Following the Battle of Kernstown on March 23rd, 1862, Confederate Major General Thomas
J. “Stonewall” Jackson retreats with his Valley District to Mount Jackson further down
the Shenandoah Valley.
Union Major General Nathaniel P. Banks, with his Department of the Shenandoah reinforced
significantly, pursues Jackson deeper into the Valley, determined to destroy his forces
in another pitched battle.
By mid-April, with mounting pressure from Banks’ approaching army, Jackson continues
his withdraw through the Middle Valley region.
He soon establishes his camps at Swift Run Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Meanwhile, Banks moves south to Harrisonburg, where he will remain until early May.
Stonewall Jackson’s challenge now is to hold the entire Shenandoah Valley for the
Confederacy.
He must carry out his given task to prevent Union Army forces then stationed in the Valley
and in Western Virginia from moving east to support Major General George B. McClellan’s
campaign against Richmond.
Of immediate concern to Jackson is the possibility that Banks will link up with troops in the
newly-created Mountain Department, commanded by Major General John C. Frémont.
The vanguard of Frémont’s command, Brigadier General Robert H. Milroy’s Brigade, is already
pushing east towards Staunton, an important rail and supply center for the Confederacy.
On April 29th, Jackson telegraphs General Robert E. Lee, military advisor to Confederate
President Jefferson Davis in Richmond, laying out three different plans for dealing with
the Union threat: unite with Brigadier General Edward “Allegheny” Johnson’s command
known as the Army of the Northwest, located west of Staunton, and strike Milroy; join
forces with Major General Richard Stoddart Ewell’s Division - over 8,000 strong and
already moving towards the Valley from the Rappahannock River around Culpeper to reinforce
Jackson - and head north in the Valley, taking on Banks’s Federals; or link up with Ewell
and move up the eastern side of the Blue Ridge Mountains, threatening General Banks’ line
of communication.
General Lee allows the final decision to fall upon Jackson as to which plan to adopt, and
Jackson chooses the first: unite with Allegheny Johnson and move against Milroy.
The next day, April 30th, as Ewell’s Division is approaching Swift Run Gap, Jackson leads
his command south, then east, across the Blue Ridge, to Mechum’s Station, a stop on the
Virginia Central Railroad and not too far from Charlottesville, Virginia.
To Major General Banks, this shows that Jackson is leaving the Shenandoah Valley - and the
Union general reports it as such to Washington, D.C.
But Jackson’s move is a clever ruse.
Once at Mechum’s, the bulk of Jackson’s force boards railroad cars and returns to
Staunton in the Valley.
Part of Jackson’s command has to march, but by May 5th, Jackson has all of his troops
in Staunton.
Believing Major General Jackson to be gone from the Shenandoah Valley, the authorities
in Washington order Banks to withdraw down the Valley, to Strasburg, and to send the
division commanded by Brigadier General James Shields back east.
On May 7th, Jackson, now numbering some 11,600 after joining forces with Johnson, starts
moving west on the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike.
As Jackson’s column marches, there is some skirmishing with Milroy’s outposts, but
in the late morning of May 8th, Jackson reaches the outskirts of McDowell.
Around noon Jackson, Johnson, Jedidiah Hotchkiss - Jackson’s cartographer who has surveyed
much of the Valley and provided Stonewall with excellently-drawn maps of the region
- and a small number of Confederate infantry, scale Sitlington’s Hill, an elevation that
rises nearly 600 feet above the level plain below and dominates the immediate area.
While reconnoitering Milroy’s camps in and around McDowell a mile distant, Stonewall
Jackson determines that he will attack the Federals the next day.
But Milroy beats him to the punch.
Realizing that he is outnumbered, Milroy convinces Brigadier General Robert Schenck, whose brigade
arrives at mid-morning - with Schenck’s men, Milroy could count perhaps 4,500 troops
- that the best defense is a “spoiling attack”: attack the Confederates, catching them off-guard,
then retreat after dark.
Milroy is also concerned with reports that Confederate artillery is being positioned
on Sitlington’s Hill; from there, enemy cannon could easily hit the Federal camps
in McDowell.
At 4:30 PM on May 8th, 1862, the Battle of McDowell, also known as the Battle of Sitlington’s
Hill, begins when five Union regiments - some 2,500 infantry supported by artillery - move
out from McDowell to attack the Confederates posted on Sitlington’s Hill.
