Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/267

Rh Banks, with 12, 600 men in the field, including Shields' division, and 10,500 on post duty, occupied Winchester and Strasburg. Ashby soon reported the evacuation of Strasburg, and Jackson, fearing that Banks would leave the territory, promptly attacked him at Kernstown, where he was repulsed by superior numbers. Retreating to Swift Run gap, he was reinforced by Ewell's division, while Banks pushed up the Shenandoah valley to Harrisonburg. Meanwhile Gen. Edward Johnson's army of the Northwest had withdrawn from Alleghany mountain to Valley Mills, Augusta county, and Milroy advanced to Monterey and thence to McDowell, where he was reinforced by Schenck. The army of the Northwest, backed by Jackson, occupied Bull Pasture mountain and repulsed two assaults by Milroy, who then retreated to Franklin, Pendleton county, while Jackson moved northward to assail Banks.

This battle of McDowell is of special interest to West Virginia soldiers. General Johnson, commander of the army of the Northwest, had command of the troops engaged in the fight, until he fell wounded, when his place was taken by General Taliaferro. Johnson's army had previously been divided into two brigades, under the command of Colonels Porterfield and Baldwin, the First embracing the Twelfth Georgia, Twenty-fifth and Thirty-first Virginia regiments, Hansbrough's battalion and the Star battery; the Second including the Forty- fourth, Fifty-second and Fifty-eighth Virginia regiments and Miller's and Lee's batteries. These seven regiments were the ones which first occupied Setlington's hill, bringing on the Federal attacks, and there they bore with great gallantry the heat of the battle. When it became desirable, the Georgia regiment at the center was reinforced by the Twenty- third and Thirty-seventh regiments, formerly of Loring's command, while the Tenth Virginia went to assist the Fifty-second, which, after repulsing the enemy from its front, was about to make a return blow