distress marked on every countenance.” To these citizens, not knowing what was occurring south of them was just as fearful as being in the middle of it.
The sight of bloodied comrades falling around them, the choking smell of sulphurous smoke, and the deafening sounds of close-range musketry affected them for years to come. One of Tyler’s soldiers, firing from behind a tree, claimed the action as “the most fearful firing you ever dreamed of,” and noted that his tree had seventeen bullet holes in it. From his position on the opposite side of the wall, Major Frank Jones described the fight as “the most terrific fire of musketry that can be imagined.”
General Thomas J. Jackson, a veteran of the Mexican War and the largest land battle of the eastern war to date at Manassas, was also dumbfounded by the severity of the infantry fight on Sandy Ridge. He admitted to a friend five days after the event, “I do not recollect having ever heard such a roar of musketry.”
P. 161
Regimental flags routinely gauged the viciousness of battle because they were conspicuous targets for the opposition. At Kernstown, the 2nd Virginia proved this point to the highest degree. Sergeant Ephraim B. Crist of Company A carrying the colors for the regiment when they entered the Sandy Ridge fight. Early in the action he was shot in the head while brandishing the standard and killed instantly. Lieutenant J.B. Davis of Company K picked up the fallen colors and bore them until he was knocked down by a pent ball. At that point, Lieutenant Richard H. Lee of Company G raised the flag and kept his men in line of battle, rallying them around the colors.
Lieutenant Lee took his new role seriously and it was likely that he instigated the most surreal moment of the battle. The new standard-bearer jumped over the wall and stared defiantly at soldiers on the right flank of the 67th Ohio less than seventy yards away. The Virginian dared the Buckeyes to come on. The men of the 67th Ohio were astonished. They ceased firing for a moment or two, shouting down the line, “Don’t shoot that man; he is too brave to die.” After a few minutes they decided that this respite had gone on long enough and ordered the Virginian to return to his side of the wall. The color-bearer saluted his hospitable opponents, jumped over to the Confederate side of the wall, and the firing resumed. (This is referenced to G.W. Fahrion (67th Ohio), “Courage of a Virginia Color Bearer,” Confederate Veteran, vol. 17, no. 2, March 1909, p. 125.
P. 178-181
“Kimball’s attack order found the five regiments of Tyler’s brigade dispersed. Kimball had summoned the 7th Indiana to shore up Prichard’s Hill defenses, and the 7th Ohio lay in support of Robinson’s battery. Tyler’s remaining three regiments– the 29th Ohio, 1st West Virginia, and 110th Pennsylvania– were stacked in march column along the Valley Pike a few hundred yards to the rear.
Tyler responded to Kimball’s summons with more enthusiasm than discretion. Recalled a sergeant of the 7th Ohio: “After we had lain an hour or so on the hill slope and had grown nervous at the noise of the shells, Tyler came riding up. He rose in his stirrups and shouted, ‘Men, I have been asked whether my brigade can take that battery. I said you would take it if ordered. I have got the order. Men, will you do it?’ Of course we all said we would and gave a cheer, though I doubt whether many of us really hungered for a nearer acquaintance with those shells.”
Tyler formed his reunited brigade in close column of divisions; in other words, the brigade showed a front of just two companies, perhaps seventy-five yards across, with the remaining forty-eight companies aligned like dominoes in twenty-four lines to a depth of four hundred yards. The 7th Ohio led the column. Following it were the 7th Indiana, 1st West Virginia, 110th Pennsylvania, and 29th Ohio. Copeland’s cavalry fell in behind the 29th Ohio. Removing knapsacks and fixing bayonets, the infantry started at double-quick time with weapons at trail arms across the broad fields between the Valley Pike and Cedar Creek Grade road.
At a spot calculated to bring the Federals into action well behind the Confederate artillery, Tyler turned left off the grade road and plunged his command into the leafless timber. Here Tyler made an egregious miscalculation. Fearful of losing tactical control in the darkening woods– the sun was fast sinking behind the western hills, and slightly less than three hours of daylight remained. Tyler declined to open his column or to form line of battle. Instead, the brigade felt its way southward along Sandy Ridge, down tangled ravines and up wooded slopes, in the same dense formation with which it had begun the march. Tyler at least had the presence of mind to deploy skirmishers, and he did his best to maintain silence in the ranks. Commands were whispered or signaled, “no noise being made save the rattle of the dry leaves as we tread upon,” said an Ohio infantryman.
Note: The leaves get me. Only think of trying to walk soft so something the size of a squirrel’s ear doesn’t take you out any moment. Unimaginable.
The stillness was shattered at 3:55 P.M., when Yankee skirmishers ran into skirmishers from the 27th Virginia, perhaps three hundred yards north of the east-to-west stone wall over which the Virginians had climbed ten minutes earlier. “It was a beautiful day, birds sang in the trees and the warm sun brought out all the aromatic odors of the forest,” remembered twenty-one-year-old Virgil E. Smalley of Company D, 7th Ohio. “Suddenly spurts of fire seemed to come out of the tree trunks ahead of us, and we heard the sound of musket shots. We had struck the Confederate skirmish line. The orderly sergeant of one of our companies, a brave young Oberlin student, fell dead in the front rank. There was not a moment’s halt. We marched steadily on for perhaps five minutes.”
