“As I rode up and met General Jackson,” says Longstreet in his “Manassas to Appomattox,” “I remarked upon the number of his men going to the rear.
“‘General, your men don’t appear to work well to-day?’
“‘No,’ he replied, ‘but I hope it will prove a victory in the morning.’”
As the stricken 21st Massachusetts emerged from the woods, near where General Stevens formed his column, it was met by General Kearny, who was searching for troops to cover the right flank of Birney’s line.
“In fierce haste,” says General C.F. Walcott, the historian of the regiment, in a paper on this battle before the Massachusetts Military Historical Society, “he ordered the regiment to move on the run to take post on Birney’s right, the position of whose line was indicated only by the flashes of their muskets. Luckily two of our companies, which had been detached in the woods to cover our flanks, had escaped the ambuscade into which the others had fallen, and now joined us with serviceable guns, and the regiment, about two hundred strong, moved across the open ground towards the cornfield and the front of Birney’s right, deploying a thin skirmish line to cover our right and front as we advanced.
“As our skirmishers came up to the rail fence of the cornfield they were fired on by Thomas’s skirmishers, whose brigade, with two of Pender’s regiments, was in the cornfield, and coming from the woods well on Birney’s right. Crossing the line of the fence we soon halted in the corn, under a dropping fire from the enemy. General Kearny was following us up closely, and as we came to a halt fiercely tried to force us forward, saying that we were firing on our own men, and that there were no rebels near us. We had the proof in two prisoners—an officer and private of a Georgia regiment—brought in by our skirmishers, besides the warning cries of ‘Surrender,’ coming both from our right and front; but, unfortunately, Kearny’s judgment seemed unable to appreciate the existence of the peril which his military instinct had caused him to guard against. Lieutenant Walcott, of the brigade staff, took our prisoners to him, saying, ‘General, if you don’t believe there are rebels in the corn, here are two prisoners from the 49th Georgia, just taken in our front.‘ Crying out fiercely, ’—-- —-- you and your prisoners!’ the general, entirely alone, apparently in ungovernable rage at our disregard of his peremptory orders to advance, forced his horse through the deep, sticky mud of the cornfield past the left of the regiment, passing within a few feet of where I was standing. I watched him moving in the murky twilight through the corn, and, when less than twenty yards away, saw his horse suddenly rear and turn, and half a dozen muskets flash around him: so died the intrepid soldier, General Philip Kearny!
“Diverted by our movement from their design upon Birney’s brigade, the enemy surged up against our front and right flank, took what fire we could give them at a few paces distance (which they returned with interest), and in the dark, ignorant of our weakness, allowed us to withdraw from their front without pursuit, and in a few minutes also drew back themselves from the cornfield to the woods behind it. Except a few scattering shots on Birney’s front, which soon ceased, the battle of Chantilly was now over.”
Supposing from the non-return of General Kearny that he had fallen or been captured, General Birney assumed command of his division, and after the battle was over relieved his hard-fought troops with General Poe’s brigade. Robinson’s brigade was posted during the battle on the high ground near the main turnpike, and was not engaged. The Union troops held the ground upon which they fought until half past two in the morning, brought off their wounded, and then retreated to Fairfax Court House after the last of the troops from Centreville had passed.
Only sixteen Union regiments, viz., six of Stevens’s division, three of Ferrero’s brigade, and seven of Birney’s brigade, with six guns, Benjamin’s two 20-pounder rifles, and Randolph’s four 12-pounders, fought this battle against Jackson’s whole corps of seventy regiments, of which at least forty-eight were in the fight. The Union force numbered 5500 effective, the Confederate at least twice as many.
In this brief and fierce battle the losses on each side were from 800 to 1000. The following statement is made up from Confederate official reports and, on the Union side, from regimental histories, for there are no official reports of Union losses, except four in Poe’s brigade, and from estimates based on all available data, but undoubtedly falls short of the actual losses.