Monday, June 11, 2012

June 9, 1862


June 9, 1862:  

Battle of Port Republic
Virginia
Shenandoah Valley Campaign


Port Republic itself lies in the junction of the North and South Rivers, which combine to form the South Fork of the Shenandoah River; the bridges run through the town.  The Union brigades of Samuel Carroll and Erastus Tyler are advancing to threaten the crossings.  The rest of Shields’ division is still strung out along the road from the Luray Valley.  Jackson proposes to strike before Shields can bring up the rest of his division.  After blunting Fremont’s intended advance at Cross Keys yesterday, Gen. Richard Ewell hustles his division five miles south to Port Republic, where Gen. Jackson has the rivers to help him keep Gen. Shields’ eager Federals at bay.  Trimble’s brigade and part of Patton’s brigade are left at Cross Keys to keep an eye on Fremont, while Jackson moves Winder’s Stonewall Brigade across the South River to prepare to take on the Federals.  At about 5 A.M., Winder forms a line of battle, and sends two regiments to the far right to contest the Union left flank anchored on The Coaling, a steep hill where the Federals have posted their artillery.  Jackson is surprised to find the Federals so close, but orders forward the attack anyway.  To the rear, Richard Taylor’s brigade has arrived and crossed the river, but lacks orders.  He finally moves his men forward as he hears the artillery.  Jackson throws Taylor in on the right to find a way to the Coaling.  Winder orders his brigade forward in a charge: within 200 yards of the Union line, the Stonewall Brigade uses rail fence for cover and begins a torrid rifle firefight with Carroll’s brigade.  After suffering big losses, Winder pulls his brigade back in retreat half a mile, short on ammunition.  Jackson orders Trimble and Patton to leave Cross Keys, march down, cross the bridges, and burn them.  Then Gen. Ewell arrives with several regiments, and moves them to the right, following Taylor. 


Battle of Port Republic
As Carroll’s Yankees advance to follow up Winder’s retreat, Ewell wheels his troops sharply left, and strikes Carroll in the flank as he goes by.  The Union attack collapses, and Carroll retreats.  Meanwhile, Taylor has finally found a way through the heavy foliage to deploy his brigade to attack the Coaling.  He pushes his regiments up the hill, where they drive Tyler’s troops off the hill and capture 5 Union cannon.  Tyler rallies his bluecoats and attempts to re-take the hill.  The Federals take the summit in hand-to-hand fighting, but Taylor sends a regiment to the right to flank the Federals, and the Rebels turn the 5 guns on the Yankees.  Gen. Ewell shows up with several reserve regiments from Walker’s brigade to bolster Taylor, and they press the attack, driving the bluecoats off the hill.  Then Winder launches another attack, reinforced by all the reserves Jackson can put in.  Taliaferro’s brigade arrives, and presses forward to aid Winder, and pursues the Federals, now in full retreat, capturing several hundred prisoners.  As Fremont arrives on the north side of the river, he cannot cross and cannot do more than annoy the Confederates with his artillery.  The fighting is mostly over by 12 noon.




Confederate Victory.
Losses:          Killed         Wounded         Missing & Captured              


Union                67               361                     574


Confederate    88              535                     34

---Private George Michael Neese, a Confederate artilleryman with Chew’s Battery, gives his account of the battle:
When we arrived in sight of the field and smelled the battle smoke one of Jackson’s aids came dashing from the front with a ready and prompt inquiry, “Whose battery is this?” “Chew’s,” was the quick response. “Have you plenty of ammunition?” The last question was answered in the affirmative, and the fleeting courier said, “Hurry to the front, captain.” “Forward, double quick!” was the ringing command of our calm but gallant captain, and in a very few moments after we wheeled in battery on the battle-field, under a raking fire from the eight-gun battery strongly posted on the coaling against the mountain side, and with perfect command of the field we were in.