As the Federals advanced, Echols wisely withdrew his regiment behind the stone wall. At 4:00 P.M., with the head of Tyler’s column less than one hundred yards away, the 27th Virginia opened what Yankee survivors variously labeled a “withering volley,” “blinding fire,” or, as Virgil Smalley so vividly described the moment, “a terrific and indescribable uproar like a tornado ten times intensified. The whole air seemed filled with concussions and strange noises. Bark and branches from the trees came down upon our heads. At first the effect was so stunning that I did not realize what had happened. Some singular convulsion of nature appeared to be in progress. Luckily the effect was mostly on the trees.”
Although the initial Confederate volleys killed or maimed few, they revealed the folly of Tyler’s double-column formation. “Amid the din of musketry and roar of artillery, no order could be heard by the men,” said the lieutenant colonel of the 7th Indiana. Regiments disintegrated and companies splintered as officers and men, most of whom were facing fire for the first time, struggled to respond. The lead Yankee element, two companies comprising the first division of the 7th Ohio, charged a few dozen yards until the regimental commander, Lt. Col. William Creighton, had his horse shot out from under him. Grabbing a wounded man’s Enfield rifle, he told those within shouting distance to take cover and return the fire as best they could– one of the few sensible orders issued in Tyler’s brigade that afternoon. And F, comprising the second division of the 7th Ohio, had the misfortune to stumble within earshot of Colonel Tyler, who had been bellowing at his regiments to cease fire and deploy by the left flank into line of battle. At Tyler’s behest, Maj. John Casement and Capt. George Wood of Company D, together with 1st Sgt. David D. Bard of Company F, led one hundred men to an open hillock three hundred yards to the east, expecting the remaining companies of regiment to fill in the interval to their right. But Sergeant Bard and his comrades found themselves alone in a “hot place.” Everyone else had ducked into the ravine eighty yards north of the stone wall. “A continual shower of balls whistled with that fearful buzz that must be heard to know the disagreeableness of it,” remembered Bard. “Two men were struck down by my side while several were wounded. A ball struck the ground in front of me and threw dirt in my face.” That was enough for Bard. “I got together about ten or fifteen of Company F’s men that I found fighting by themselves. I marched them back to the right of the regiment, hoping to find our captain and the remainder of our company. I arrived at the hill and could not find any of the company or [its] officers.”
Virgil Smalley of Company D also ran the gauntlet to the exposed hillock and back:
“The command to deploy to the left was given, and as the left guide of my company I led off through the woods and over a rail fence into a field, when finding nobody with me but the major, Jack Casement, and hearing bullets singing through the air and coming “zip, zip” through the dry weeds, we both fell back into the woods, the major with three holes through his cloak cape. The regiment appeared to be huddled in a little hollow in the woods, uncertain what to do. Instinctively I sought the shelter of a tree, but another man was ahead of me. A bullet struck him in the leg and he went limping off to the rear.”
The next regiment in column, the 7th Indiana, responded to the shock of battle much as did the 7th Ohio, the men hugging the ground or seeking protection behind trees. “The command to deploy was given,” said Lt. Orville Thompson, “but companies were mixed together and measurably obliterated, and officers lost control of their men. There was no faltering, however; every man found a place, and it was in large measure the men’s fight.”
Being farther removed from the fighting, though hardly immune from the swarm of bullets that whistled past or thudded into nearby trees, the 1st West Virginia held together reasonably well, its five divisions laying down one after the other like neatly falling dominoes. Not so the undisciplined ruffians of the 110th Pennsylvania, who reveled in drinking and fisticuffs, but flinched from more serious work. A few stray bullets and tree bursts panicked them. Instead of obeying Col. William D. Lewis’s order to charge, they fled through the ranks of the 29th Ohio. The Pennsylvanians “broke and scampered like sheep at the first fire,” said the lieutenant colonel of the 29th, and in so doing cleaved the Ohio regiment in two. The six Buckeye companies on the right held fast, while the four companies to the left of the fleeing Pennsylvanians advanced to close the gap with the 1st West Virginia. Colonel Copeland summoned his cavalry to rally the 110th from its “shameful rout,” but in vain.
Note: This would have been me were I anywhere near Kernstown today, 160 years back, I don’t know about you: 
The conduct of the 110th caused Colonel Daum, who had left his batteries on Prichard’s Hill to accompany Tyler, to denounce the entire brigade as a mob of “tammed militia.” Daum was overly critical, but the fact remains that Tyler’s brigade had been stopped in the first five minutes of fighting. In the next five minutes the momentum of battle turned in favor of the Confederates, as Jackson rushed troops forward.”
Note: Would this be the same Daum from a few days ago, or no?
We Are In For It! The First Battle of Kernstown Gary L. Ecelbarger P. 60-62
“Lieutenant Colonel Daum stood on the flanking hill with eight rifled cannons belonging to Captain Joseph Clark’s 4th U.S. Artillery, Battery E. Watching the head of the Michigan column emerging from the distant glen, Daum mistook them for Ashby’s men and ordered Captain Clark to fire his guns at them. Clark protested, knowing they were Union horsemen, but eventually conceded to the stubborn Daum’s instructions. Within seconds friendly fire took out four Federal horses– including one poor animal that was torn in two behind the saddle) the rider was uninjured by the shell, which passed through his coattails). Daum’s faux pas did not cost any human lives.”
