CONFEDERATE LOSSES.
| Jackson’s corps: | |||
| Stark’s division | 20 regiments | 71* | |
| Ewell’s division: | |||
| Lawton’s brigade | 6 regiments | 12 | |
| Early’s brigade | 7 regiments | 32 | |
| Trimble’s brigade | 5 regiments | 21 | |
| Hays’s brigade | 5 regiments | 135 | |
| 43 | 200 | ||
| Hill’s division: | |||
| Branch’s brigade | 5 regiments | 108 | |
| Pender’s brigade | 4 regiments | 58 | |
| Gregg’s brigade | 5 regiments | 104 | |
| Archer’s brigade | 5 regiments (not engaged | ||
| Field’s (or Brockenbrough’s) | 4 regiments (no report) | 75* | |
| Thomas’s brigade | 4 regiments (loss not reported) | 75* | |
| 27 | 420 | ||
| Longstreet’s Corps: | |||
| Jones’s | 1 | ||
| Total: | 70 regiments—48 in action | 692 |
* Estimated. General Hill reports his loss as 306. It is impossible to reconcile these small losses with the Confederate reports of the severity of the fighting.
Note.—The Confederate reports of the battle of Chantilly, or Ox Hill, show with tolerable clearness their troops engaged, and the positions and parts taken by them. Early’s report definitely locates Hays’s and Trimble’s brigades “in line of battle on the right of Jackson’s division, and occupying positions in the edge of a field beyond a piece of woods through which the Ox Road here runs.” This is unmistakably the very position from which General Stevens’s charge drove the enemy. The loss in Hays’s brigade (135) was greater than that of any other. Early acknowledges that Hays’s brigade “fell back in confusion, passing through these regiments (second line), followed by the enemy;” that the commander of Trimble’s brigade was killed, and one or two regiments of it were thrown into some confusion. There are no reports from any officer of Jackson’s (Starke’s) division, except the bare mention by one brigade commander that they met the enemy at Ox Hill, September 1, and repulsed him; none from Hays’s, Trimble’s, or Lawton’s brigades of Ewell’s division; and none from Field’s (Brockenbrough’s) brigade of Hill’s division. General Longstreet, in his book Manassas to Appomattox, pp. 193–195, says of this battle: “Two of Hill’s brigades were thrown out to find the enemy, and were soon met by his advance in search of Jackson, which made a furious attack, driving back the Confederate brigades in some disorder. Stevens, appreciating the crisis as momentous, thought it necessary to follow the opportunity by aggressive battle in order to hold Jackson away from the Warrenton turnpike. Kearny, always ready to second any courageous move, joined in the daring battle. At the critical moment the rain and thunder storm burst with great violence upon the combatants, the high wind beating the storm in the faces of the Confederates. So firm was the unexpected battle that part of Jackson’s line yielded to the onslaught. At one moment his artillery seemed in danger.... As I rode up and met General Jackson, 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 both Federal division commanders fell, the accounts fail to do justice to their fight. Stevens, in his short career, gave evidence of courage, judgment, skill, and genius not far below his illustrious antagonist.”
Immediately after the close of the Civil War, in June, 1865, the author visited the battlefield of Chantilly. The ground and its incidents agreed precisely with his recollections. The remains of the fence at the edge of the woods from which General Stevens hurled the enemy were plainly visible, many of the rails as well as the trees showing marks of bullets. From a point near the corner of the cornfield, extending nearly perpendicularly into the woods for fifty yards, and facing to the left, were the vestiges of a hastily thrown up breastwork, or cover, of earth, rails, logs, and branches, which the Union troops had scraped together after driving back the enemy in order to meet the attack of Hill’s troops on their left.
In May, 1883, the author, accompanied by the late General Charles F. Walcott, again visited the field, and by the hospitality of Lieutenant John N. Ballard, the present owner of the estate, himself a Confederate soldier, spent the night at the Reid house. Mr. Ballard exhibited a plan of the estate, made in 1858, accompanying a former deed, which comprised almost exactly the battlefield, and kindly permitted a tracing of it to be made. The distance between the fence where General Stevens fell and the Little River pike was found by pacing to be about four hundred yards. By this data a fairly accurate map of the battlefield was obtained. Mr. Charles Stewart, a very intelligent gentleman, whose house is on the Little River pike half a mile west of the field, who was at home at the time of the battle and an eye-witness of the movements of the Confederate troops, and who went over the field the third day after the engagement, pointed out to the visitors the localities of interest in connection with the fight near his house, and graphically narrated how Jackson hurried his artillery to the rear at the opening of the battle, and threw it into position half a mile back on a bare, commanding ridge near the Stewart house. This account was fully corroborated by Mr. Ballard. A full and interesting account of this visit, and also an account of the battle, by General Walcott, is given in volume ii., Military Historical Society of Massachusetts.
The author has been aided in preparing his account of the battle by written statements from Colonel David Morrison, Captain William T. Lusk, and Captain Robert Armour, of the 79th Highlanders; Lieutenant Samuel N. Benjamin and Captain George E. Randolph, who commanded the two batteries engaged; Colonel Elijah Walker, of the 4th Maine, and Colonel Moses B. Lakeman, of the 3d Maine; and by personal interviews with these officers and many others, including Lieutenant H.G. Belcher, who participated in the engagement.