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| Bridge near Strasburg.1 |
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| Sheridan's. Headquarters at Kernstown.2 |
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[371]
General Wright, as we have seen, had already brought order out of confusion, and had made disposition for an advance upon the foe. Sheridan approved his arrangements, and at about three o'clock gave the order, “The entire line will advance.
The Nineteenth Corps will move in connection with the Sixth.
The right of the Nineteenth will swing toward the left, so as to drive the enemy upon the pike.”
It was followed by an immediate forward movement.
Already, at one o'clock, Emory had quickly repulsed an attack, which inspirited the whole army.
Now a general and severe struggle ensued.
The first line of the Confederates was soon driven.
Then Early opened his cannon up on the new positions They were checked for a moment, when two most gallant charges by Emory's corps, and by the cavalry coming down upon both flanks, sent the Confederates in hot haste up the valley pike.
It was a perfect rout.
In great disorder,
pressing close upon each other's heels the fugitives fled through Middletown and Strasburg to Fisher's Hill leaving the highway strewn with abandoned hinderances to speedy flight.
As they pressed along the narrower dirt road beyond Strasburg, the way became clogged by masses of men, wagons, cannon, and caissons; and at a little bridge over a small stream in a deep channel, Early, hard pressed, felt compelled to abandon his guns and train.
With the remnant of his ruined army he escaped to Fisher's Hill.
That army was virtually destroyed; and, with the exception of two or three skirmishes between — cavalry, there was no more fighting.
in the Shenandoah Valley.
That night
1 this is a view of the bridge, half a mile from Strasburg, where Early lost his artillery Sheridan's sharp-shooters killed the artillery horses, which fell oil the bridge and clogged the way. The little clear stream comes out of the base of a Hill near by. A little beyond it is seen Fisher's Hill, and in the far distance a peak of the Massanutten range.
2 this house was also the Headquarters of General Shields, and to it he was taken when he was wounded on the 22d of March, 1862. see page 369, volume II. Shields was wounded on a ridge a little to the northwest of the house.
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