“but the fact remains that Tyler’s brigade had been stopped in the first five minutes of fighting. In the next five minutes the momentum of battle turned in favor of the Confederates, as Jackson rushed troops forward.”
Yes, it’s called the KILL ZONE where the 110th had stood moments before. You’re supposed to drop, take up covered positions. Maybe any currently alive historian wishes time travel could stand him out there in those trees then see how many seconds it took before he went down so fast his last wish was Earth could swallow him up deep somewhere in its hollow? This Regiment received official commendation for gallantry in action at Kernstown. But let’s blast ’em for preserving their lives to eat a hen, amirite?
Ecelbarger’s words here seem to mean to imply that was the 110th fault. Jackson may have rushed troops forward– and?– “Night alone saved him from total destruction.”
“Jackson, with his supposed invincible Stonewall Brigade, and the accompanying brigades, much to their mortification and discomfiture, were compelled to fall back in disorder upon their reserve. Here they took up a position for a final stand, and made an attempt, for a few minutes, to retrieve the fortunes of the day; but again rained down upon them the same close and destructive fire. Again cheer upon cheer rang in their ears. A few minutes only did they stand up against it, when they turned dismayed, and fled in disorder, leaving us in possession of the field, the killed and wounded, three hundred prisoners, two guns, four caissons, and a thousand stand of small arms. Night alone saved him from total destruction.” History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-65, Samuel P. Bates, Harrisburg, 1868-1871. 110th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers
“but the fact remains that Tyler’s brigade had been stopped in the first five minutes of fighting. In the next five minutes the momentum of battle turned in favor of the Confederates, as Jackson rushed troops forward.”
And? So for 5 minutes Jackson gets the lead? How did that work out for him? This is how. The end of the fight: “The enemy were completely routed on their flank and driven from their position behind the fence.”
“The brigade was ordered to the rear and to the left flank of the enemy, and was marched close column by division into and under cover of a thick wood, when a deadly fire was immediately poured in upon them, which for the moment staggered our troops. They soon recovered, and my command, with the rest of the brigade, advanced to the outskirts of the woods and returned the fire with great spirit. Subsequently, finding that the enemy held a strong position behind a stone fence across a ravine directly opposite our center and were harassing us with their tire, I ordered a charge of my command at “double-quick” upon that point, which was quite successful. The enemy were completely routed on their flank and driven from their position behind the fence. In this charge the command suffered severely from the fire of the enemy. The regiment was rallied after the action in good order, and bivouacked for the night with the brigade on the field adjoining.” Report of Col. William D. Lewis, jr., One hundred and tenth Pennsylvania Infantry. HDQRS. 110TH REGT. PA. VOLS., SHIELDS’ DIVISION, Winchester, Va., March 27, 1862. (excerpt)
Ecelbarger writes a narrative that makes for a good story but I’d rather present facts. Jackson got routed today. Jackson did not get captured today. The war did not get prolonged 3 more years today because of anything the 110th did or did not do to Jackson today. That idea isn’t supported by facts. As my friend David likes to say, sticking feathers up your ass doesn’t make you a chicken.
See: YouTube, https://bit.ly/3mAxjKQ
NOTE: See Kelly Richter for 84th info:
More Ecelbarger: P. 183
The eight companies along the crest made short work of the enemy troops to their front, most of whom belonged to the badly chewed up 7th Indiana and 7th Ohio regiments. “After one volley from the 4th [Virginia] the Yankees broke and fled to the timber in their rear,” said Lt. John N. Lyle of the Washington College Company. “Some of them fell flat to avoid the bullets, and undertake to wriggle to the rear, snake-fashion. Those furnished fine sport to our marksmen, as their slow movement gave time for taking good aim. Many of them were hit and turned up their toes to the daisies in evidence of the fact.” Pvt. David G. Stein of the 7th Ohio affirmed the intensity, if not the accuracy, of the Rebel fire. His friend, George McKay, while lying on his back and capping his gun, had a ball strike the musket about midway up the stock. As the bullet glanced off, McKay looked back and remarked to his company commander, who knelt just behind him, that he had suffered a close call. “But the captain allowed that it was a close call for him, for had it not struck the musket, it would have taken the captain somewhere in the vicinity of the breadbasket, and thus a musket saved the life of Captain Crane.” The national colors were less fortunate. “Our beautiful Star Spangled Banner was completely riddled with bullets; a portion of the spear was shot off, while the staff was so badly shattered that it broke off before the fight was over.”
From behind what cover they could find, the Federals returned the fire, each man an army of one. “After the first volley the officers did not amount to much. They could not do anything except to stay and take the fire. The confusion in the fight was beyond any movement that they might attempt to make,” said Pvt. William S. Young of the 7th Indiana.
At first the fight was fairer than may have been expected. Said Private Young: “Fortunately for us we were in a depression of the ground, while the Rebels behind the stone wall were on a ridge, which caused them to overshoot, making our chances for success about equal.” Sgt. Thomas Marsh of the 29th Ohio wrote his father that “in the excitement of battle I could aim at the Rebels when only forty or fifty yards from me as coolly as I ever did at a squirrel. But it now seems very much like murder. They would throw up their hands and fall almost every time we would get a fair shot at them, and we would laugh at their motions and make jest of their misfortune.” Another Union survivor calculated that three-quarters of the killed and wounded on both sides were hit in the head, an estimate that squares with the reports of surgeons.
