George H. Gordon, From Brook Farm to Cedar Mountain

[203] his column to what he calls “this episode ;” for had the enemy “vigorously attacked the train,” he says, “while at the head of the column, it would have been thrown into such dire confusion as to have made the successful continuation of our march impossible.” Undoubtedly! But why did not the enemy “vigorously attack the train?” Simply because the small force of cavalry which Banks met was the Rebel General George H. Steuart's Second and Sixth Virginia cavalry, which, having destroyed the ambulancetrain at Newtown, had been up the road towards Middletown, and was watching the route from the woods on the right where Donelly's skirmishers found them.

There were, no doubt, “four thousand men in the woods beyond,” but they were many miles beyond. It was Ewell's force, consisting, as stated, of Trimble's brigade and the First Maryland Regiment, with two batteries. If this column moved at daylight, as ordered, it had made, between ten and eleven A. M., eleven miles at least, and would have reached the toll-gate on the Front Royal road to Winchester, opposite Newtown and about five miles from it. Ewell was hurrying forward to Winchester to cut off our retreat from that place, as well as to capture all the public property there; and for this he was using the utmost expedition, and had no time to make cross-cut diversions with his infantry over to the pike from Strasburg to Winchester, and he did not make any; nor had any one but Steuart, with his small cavalry force,--for I shall show, that, until after dark on that night, the road was open from Newtown to Winchester.

After Donelly's affair with Steuart's cavalry, the latter were heard of no more that day. As Steuart was attached to Ewell's force, ¹ it is more than probable that he joined