Chapter 16:
- Battle at Opequon Creek -- death of Gen. Rhodes -- death of Gen. Russell -- pursuit of Early -- battle of Fisher's Hill -- roster and Mount Crawford
Opequon Creek rises five or six miles south of Winchester, and flows northeast from three to four miles east of the. city, into the Potomac. Beside the three fords, to which we have alluded in a previous chapter, there were several nearer the mouth, notably one near Summit Point. There, Torbert was to cross, early on the 19th, and form a junction of Merritt's and Averill's cavalry, near Stephenson's Depot, on the Winchester division of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, north of east from Winchester. Wilson's cavalry, on this morning, was to move across the creek by the Berryville pike; the road thence for a couple of miles passes through a wild gorge called Berryville Cañon. Through this, Wilson's cavalry was to charge, to clear the way for the Sixth and Nineteenth Corps. The Eighth Corps was to approach this crossing and take position in reserve. The Opequon receives two tributaries from the west, one flowing a mile south of Winchester,—Abraham's Creek; the other, Red Bud Run, about the same distance north of the town. Between these branches of the Opequon, on its west side, two miles from the town, commenced the battle of the 19th of September. The Sixth Corps was astir by two o'clock; it moved along Berryville pike, the infantry on either side, the artillery following the road. Two miles from the crossing, which is near the mouth of Abraham's Creek, we passed the Nineteenth Corps; the head of its column was halted by Gen. Wright, to whom its commander had been ordered to report. The Sixth Corps, reaching the earthwork across the creek, which Wilson's cavalry had captured and occupied early in the morning, about two miles from Winchester, was formed in line, the Third Division on the north side of the