Virgil Smalley of the 7th Ohio marveled at the slaughter and at the conduct of his comrades in the opening moments of battle. When his regiment- “a ragged line drawn up without much regard to company organization” – stepped out of the timber north of the stone wall, a startled rabbit darted past. Crying “Rabbit, rabbit!” a man near Smalley “actually left the ranks to chase the little animal.” Sword-waving, swearing officers coaxed the command into the open. “I could see the heads or shoulders of gray-clad men amid the increasing smoke. Jets of flame seemed to leap from the top of the wall.” Dropping down behind a knoll, Smalley threw himself into the fight, “lying on my back to load and partly rising on one knee to aim in the direction of the stone wall and the jets of flame.” A nearby soldier from the 7th Indiana ceased firing and lay still. “Why don’t you load your gun and shoot?” demanded Smalley. No reply came from the man, whose “eyes were open and [whose] face expressed the element of battle.” Smalley yelled at him again. “Then I saw that there was a great pool of blood by his side. He had been shot through the heart, and death had seized him so suddenly that the look in his face had not changed. I got some cartridges from his box, moved a little further away from the pool of blood, and went on loading and firing.”
Smalley kept his presence of mind amid the thunder, “What a fracas there was– a steady cracking and rattling of musket firing, penetrated by the loud reports of artillery. I remember to have listened with peculiar interest to the surging sound of the minie balls as they came close to my head. They made a vibrating, musical tone, something like a tuning fork. It was hard to realize that these little, swift, humming messengers, were bent on murderous errands.” But nerves frayed, and good men broke. “Shortly after the steady work of fighting began a big, burly farmer boy, who was a sergeant in my company, stood on the knoll which served me as a shelter and kept shouting and waving his hands like an insane man. He was suddenly crazed for the moment with the excitement of battle. He now ran along the ridge, screaming and gesticulating until I lost sight of him in the smoke.” Reflected Smalley: “It is singular how differently men are affected by a battle. Some are frantic, some flushed and exhilarated [,] some pallid and nervous, but calm and plucky; some tremble with fear.”
P. 187
“Cannon balls were crashing through the trees, and the ugly rifle and musket ball were whizzing fearfully close to us. The line struck the enemy at right angles with the stone wall, and a savage fight for a few minutes ensued. We were separated from the Rebels by a rail fence, which was nearly demolished by the line as it came up, leaving us absolutely among the Rebels. The fight was almost hand to hand, some of the men charging and then clubbing their muskets.” Sawyer waded in. His horse was twice struck as the Ohioans advanced, and Sawyer’s sash was pierced with a ball. Dismounting at the fence, he tried to send his horse into a ravine to presumed safety. The animal refused to leave the colonel’s side, instead following him wherever he went. Sawyer’s men quipped that the horse thought “the safe place was with his master.”
P. 191
Twice the 84th Pennsylvania tried to come up on the left flank of the 5th Ohio, and twice the regiment wilted into the timber. The 84th seemed a hopeless case. Recruiting service and special details had reduced it to 255 men. The lieutenant colonel, major, and several captains were absent. Moreover, two days before the battle, seventeen of the remaining regimental officers had handed the regimental commander, Col. William G. Murray, a letter demanding that he resign: “It is the opinion of the undersigned that though endowed with many traits which distinguish in civil life, you have yet failed to discover that peculiar genius which qualifies for martial command. The conduct of the regiment since its organization has been, it is respectfully submitted, not only unsatisfactory, but criminal. Lives are not to be imperiled wantonly because of inefficiency ascribable to the incompetence of command.” Eleven days earlier, the mutineers had sent a similar letter to the state capital.
With his military future hanging in the balance, Colonel Murray placed himself in front of the regiment and led it into the open a third time. “On we went,” wrote Lt. Harvey S. Wells of Company F, “the dead and wounded fast thinning the ranks. Several times we halted, the men throwing themselves flat on the ground for protection from the rain of shells and bullets, to be rallied again in the forward charge by the stentorian voice of the gallant colonel. Color-bearer after color-bearer had been shot down until six of them were killed or wounded, and the noble flag had been penetrated fifty-six times by bullets.” two-thirds of the way across the field, Murray gave the command “Fire!” At a range of forty yards, remembered Thomas Fowler of Company D, “we let them have the ‘lead pills’ as fast as we could work our Belgian rifles.”
The return fire was devastating. From higher ground behind the Irish companies, Waters’s battery plowed the ranks of the Pennsylvanians, who had taken to the ground, with a steady discharge of canister. In what had become a turkey shoot, the 2nd Virginia peppered away at both the survivors of the 5th Ohio and the right companies of the 84th Pennsylvania. The 21st Virginia, which had redeployed without orders from its place behind the main stone wall to another, somewhat shorter stone wall five hundred yards to the southeast, ravaged the left companies of the 84th at a distance of one hundred yards. A fine time was had by all on the Southern side, recalled John Worsham. “Some of Company F were kneeling down, firing from behind the fence, and many sat on it, loading and firing until every cartridge was shot away.” Within minutes, the Pennsylvanians found themselves confronted with what one dazed Yankee termed “a double line of fire [and] a partial crossfire, which no mortal regiment, unprotected, could withstand.”
