Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 5.
Frank Moore, Ed.

[36] supported in a degree also by a six-pounder of Johnson's battery, which Gen. Milroy had succeeded in conveying to the top of one of the mountain ridges on his left.

The movement resulted in a very sharp encounter with the rebels, of which details are given in the accompanying reports. To these reports I refer. I will only add, by way of general summing up, that, adding to the one thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight of Milroy's brigade, about five hundred of the Eighty-second Ohio, which was their number in the action, the entire force we had engaged was two thousand two hundred and sixty-eight; that these were opposed to, I believe, not less than five thousand of the enemy, successively brought into action, besides their reserved force of some eight thousand in the rear.

That the casualties on our part amounted in the aggregate to twenty-eight killed, eighty severely wounded, one hundred and forty-five slightly wounded and three missing, making a total of two hundred and fifty-six.

As the enemy closed in and it was ascertained that from the unexpected severity and protraction of the fight, the ammunition of some of the regiments was almost completely exhausted, I endeavored to get up a supply of cartridges to the men, and had three wagon-loads taken some distance up the Staunton road for that purpose, but the only way it could reach them up the steep mountain side was to be carried by hand or in haversacks. I ordered up the road also the regiment of Virginia infantry, Col. Zeigler commanding, of my brigade, to the relief of the other troops if needed, and they went, promptly and actively moved to the field, but it was not necessary to bring them into the action.

The troops that were engaged, after fighting with a coolness and order and bravery which it is impossible to excel, and after pressing back the enemy over the mountain crest and maintaining unflinchingly and under the most galling and constant fire their ground until darkness set in, were now withdrawn under the immediate order of Col. McLean of the Seventy-fifth, leaving, as I believe, not a person behind, for the three men reported missing are supposed to be among the killed.

We took four prisoners of the enemy. His loss in killed is thought by all engaged to have much exceeded ours. From the prisoners since taken I have ascertained that his killed on the field was less than thirty, and his wounded very numerous. Among the rebels wounded I learn was General Johnson himself, and at least one of his field-officers. The colonel of a Virginia regiment is known to be among the slain.

Too much praise cannot be awarded to Gen. Milroy himself, to Colonel McLean, Seventy-fifth Ohio; Col. Cantwell, Eighty-second Ohio; Lieut.-Col. Richardson, commanding the Twenty-fifth Ohio; Major Riley, Seventy-fifth Ohio, and the officers and men of their several commands, for their steady gallantry and courage manifested throughout the whole affair. No veteran troops I am sure, ever acquitted themselves with more ardor, and yet with such order and coolness, as they displayed in marching and fighting up that steep mountain-side, in the face of a hot and incessant fire. From McDowell I fell back by easy marches, on the ninth, tenth, and eleventh, to this place, the enemy cautiously pursuing. On a commanding ridge of ground, thirteen miles from McDowell, at the intersection of the road at that place with the turnpike to Monterey, I stopped from eight A. M. to two P. M., on the ninth, and made my dispositions to receive and repulse the attack of the rebels, who appeared in our rear, but they declined the undertaking. While awaiting the arrival of the General Commanding, with reinforcements, at this point, on the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth, the rebel army having advanced to within two miles of our position, we were kept constantly engaged in watchful preparation for an expected attack. I had my batteries and other forces so disposed, as to feel confident of repelling any attack. But we had no collision, except some skirmishing with my pickets and portions of the infantry advanced on the range of hills to my right, as I confronted the enemy's approach, and which resulted only in the loss of two men, one of the Fifth Virginia regiment on the eleventh, and one of the Third regiment Potomac home brigade, on the twelfth, on our side, and four or five of the enemy killed by our shells. The approaches were so guarded as to prevent the enemy from getting his artillery into any commanding position, and on the night of the thirteenth he withdrew back along the turnpike road to the southward.

I am, very respectfully, your ob't servant,

General: I have the honor to submit to you a report of the battle of “Bull Mountain,” which occurred on the eighth instant, near McDowell. This report would have been sooner made, but for the constant duty upon which I have been engaged up to last night. This has rendered it impossible, until the present moment, for me to devote any time to this report, and is my excuse for the delay.

Under your orders, on the afternoon of the eighth instant, I marched to attack the confederate forces then in position on the top of Bull Mountain, having under my command seven companies of my own regiment, the Seventy-fifth Ohio, and nine companies of the Twenty-fifth Ohio, commanded by Lieut.-Col. Richardson. The remaining three companies and a part of the seven of the Seventy-fifth Ohio were, at the time the order was received, separated from the regiment by your previous orders during the day, and had been engaged in skirmishing with the advance of the enemy, so that I had not the benefit of their strength in the battle. The companies of my own regiment engaged, with the numbers present of each, were as follows: