The Annals of the Civil War Written by Leading Participants North and South
Alexander Kelly McClure, Ed.

The battle which had taken place upon the further bank of the river was wholly at an end. A single brigade, in fact, two, sent forward by General Shields had been simply cut to pieces. Colonel Carroll had failed to burn the bridge. Jackson, hastening across, had fallen upon the inferior force, and the result was before us. Of the bridge nothing remained but the charred and smoking timbers. Beyond, at the edge of the woods, a body of the enemy's troops was in position, and a baggage train was disappearing in a pass among the hills. Parties gathering the dead and wounded, together with a line of prisoners awaiting the movement of the rebel force near by, was all, in respect to troops, of either side now to be seen.

Thus the day ended with the complete defeat of the two brigades under Tyler. Gallant and determined had been their resistance, and Jackson's impetuosity had made his victory more difficult than it otherwise would have been. In sending in Winder's Brigade before its supports arrived, he had hurled this body of troops against more than twice their number. Taylor next attacked, but the repulse of Winder enabled the Federal commander to concentrate his forces against Taylor, and drive him from the battery he had taken. It was then that Jackson renewed the attack with the combined forces of three brigades, and speedily forced the enemy from the field. The Confederate trains had been moved in the course of the day across South river toward Brown's gap, and during the afternoon and night the Confederates returned from the battle-field and pursuit, to camp at the foot of this mountain pass. It was midnight before some of them lay down in the rain to rest. This double victory ended the pursuit of Jackson. Fremont, on the next morning, began to retreat, and retired sixty miles to Strasburg. Shields, so soon as his broken brigades rejoined him, retreated to Front Royal, and was there transferred to Manassas.

The battles of Cross Keys and Port Republic closed the Valley campaign of 1862. Just three months had passed since Jackson, with about four thousand troops badly armed and equipped, had fallen back from Winchester before the advance of Banks, with twenty-five thousand men. So feeble seemed his force, and so powerless for offense, that when it had been pushed forty miles to the rear, Banks began to send his force toward Manassas to execute his part of “covering the Federal capital” in McClellan's great campaign. While a large part of the Federal troops is on the march out of the Valley, and their commander is himself en route from Winchester to Washington, Jackson, hastening from his resting place, by a forced march, appears most unexpectedly at Kernstown, and hurls his little army with incredible force and fury against the part of Banks' army which is yet behind. He is mistaken as to the number of the enemy. Three thousand men, worn by a forced march, are not able to defeat the seven thousand of Shields. After a fierce struggle he suffers a