Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 2.

[369] vicinity, and to repair the Manassas Gap Railway, so as to have a rapid and direct communication with the Shenandoah Valley. Accordingly, on the retirement of Jackson up the valley, he put the first division of his corps in motion for Centreville, under General Williams, leaving only the division of Shields and some Michigan cavalry in Winchester.

Spies informed Jackson of the weakening of Banks's army in the Valley, and he immediately moved down to attack him at Winchester. General Shields, who was in immediate command there, had a force of about six thousand infantry, seven hundred and fifty cavalry, and twenty-four guns, well posted on a ridge, so as to cover the roads entering Winchester from the south. This position was about half a mile north of the village of Kernstown, and two and a half south of Winchester.

Toward the evening of the 22d of March, Ashby's cavalry drove in Shields's pickets, when the latter moved a small force to oppose the assailants. While directing it in person, his arm was shattered above his elbow by the fragments of a shell, which also wounded his side. He was prostrated, but was able to make dispositions for a vigorous encounter with his foe the next day.¹ Under cover of the night he pushed forward the brigade of Colonel Kimball, of the Fourteenth Indiana, to Kernstown, supported by Daum's artillery, well posted. Colonel Sullivan's brigade was placed within supporting distance, as a reserve in Kimball's rear. In that order the troops reposed until morning, when a reconnoissance obtained no positive information of any Confederate force immediately in front, excepting Ashby's cavalry, General Banks believed General Jackson to be too weak or too prudent, to attack Shields, and at ten o'clock that morning

March 22, 1862.

he departed for Washington City by way of Harper's Ferry, in obedience to a a summons from Headquarters, leaving his staff-officers to start for Centreville in the afternoon. He was soon made to retrace his steps by the sounds of battle in his rear.

At the time when the National scouts saw nothing but Ashby's cavalry, Jackson's whole force was strongly posted in battle order, with artillery on each flank, in an eligible situation half a mile south of Kernstown, completely masked by woods, which were filled with his skirmishers; and within an hour after Banks left Winchester, Confederate cannon opened upon Kimball. Sullivan's brigade was immediately ordered forward to Kimball's support, and a severe action was commenced by artillery on both sides, but at too great distance to be very effective.

Jackson now took the initiative, and, with a considerable force of all arms, attempted to turn Kimball's left flank, when an active body of skirmishers, under Colonel Carroll, composed of his regiment (the Eighth Ohio) and three companies of the Sixty-seventh Ohio, were thrown forward on both sides of the Valley Turnpike, to oppose the movement. These were supported by four guns of Jenks's artillery. The Confederates were repulsed at all points, and Jackson abandoned his designs upon the National left, massed a heavy force on their right, and sent two additional batteries and his reserves to support