Company B.
Company B was first upon the enemy, and charged most gallantly right through their lines, breaking them and throwing them into confusion.
This company was supported by Company E from the left, and Companies K and A on the right.
The enemy was driven from this position, but soon reformed in an orchard on the right of the turnpike, where these companies again charged and put them to complete route.
When the charge was commenced, their cavalry took to flight.
The two pieces of artillery were abandoned and taken, and nearly the entire infantry force taken prisoners.
Company D, Captain Richards, and Company I, Captain Row, came up in time to engage in the pursuit.
The other companies of the 6th and 2d Regiments were prevented from coming in time to take part on account of the difficulty in crossing the bridge, which alone prevented their taking the most active part in the fight.
The officers and men engaged acted with the greatest intrepidity and courage, executing every order with promptness, and gained a complete victory over the enemy.
In his report of the fight at Winchester, after referring to the absence of the cavalry under Generals Ashby and George H. Steuart, and the failure of the latter to pursue the enemy promptly when ordered to do so, on the ground that the order did not come through General Ewell, under whose immediate command he was, General Jackson says:
There is good reason for believing that, had the cavalry played its part in this pursuit as well as the four companies under Colonel Flournoy two days before in the pursuit from Front Royal, but a small portion of Banks' army would have made its escape to the Potomac.
The reports of some of the subordinate Federal officers engaged in this fight are somewhat amusing, inasmuch as they estimate one attacking force all the way from 3,000 to 10,000 men, and one even says that we attacked then with these overwhelming numbers, carrying a black flag, and giving no quarter—this in the face of the fact that no one ever saw a black flag in
Virginia during the war, and of the further fact that we took alive about 700 prisoners, which shows
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under what mental and optical delusion some people may labor during the excitement of such an occurrence, or else, what deliberate lying they will do in order to make their own part in the affair appear as great as possible.
This article has been written simply in vindication of historical truth, and in justice to the heroic dead and of the living, as well.
In further verification of the foregoing, I refer to
Judge Grimsley, of
Culpeper, Va., and
Colonel R. H. Dulany, Welbourne, Va.