At 5:45 p.m. Colonel Murray had reached the same conclusion. A third of his men lay dead or wounded. He shouted to adjutant Thomas H. Craig, “My regiment is all cut to pieces,” gave the order to fall back, then stepped behind the colors, where a bullet found him. Striking the figures “84” in the embroidered bugle on the front of his cap, it drilled through Murray’s head and lay open the brain. Death was instantaneous. Just as quickly, the regiment disintegrated.
P. 193
Meanwhile, according to Cozzens, the commander of the 14th Indiana – Lt. Col. William Harrow, was drunk. The 14th was sent in to relieve the 84th: “The 84th Pennsylvania whom we were sent to relieve were cut to pieces.” said Capt. William D. Houghton of Company C. “They were almost panic stricken and many were running toward us. Their colonel was borne through the ranks of Company C with his brains dropping out of his broken skull.”
P. 194
The situation on the far side of the stone wall had turned grim. “The battle was a most desperate affair,” remembered Sgt. George W. Peterkin of the 21st Virginia. “The firing was much heavier, and the fight fiercer and longer, than Manassas. We held our position against five or six regiments for more than an hour, until our ammunition was gone. During that hour the firing of musketry was uninterrupted; we were pouring volley after volley into each other at distances varying from forty to 150 yards. Colonel Patton behaved very gallantly, being always present in the thickest of the fight; his horse was wounded, and he had a ball through his coat.”
Note: At 6 p.m., the 21st Virginia’s men stream past Jackson; when he inquired, they informed him they had run out of ammunition. “Then go back and give them the bayonet” he tells them, then rides off. This line is one of the more well-known lines out of the war.
P. 208
In a letter home, a captain of the 23rd Virginia snarled: “General Jackson was completely taken in. The wonder is why the Yankees didn’t capture our whole army.” General Garnett and Colonel Fulkerson believed that only nightfall had spared the army from destruction. Private Fairfax of the Rockbridge Artillery attributed the army’s salvation to darkness and “the want of daring on the part of the Yankee cavalry. It seems to me it was the height of presumption and daring for so small a force to attack one so large and well equipped. Jackson must have been fooled by the Yankees.” Turner Ashby’s chaplain blamed superior enemy numbers and fortitude for the outcome. At Kernstown, he wrote after the war, the Federal troops “fought better than they ever did before or after– especially the Northwestern men.”
P. 209
Nearly every able-bodied man was engaged at one time or another during the course of the night in combing the ground for wounded comrades. Search parties formed spontaneously or at the behest of company or regimental officers. Capt. J.E. Gregg and those members of his Company E, 8th Ohio, with enough strength left in them toiled until 2 A.M. hunting for and carrying their wounded to camp, two miles from the battlefield. Others tried to sleep but couldn’t.
P. 211
Sleeplessness and curiosity impelled many to wander the battlefield that night. “I lay down upon the cold ground without any supplies and tried to get a few moments’ sleep, but the excitement through which I had passed made sleep impossible, so I took a stroll to see the effects of our fire,” Sgt. John C. Marsh of the 29th Ohio told his father:
It was terrible. The small bushes were cut to pieces, and every tree was filled with balls. The dead lay thickly in those woods and behind the stone wall, some torn all to pieces with shell, some badly mangled with canister, but by far the larger portion were killed with rifle balls. It was curious to note the different expressions on the faces of the dead. Some seemed to have died in the greatest agony; others wore a smile even in death. And still others seemed possessed of the very spirit of cruelty and revenge. I can think of nothing to express their look except, Infernal.
Wandering beyond the battleground in the predawn twilight, Marsh chanced upon three wounded Virginians tucked in a thicket of vines. “Their groans were heart rending; the cold night had so stiffened them that they were in the deepest agony. I built a fire, brought them some water from a mud hole nearby, and then went back to show an ambulance where to find them. One of them said that they had been sure in the morning they would take supplies in Winchester and enter the town at the heels of flying Yankees. Poor fellows, I can’t help pitying them [even] if they are Rebels, for they have no doubt been deceived.’”
“America’s Civil War” Journal, Vol. 1, Number 5 January 1989 “Stonewall’s Only Defeat” Lee Enderlin P. 42
“At the very least, Jackson’s 3,600 men had tied up almost 65,000 Union troops at a time when a ‘decisive campaign’ to end the war quickly was being undertaken. Later, 10,000 men from Fredericksburg reinforced McClellan, but so great was Lincoln’s fear that he never allowed the remaining 30,000 men to march south and support McClellan with an attack on Richmond’s north side.
Despite this heavy-handed interference, McClellan came within six miles of the Confederate capital and came very close to defeating the main Confederate army that June. With those extra troops, the war might very well have ended in 1862. Indeed, the ultimate reason McClellan was repulsed was that Robert E. Lee felt confident in leaving his northern flank exposed, allowing him to march his entire army east to meet the threat. Thus, Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign, of which Kernstown was the first major fight, had gained for the Confederacy three more years of precarious existence and bloodletting.
