George H. Gordon, From Brook Farm to Cedar Mountain

1 [223] and on his flanks. In this manner Colonel Andrews reached Kernstown, two and a half miles from Winchester, without further molestation. Here he determined to convey his wounded no further on gun-carriages, but await the arrival of the ambulances. And here again the regiment was overtaken by the enemy.

The rear-guard was, as it had been, under command of Major Dwight, the remainder of the regiment in column in the road, and the wounded just transported into a brick house to be used as a hospital. Impatient at the delay, I returned to Kernstown with a single orderly, and came up to our regiment at about one o'clock at night. Rather a severe skirmish was then going on between Captain Underwood's company and the enemy. The darkness of the night concealed the foe, while our column, formed in the middle of the road, offered a good mark. As the enemy approached he was greeted with a warm fire upon his right, left, and front, from the rifles of the Second.¹

The halt here was short, as delay was dangerous. To wait longer for ambulances would have been folly, so the march was resumed; but we were obliged to leave our wounded in the hands of the enemy, and with them Dr. Leland, surgeon of the Second. The remaining two and a half miles to the outskirts of Winchester were made without molestation. It was two o'clock in the morning of the twenty-fifth of May when, with the other regiments of my command, the Second sank down to rest just outside the town. Our loss during the night had been three killed and seventeen wounded, in the Second Massachusetts alone. Without fires and without food, or so little that it

2 We have, in the histories we have quoted, strong admissions of the plucky fight made here by our regiment, in that we attacked Jackson with great gallantry, our fire appearing dancing along the top of the walls (stonewalls), accompanied by the sharp explosion of the rifles and the bullets whistling up the road. See Dabney's Life of Jackson, p. 102.