Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 10.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[257] it cleared away we heard Jackson's column, which had come down the Valley pike, attacking and we at once reopened. In half an hour the fight was over and the enemy had retreated through the town. At Bolivar heights, between Charlestown and Harper's Ferry, the First Maryland regiment had a brilliant affair — drove three Yankee regiments off the heights, took and held them.

Near Strasburg, on the retreat, the division was partially engaged in a skirmish, that proved to be of very little consequence. That night the cavalry rear guard, being suddenly attacked by the enemy, got stampeded, and it and the artillery (Baltimore battery) came near running over the Louisiana brigade — so the brigade said. Fifteen or twenty cavalrymen were reported captured.

Near Harrisonburg the Fifty-eighth Virginia (then very small — not two hundred men) got engaged with the Pennsylvania “Buck-Tail Rifles,” and had their hands full till the First Maryland came to their help. The fight lasted only half an hour. Our loss was seventy-five, that of the enemy nearer one hundred and fifty. Ashby was killed ten steps in front of the line of the Fifty-eighth Virginia trying to induce them to charge. His horse was killed under him, and he had scarcely disengaged himself and started forward when he, too, was killed, shot directly through the body — some insisted from behind, but I think not, from what I could learn.

At Cross Keys, on Sunday, June 8th, 1862, only Elzey's, Trimble's, and Stuart's brigades were engaged. General Jackson, before leaving for Port Republic in the morning, had ordered General Ewell to send “his best brigade” to report at the bridge there to him. The Louisiana brigade was the largest, and accordingly it was the one sent. It was sent back by General Jackson after reaching the bridge and got upon the field in time to be under an artillery fire, but not to aid in the result of the day. Here General Elzey and General Steuart were both wounded — Elzey slightly. He came on duty again in a week. Steuart is still disabled — he was struck by a grape-shot or cannister in the muscles of the neck and back. The ball was cut out two months after he was wounded. Colonel Posey (Sixteenth Mississippi) was wounded — not dangerously. At Port Republic, next day, Elzey's brigade, under Colonel Walker, and Trimble's brigade were not engaged. Steuart's brigade, under Colonel W. C. Scott, was in the fight, and the Forty-fourth and Fifty-eighth Virginia especially contributed to the success of the day, the fortunes of which, however, were turned by the Louisiana brigade in a charge, by which the enemy were driven back and six guns captured. At this time the two brigades of General