All of which leads back to Kernstown and one of the great causes for speculation in the Civil War. Early on the morning of the 23rd, Kimball moved a brigade under Colonel Jeremiah Sullivan to hold the flank along Hogg Run. There they sat all day while the battle raged far to the west. Their only contribution was to prevent Confederate movement toward Pritchard’s Hill after Kimball moved his own brigade off the hill in support of the reserve brigade that was fighting along the stone wall. Other than that, Sullivan’s 2,000 men did little more than skirmish with about 150 of Ashby’s men.
Had Kimball been truly aggressive, it would have been an easy matter to send these men across the run toward the Valley Turnpike south of Kernstown, thus cutting off Jackson’s retreat. Earlier in the battle, Jackson had left behind 1,100 men to guard against exactly this situation. But by late afternoon, these men had moved to their left to cover their retreating comrades. The path to the Turnpike remained virtually unguarded.
It seems that, at the very least, a more accurate appraisal of Jackson’s strength might have been obtained. At best, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to destroy Jackson’s army was lost– perhaps, indeed, an opportunity to take Jackson himself out of the war. And who can say how much more successful McClellan might have been in the Peninsula with all those extra troops that Stonewall kept tied up? For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost.”
Note: http://wesclark.com/jw/110thpa_at_kernstown.html Andrew Waskie: “Though initially staggered by murderous volleys delivered by the famous “Stonewall” Brigade from behind– appropriately enough– a stone wall, the 110th regrouped, rallied and charged the enemy with great gallantry, capturing prisoners, arms and two guns for which they were complimented in official orders. In this action the regiment lost 51 casualties out of the approximately 300 engaged. What is important is that the glorious exemplary service of the 110th in the Battle of Kernstown be stated and memorialized, and any further doubt or innuendo be abolished.” Abolished, I tell you!
Note: Can we really know what happened with the 110th today? No. It was complete chaos, the field was, the woods were, everything in sight you could see in the smoke was, which was little, probably. And the various regiments, the Union men were all dressed alike today, I assume… If the 110th laid down, great. If they didn’t, great. Same for the 84th. Whoever was there died last century at the latest. Am I the only one who wants to shake each of these men’s hands?
Note: I asked Jonathan Noyalas (who generously added several footnotes from his own books to my piece), editor of the Journal of the Shenandoah Valley During the Civil War Era, if he would add a disclaimer about Ecelbarger’s review of the 110th at Kernstown, then reference Andrew Waskie so the reader could investigate further. So Noyalas wrote, “Historian Gary L. Ecelbarger has treated the 110th Pennsylvania’s conduct at the First Battle of Kernstown rather harshly…. For a counter to Ecelbarger’s interpretation see Andy Waskie….” See: Journal of the Shenandoah Valley During the Civil War Era: A Publication of Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute Volume IV 2021, Jonathan Noyalas, P. 43, footnote 17, in piece by Cheyenne Nimes, titled “May Peace Soon be Restored: The 1862 Diary of Ephraim Burket, 110th Pennsylvania.” I would have pulled the piece had there been no caveat, because you are only as good as your sources. Ecelbarger blasts the 110th several places in his Kernstown book, the gall. We have been traditionally put in the position of trusting a couple hundred fluorescent light-ripened beached White male historians rustling up white papers then coming up with useless one-liners to dry & salt events that happened early in this country involving masses of people who didn’t look like them, people they will never meet, & who will continue to remain unseen & unknown, unless we examine the artifacts ourselves then make them known.
I keep going back to the solid vein-throughline in this manuscript of who the fuck are we? We weren’t there to “….and then threw themselves, with immense cheering and an unearthly yell, upon the enemy, who, receiving at 15 yards our first fire, fell back across the field, thus unmasking two 6-pounder iron guns, which hurled, on being clear in front, death and destruction into our ranks….” so tune in March 27 for all after-action reports by those present today, including Jackson, who pens his initial dispatch to Johnston tomorrow. But then it’s noted Jackson writes yet another (probably to cover his ass about Garnett), hiding in his room to do so April 4th like he’s channeling Brian Wilson. Just picture him with that megabeard & starved look: http://youtu.be/1Ah5VNluhzQ
Note: Only two pictures exist of Jackson during the war: https://emergingcivilwar.com/2015/11/11/the-winchester-photograph-portrait-of-a-generals-character/
I did figure out, while researching the war, that historians are in the business of quoting each other about events at which they were not present. And that’s pretty much all they do, unless they go to primary sources, in which case, they still weren’t there. That makes it a strange, reductive line of work. That most of them think we should take their word for it. So I don’t want to be a party to passing on lies or gossip about these brave men. And it’s also been clear forever that eyewitnesses get what they think they see wrong all the time:
The Historian’s Craft Marc Bloch (1953) P. 102-103
“Now, a great many historical events can have been observed only in moments of violent emotional confusion, or by witnesses whose attention, whether attracted too late in the event of surprise, or preoccupied by the need for immediate action, was incapable of sufficient concentration upon those features in which historians have reason to be most interested today. Certain examples are notorious. Whence came the first shot which precipitated the riot in front of the Office of Foreign Affairs on February 25, 1848– and from which in turn the revolution was to result? Did it come from the troops or from the crowd? In all likelihood we shall never know. How then can we now take seriously the full-blown descriptive passages of the chroniclers, with their detailed portrayals of dress, movements, ceremonies, and feats in battle? By what stubborn habit of mind are we to preserve the least illusion of the accuracy of all this stuff, the delight of the small fry of romantic historians, when we see around us no one with the ability to remember correctly in their entirety those details of the kind which are naively sought for in the ancient authors? At best, these tableaux give us the setting of the action, as contemporaries of the writer imagined it should have been. That is extremely informative, but it is not the sort of information which the lovers of the picturesque generally desire from their sources.”
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong James W. Loewen P. 301
“I do not know if there is any other field of knowledge which suffers so badly as history from the sheer blind repetitions that occur year after year, and from book to book.” Herbert Butterfield
For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War James M. McPherson P. ix
“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.”
Upshot: Shields wasn’t present today after hit in his arm– thereafter lurking sick in a hotel room
–yet claimed Tyler’s credit for beating Jackson; saw it as his one moment in the sun. Shields was a general who couldn’t even tell a straight story, American inflection in his voice already, Tyrone Ireland in the rearview. Also, it now looks like it was the 84th who laid down & didn’t fight, if you read the reports on the 27th, not the 110th, and good for the 84th.
Final toll at Kernstown: Under Jackson, somehow it all went from Richmond’s potential downfall to Lincoln afraid about potential capture of D.C.: 24,000 men McClellan won’t be able to use now because Kernstown scared Lincoln for D.C. Then McDowell’s 40k troops who were to join McClellan got diverted; Frémont had 16k to come in from the West. “Huge strategic error” is what it’s been called because Jackson redirected Federal attention. The British and the Southern press love Jackson & his wins, which creates high Southern morale, for Winchester *gestures broadly* is now in Union hands and will remain so until September 2, leaving the Mission Impossible stuff for later.
Oh, but then Jackson, in his skull face, goes feral, like he got a flat in a Pentecostal church parking lot while absconding with the tithe & the Bishop in the trunk; scapegoats Garnett for the Kernstown loss, double-crosses him with seven Court Martials. On April 2, remaining Commanders refuse to salute Garnett’s replacement– General Winder– when he walks on the field to take over. That’s what I’m talkin about. Charges don’t stick though; luckily for Jackson chaos of the war intervenes, interferes with a military trial, otherwise Jackson himself would have been outed as the Kernstown failure mastermind. He probably knew he lucked out, that he’d have had zero “neglect of duty” case against Garnett. This kerfuffle with that Jackson man greatly impacted him far past closing time for Kernstown, very sad. He will be one of Jackson’s pallbearers, then take one to the head about 20 yards off from The Angle July 3, 1863 (along with General Armistead). Garnett won’t be recovered, but his sword will, years later in a Baltimore pawn store. But for now, today, the war has only barely loosed, loosened, broken loose; they’ve only just seen the beginning:
Army Life According to Arbaw: Civil War Letters of William A. Brand 66th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Edited by Daniel A. Masters P. 33
Note: Today a man “on the return of our regiment, a member of the 62nd Ohio became exhausted and threw himself on the ground, and was frozen to death before the morning.’”
**One estimate: forage consumption for Army of the Potomac’s 8,700 horses and 12k mules in September 1862 was short 261 tons per day, which is 30 train cars worth. Over 10k horses starved to death in the Rosecran’s Army of the Cumberland (out West) on Lookout Mountain & Missionary Ridge, horses that were taller than the top of men’s heads & then some, horses that required 26 pounds of feed & forage per day. It took a quarter century to replace all the killed horses. Note too that cattle starved, those Texas steers with horns six feet, tip to tip. Eventually they could no longer stand; after that, they keeled over. Imagine it. For more on horses, see 3/23, 3/28, 4/14, 4/22, 4/25, 5/2, 5/5, esp. 5/28, 6/3, 6/8, 6/12, 6/19, July 2, 3, etc.
***Today 13 out of the 110th were killed, plus 39 injured, so obviously someone fought in the 110th. As it turns out, the 110th will receive Official Recognition for their actions today: “The regiment was complimented, in a special order, for gallantry in this action” (Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. IV, page 323); “special commendation”– besides only the Medal of Honor– as it was known then– and known now– is the highest a honor soldier can receive. A Union soldier was given a Medal of Honor if he could capture a Rebel flag. 40% of all Medals of Honor were awarded (thus far) during the Civil War. 3,527 awarded up to now. And the Navy medal is described thus: “The foul spirit of secession and rebellion is represented by a male figurine in a crouching attitude holding in his hands serpents, which with forked tongues are striking at a large female figure representing the Union or Genius of our Country, who holds in her right hand a shield and in her left the fasces.” (The Medal of Honor: A History of Service Above and Beyond by the Editors of the Boston Publishing Company, P. 114) Also see: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, P. 334-409 for forty one reports from the Union side on the Battle of Kernstown. Page 346-347 for “The Return of Casualties in the Union Forces [Compiled from nominal lists of casualties, returns, &c.].” See pages 362-365 for four hand-drawn maps of the “Battle of Winchester” that look much like the one Ephraim drew of the battle today.
Note: One of 26 Black men to receive the Medal of Honor for heroics during the war was William Harvey Carney, born enslaved, via the Battle of Fort Wagner in 1863, after saving the 54th Mass. colors while severely wounded. One woman in U.S. history has ever received the medal: Mary Edwards Walker, for her work as surgeon in the Civil War, bestowed by President Andrew Johnson. Naturally, it was snatched out from under her by 1916. Tough shit; she wore it until her death in 1919, according to womenshistory.org. Her ghost hovered above till Prez Carter restored it. She worked at the front lines in VA. in 1862. Maybe she & Ephraim crossed paths.