The fire of that battery was terrible for a while. However, we held our ground and opened on the coaling with all our guns, with the utmost endeavor to give the enemy the best work we had in the shop. Some of Jackson’s batteries were in the same field with us, and were firing on the coaling battery. The air trembled with a continual roll of musketry and the thunder of the artillery shook the ground. . . . The shell from the battery on the coaling was ripping the ground open all around us, and the air was full of screaming fragments of exploding shell, and I thought I was a goner.

After we had been under this dreadful fire about thirty minutes I heard a mighty shout on the mountain side in close proximity to the coaling, and in a few minutes after I saw General Dick Taylor’s Louisianians debouching from the undergrowth, and like a wave crested with shining steel rush toward the fatal coaling and deadly battery with fixed bayonets, giving the Rebel yell like mad demons. The crest of the coaling was one sheet of fire as the Federal batteries poured round after round of grape and canister into the faces of the charging Louisianians. Yet the undaunted Southerners refused to be checked by the death and carnage in their ranks . . .
Taylor's Louisiana Brigade attacks the Coaling
by Rocco
The Federals held to the coaling with bulldog tenacity, fighting like fiends, recognizing the fact that the point they were so gallantly defending was an all-important one, as it was the citadel of strength in Shields’s line and the key to his position. But the firm and unwavering courage and invincible prowess of Taylor’s Louisianians made them as persistent and obdurate in gaining and demanding, at the point of the bayonet, full possession . . . and for a while the hand-to-hand conflict raged frightfully, resembling more the onslaught of maddened savages than the fighting of civilized men. . . . then Northern valor began to succumb to Southern courage. The Federals wavered, sullenly gave back, and finally broke and retreated hastily, abandoning the batteries for which they had fought so valiantly, and left them in full and undisputed possession of the Confederates. . . .


Soon after the coaling battery was wrested from the Federals Shields’s whole line began to give back, and his army retreated in an almost routed fashion. We pursued them about five miles down the river. The track of the retiring foe was strewn with the accouterments of a discomfited army. Guns, knapsacks, overcoats, haversacks, and canteens were scattered all along the road.  . . . This morning the butchering had commenced some time before we reached the shambles, and in going toward the field we passed a farmhouse that had been converted into an operating field hospital; dissecting room would be a more appropriate name, for as we passed the house I saw a subject on the kitchen table, on whom the surgeons were practicing their skillful severing operations. They tossed a man’s foot out of the window just as we passed.


The star of Stonewall Jackson’s fame as a brilliant strategist is growing brighter day by day. It has already won a worthy setting in the dazzling galaxy that flashes with martial splendor around the hero of Austerlitz. In the last month he, by quick and strategic movements, forced marches, deceptive maneuvering, and effectual fighting, has defeated and discomfited four Yankee generals — Milroy at McDowell, Banks at Winchester,— which was a perfect rout that landed Banks in Maryland and cast a tremor of fear over the Department of War at Washington — Fremont at Cross Keys; and to-day Shields, the ablest and most skillful of the four, was struck by lightning that flashed from the little faded cap, on the field at Port Republic.


Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson

---Lt. Charles Wright Wills of the Union army writes in his journal of his experiences in occupied territory in and around Corinth, Mississippi.  One story involves the courting customs of the locals:
At 12 m. we drew rein 25 miles from Corinth at Iuka.

There are a couple of splendid springs in Iuka. One chalybeate, and the other sulphur water, and the town is the neatest I have seen in the country. Snuff-dipping is an universal custom here, and there are only two women in all Iuka that do not practice it. At tea parties, after they have supped, the sticks and snuff are passed round and the dipping commences. Sometimes girls ask their beaux to take a dip with them during a spark. I asked one if it didn’t interfere with the old-fashioned habit of kissing. She assured me that it did not in the least, and I marveled. . . . We celebrated the capture of Richmond on the 4th, but are now trying to forget that we made such fools of ourselves. Damn the telegraphs. We have awful news from Richmond to-day. It would make me sick to write it. I would rather have the army whipped than McClellan.

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