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of the Sixth and Nineteenth corps; the works were everywhere carried, and the rout of the enemy was complete.
Many of the rebels threw down their arms, abandoning their artillery.
Sixteen guns and eleven hundred prisoners fell into the national hands, and Early reported two hundred and forty killed and wounded in the infantry and artillery.
Sheridan lost less than a thousand men.1 It was dark before the battle ended, but the rebels continued their flight through Woodstock, and as far as Narrow Passage, a gorge in the Blue Ridge.
Sheridan pursued them during the night, only halting at Woodstock, to rest his men and issue rations.
On the 23rd, he drove the enemy to Mount Jackson, and found the country and small towns filled with their wounded; on the 24th, he followed Early to a point six miles beyond Newmarket, but without being able to bring on an engagement.
The rebels moved fast, and Torbert had not arrived with the cavalry in time to check them.
He had been detained at a gorge in the mountains,
1 Sheridan's return shows 85 killed, 677 wounded, and 9 missing, but this does not include the losses in Crook's command or the cavalry. Early wrote to Lee on October 9th: ‘The loss in the infantry and artillery was 30 killed, 210 wounded, and 995 missing; total, 1,235. I have been able to get no report of the loss in the cavalry, but it was slight.’ If this is true, the demoralization of the rebels must have been extreme: for an army of the size of Early's to yield after a loss of only 240 killed and wounded is disgraceful beyond anything in the war. Beaten commanders, however, are often willing to sacrifice the reputation of their troops in order to save their own; and in this instance it is possible that Early's soldiers made a more gallant defence than their general describes.
New York Appleton 1885.
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