***Again, see Waskie’s March 23 rebuttal. Note that by July, 200 will remain out of the original (1861) roughly 1,200 troops in the 11 companies of the 110th. Enoch Baker will write in September (Enoch’s letter here is in the June 18 entry) that the 110th is a specter, with 122 total men.
Note: For more on General Carroll, see May 24, June 8, 9, 13th. The men Ephraim fought with, & likely Ephraim himself, referred to themselves as “Sam Carroll’s men.”
Note: According to a number of firsthand accounts, the men tonight, having had nothing to eat or drink since early this morning, had to wait until after midnight for rations to arrive, but most were too exhausted to cook or eat. Other men were still out searching for the wounded. Colonel Tyler simply walked over to the captured Rockbridge cannon, placed a tarp over it, and fell asleep. Meantime, there weren’t even enough wagons to collect men still crying for help in the dark, dark like a total eclipse outer boundary that backs into itself, going thinner & losing its body into a specific pitch so deep black you couldn’t know it was a color until you saw it. Just send the asteroid already. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfvo-Ujb_qk
All regiments were placed in a specific “order of march” for a reason, and the reason the 110th may have been in the particular order that they were placed today (next to last in the lineup) was due to their having already been overtaxed from days prior (See 3/20, 21, 22). The shade Ecelbarger casts throughout his book on the 110th is truly puzzling, as if he has a personal vendetta. He probably reenacts in the 27th Virginia or something. Lord have mercy. Nevertheless, he deserves all credit for apparently being the only one to bother with Kernstown in detail. Plus, he’s writing another book on the Valley of 1862. That’s dedication. He runs tours via BGES there, & I’d love to go on one someday. I’m grateful for his work. Born in ’62, he’s probably never been in combat.
Note: This battle was one of the few times in the war that men had the defensive position on high ground yet lost. The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War will meet on May 22, 1862, to debate actions at Kernstown. See June 10 in this manuscript for more. The last word, however, about the 110th at Kernstown today shows up in March 27, in the dispatches, coming in 4 days here.
Note: The amplitude of all variables converge at this point: had Lincoln not diverted the troops (who were set to attack Richmond once enough men arrived from the Shenandoah Valley, men like Ephraim), the war very well would have ended. If, if, if. Because of bad intelligence all the way around, Kernstown caused the war to continue another 3 years. The confusion today was that the Northern commanders thought Jackson outnumbered them; otherwise, they figured Jackson would not have had the audacity to attack. The truth was that Jackson believed he did outnumber the North today, & that he only faced a small vulnerable detachment of Kimball’s men. And: Jackson, too, had bad intelligence. This was the law of unintended consequences & from now on, over the next several years, it will be like waiting for a fever to break. And so on & so on & so on. We know the rest but none of those men, praying to God to stay alive just one more day, did not.
Totals: Union tactical victory, Confederate strategic victory. 590 U.S. casualties, including 118 killed, 450 wounded, 22 missing or captured. Jackson’s men: 718 casualties, including 80 killed, 375 wounded, 263 missing or captured. Today, forces engaged: Kimball: 8500 with 590 casualties. Jackson: 3800 with 718 casualties.
See: https://stonesentinels.com/less-known/battles-of-kernstown/first-battle-kernstown/
https://www.shenandoahatwar.org/first-battle-of-kernstown
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/kernstown
Note: Behind a stone fence routing them made them retreat: Meantime, the wall stays. It sits on forever, those same fat & solid boulders at the intersection. If you walk out a mile across the grass, the stone wall, it’s there, it stands still & waits for you to reach it. It stands in its own stead in its own distance while you approach, complacent in its knowledge, and it waits on your arrival; it waits & waits until your feet get you there & it anticipates what you’ll say about its still being there. It’s a wonder anyone’s still standing, it’s a wonder anyone’s still here, that anyone somehow still manages to stand six feet over ground when they’re gone, all of them who stood right there, so long gone, & we are all still to get there. And yet it will stay there, it will still sit right there long after you’ve gone to it & stood there.
Go ahead: http://www.kernstownbattle.org/visitthebattlefield/hoursadmissionspolicy.html
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the dead was being thick on the ground….
Anger turns to fever starting right here at Kernstown, then works its way into the war’s soul for the duration. In an hour the whole world could be dead, & all other known universes looking out after us, & what we tried to be. Right now they’re circling that copse of woods right south of the town, trees that in a minute will lift out like matchsticks, then come back to Earth as Julienne carrots. Two black holes eating each other massing below like Vikings in blue & butternut-gray, that fast transform to airborne bits of flesh & gristle landing on a city street along with all we tried to be, the Big Bang and every black-eyed star that has not turned on yet before planets spun off into space and went their separate ways, the Earth twisting on its axis, hanging in the sky, floating, & You’re a Grand Old Flag. Put pressure on the wound. The Stars and Stripes Forever. But whatever we took ourselves to be, we’re not. We’re left with provisional versions of ourselves, landing on a Winchester street.
No one we are now is nearer than before, just in pieces.
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