So far as this first assault is concerned it can be summed
up quite briefly. The only considerable amount of the enemy's infantry in the immediate
front of the Union infantry line of battle was in the ravine in front of
our division, and it was about two hundred and fifty yards away from where we
formed line behind the woods; it was a very strong force. If the troops to our
right and left instead of instinctively obliquing away from us veteran like to
an easier place in their right and left fronts respectively, had guided on our
division as it is claimed they were directed to do, they would have had an
enfilading fire on the enemy on our front, the same as General Russell's
division would have had when it filled the gap to my right which the enemy knew
would make their position untenable and so instantaneously retreated in a rout
when it saw him coming dangerously near, his right flank overlapping their
left. When Russell's movement was executed the Nineteenth Corps' lines of
battle hadn't even broken. There was no considerable number of the enemy before
it within striking distance so far as I could see, and therefore nothing to
break its lines so far as the enemy was concerned until it reached the breaks
in its front.
The Vermont Brigade could have easily advanced at any time
of the assault or any other part of the Second Division, as there was nothing
to speak of — as virtually acknowledged by Colonel Aldace F. Walker of that
brigade in his “History of the Vermont Brigade in the Shenandoah Valley, 1864”—
in its immediate front except about a regiment of the enemy which crossed the
pike from his right and the left of our Brigade to my front.* (See No. 7
illustration). Had the Vermont Brigade borne to its right instead of its left
it would have done much more effective service, as it would have been on high
ground overlooking the enemy in my front when out of the ravine. In this
instance the credit given this excellent brigade in at least one Civil War
history is erroneous, without the Third Division was expected to whip at
once and alone a considerable part of the infantry and artillery of Early's
army in its immediate front, no small part of which was in our regimental front
and its immediate right. In proof that there was no considerable rebel force in
front of the Second Division to the left of the pike until Early's
second stand, the reader is invited to examine the official War Department map
of this battle and note the fact; but aside from this I know there was
none. What, therefore, was to prevent the Second Division or Vermont Brigade
from advancing? Unlike our front, where the strip of timber was narrow, with
the enemy strongly posted just beyond, the scrub or second growth oak, etc., in
front of a part of the Second Division next to us, extended from the top of the
ridge or divide which ran several hundred yards southerly, down to the bottom
of the ravine a hundred yards more or less, which covered here the Second
Division's advance and the cleared ground beyond, after emerging from the
wooded side hill and ravine towards Winchester, contained no force of the
enemy, as there was no immediate protection for it, sufficient to prevent its
or even the Vermont Brigade's advancing, or the enemy would have done so. (See
Nos. 3, 7 and 8 illustrations.) I mention this here because I know the
facts in the premises, and because this Division is complimented —unfortunately,
but probably unwittingly so — in one or more histories for advancing, in
unpleasant contrast to our Division, which was up against the real thing,
and its advancing depended largely on the help or enfilading fire along our
front, we had a right to expect from the troops which should have guided on us
from both flanks, but which we never got, as they pulled away from us. It was
useless to try to take such a place as confronted the right of our regiment and
Division by assaulting from its immediate front (see Nos. 5 and 6
illustrations), as the enemy had to be flanked out of its position, which is
what Russell's men would have done on the rebel left in case the enemy hadn't
seen them in season to get away and thereby saved many casualties on both
sides, and probably largely there the enemy's capture.
There were none of the Second Brigade of our Division on my
right after advancing through the woods, nor had there been up to the time
General Russell's command filled the gap occasioned by the Second Brigade's
absence, together with the space caused by the Nineteenth Corps obliquing to
its right. It being level, shell and bullet swept, it was untenable until a
force came large enough to drive the enemy's infantry from cover, as Russell
did. (See No. 5 illustration). I was the only officer except Adjutant Wyllys
Lyman, who is deceased, so far ahead at that time on my part of the
battlefield, and I can make affidavit to this statement. We and a goodly number
of scattering men who generally led in most assaults were within a rod of the
enemy's strongest manned works, which no map in existence shows that
I have seen, where I was twice almost instantaneously wounded when the enemy
ran as it saw General Russell's Division coming, as though their lives depended
upon it, and I know whereof I am writing.
General Sheridan made no mistake when he selected the First
Brigade for the centre and most important point of his line of battle, nor was
it a mistake to place our regiment and the Fourteenth New Jersey — with
direction for the rest of the army to guide on our Division in the first
assault, for the road was practically straight — squarely across the pike, with
their colors on it, with such men as Corporals Alexander Scott, F. H. Hoadley,
Tenth Vermont, and other of the color guard like them, to keep them there, for
such men would go wherever told to, if into the very jaws of death. The leaving
off from the official map of this battle of the enemy's infantry in the ravine
in front of the Third Division (see Nos. 6 and 8 illustrations), is a great
injustice to our regiment, which never wholly fell back, but the usual per
cent. of men under such circumstances stubbornly pressed forward under the most
trying circumstances at any rate where I was. The leaving off of the enemy's
infantry in my front, where it was strongest, is misleading and is doubtless
what has caused so many wrong descriptions of this fight. No one can give a
correct description of it where I was except at that point during the fight.
The enemy contested this point more stubbornly than any other during the day and
it was here the most intrepid of our men assaulted; it was the doorway to the
great battlefield, and if the enemy couldn't hold this point it couldn't hope
to any other, and didn't. Although our division was smaller than either of the
other divisions of our Corps, its loss was much heavier. General Grant had one
hundred shotted guns fired on his lines in front of Petersburg in honor of this
day's victory by Sheridan. A citizen of Winchester told me that one of the
saddest things he saw during the day was a horse going through the streets of
the city with two badly wounded and one dead Confederate soldiers on it —
probably chums — the latter thrown over the horse's back with his head and arms
hanging on one side and his feet on the other; but war is a cruel teacher and
produces the most shocking sights imaginable. It is not pleasant to record and
much less dwell on them.
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No. 9 – Straight view of about a half mile of the pike
looking westerly towards Winchester, Va., from the divide on Sheridan's battle-field, Sept. 10. 1864. Observe the cut
through the divide for the road.
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* Haynes’ “History of the Tenth Vermont Infantry,” p. 253.
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