They cross the Bullpasture River and begin marching up Sitlington’s Hill in brigade
line of battle.
The job is not an easy one to carry out.
Colonel Nathaniel C. McLean, commander of the 75th Ohio and in charge of the Federal
attack, remembered that the “side of the mountain up which I was compelled to attack
was entirely destitute of protection, either from trees or rocks, and so steep that the
men were at times compelled to march either to one side or the other in order to make
the assault.”
For many Union and Confederate soldiers at McDowell, this is their introduction to battle,
and probably would have echoed Colonel George H. Smith of the 25th Virginia Infantry, who
writes afterwards that “this was my first fight, and I hardly knew what to do.”
Despite the lack of experience, the Battle of McDowell sees intense combat, starting
before 6:00 PM, and lasting well after dark.
One participant recalled that the “sheets of flame shot from the angry mouths of the
guns, lighting up the whole side.”
Although the Confederates are defending, they actually suffer higher casualties.
This is primarily due to several factors: for one, the sun sets in the west, behind
the Union lines, and so the Confederates are silhouetted against the clear sky to the east.
Next, because Confederates stand above their Union foe, they tend to overshoot; and finally,
most of the Federal infantry are armed with rifled muskets, while many Confederates are
still armed with smoothbores.
One Confederate regiment, the 12th Georgia Infantry, takes especially high casualties.
During the action on Sitlington’s Hill, the 12th Georgia takes position on the left
center of the Confederate line on the hilltop.
There they occupy a ridge spur that requires the regiment to form like an inverted ‘V’.
This position, exposed to the enemy from three sides, is one reason the Georgians suffer
such high casualties.
But there are other reasons.
The 12th Georgia’s ranks are using .69 caliber smoothbore guns - mainly outdated Mexican
War-era Springfield Model 1842 muskets whose effective range is little more than 100 yards
- about as far away as the Federals stand - while their opponents, the 75th Ohio, are
using rifled muskets such as the newly-developed Springfield Model 1861, with much greater
range and accuracy using ammunition in the form of Minié balls.
Also, as evening falls over the battlefield, the Georgians find themselves silhouetted
against a clear sky to the east, making them fine targets.
Finally, as losses mount, the 12th Georgia’s officers order their men to pull back to a
less exposed position; the men refuse, and the next day, one member of the regiment explains
that, “we did not come all the way to Virginia to run before Yankees.”
Their bravery costs them dearly.
Entering the battle with 540 in the ranks, the 12th Georgia sees 52 killed and 123 wounded,
a loss of nearly 35 percent.
Action along the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike also sees the Union 3rd West Virginia Infantry
face skirmishers from the 31st Virginia.
Some members from both regiments had been recruited in Clarksburg - where “Stonewall”
Jackson was born - so while exchanging volleys, they also call out their former neighbors
by name.
The fighting continues after dark, but close to 9:00 PM, as Union soldiers begin to run
low on ammunition, General Milroy orders his men to withdraw.
They pull back into McDowell, bringing as many of their wounded with them as they can,
and before 2:00 AM on May 9th, the Federals begin a retreat to Franklin, Virginia.
Jackson moves into the village of McDowell the next morning, assigning to the Virginia
Military Institute cadets, who were present at the battle but had not taken part in the
fighting, the unpleasant task of burying the dead and dealing with the wounded.
Union casualties at McDowell number 256, while the Confederates suffer 532.
Of that number, the 12th Georgia Infantry alone loses 175 men.
On the morning of May 9th, Jackson sends news to Richmond, writing, “God blessed our arms
with victory at McDowell yesterday.”
This victory is received with great jubilation, for the Confederacy had experienced numerous
setbacks that spring: a Union blockade that is starting to take effect; the loss of Island
Number Ten and New Orleans along the Mississippi River; the defeat at Shiloh; and McClellan’s
Army of the Potomac inching its way up towards Richmond.
Jackson’s victory at McDowell does much to raise Southern morale; it also stops the
Federal advance into the Upper Shenandoah Valley, and to Staunton.
The next day, May 10th, Jackson begins his pursuit of the Union forces, following them
to Franklin.
Satisfied that they have been dealt with for the time being, Jackson turns back to McDowell,
and then to Staunton.
Now Jackson could turn his attention to Major General Banks, and that is exactly what he
would do.