We marched via Smithfield (Wizzard's Clip), Charlestown, and Halltown, and reached Harper's Ferry about 3 P.M., having marched thirty-five miles and fought two hours on the way.
Berryville, held by McReynolds' brigade of Milroy's command, was taken by Rodes' division of five brigades on the 13th of June; Bunker Hill, on the direct road to Martinsburg from Winchester, was occupied by the enemy early the morning of the 14th; and Martinsburg was taken (all by the same division) the evening of that day. General Daniel Tyler and Colonel B. F. Smith (126th Ohio), with a small command of infantry and cavalry and one battery, made a gallant stand for a few hours, to enable their baggage and supply trains, escorted by a small number of cavalry, to escape via Williamsport. A portion of the battery was captured, but Tyler and Smith's troops retreated on Shepherdstown, thence to Harper's Ferry.
We pursued, in the retreat from Stephenson's Depot, the only possible route then open to us to Harper's Ferry. About 2000 men of all arms reached Harper's Ferry with us, and others straggled in later. But much the larger part of Milroy's command escaped with the animals to Pennsylvania; 2700 soldiers assembled at Bloody Run alone. The losses in captured, including the sick and wounded left in hospital, and the wounded left on the field, were about 3000. The losses in my command, considering the desperate nature of the fighting, were small, and but few of my officers and soldiers, fit for duty and not wounded in battle, were captured. Lieutenants T. J. Weakley and C. M. Gross, through neglect of the officer of the day, were left on picket near Winchester, with 60 men of the 110th Ohio, and, consequently captured. The surgeons, with their assistants, were left at the hospital and on the field in charge of the sick and wounded. Chaplain McCabe remained to assist in the care of the wounded left on the battle-field. The enemy's loss in killed and wounded much exceeded the Union loss on each of the three days' fighting. I was bruised by a spent ball on the 13th, and slightly wounded by a musket fired by a soldier not ten feet from me near the close of the fight at the earthwork on the 14th, and my horse was shot under me in the night engagement at Stephenson's Depot. We fought the best of the troops of Lee's army. General Edward Johnson's division of Ewell's corps, in the night engagement, consisted of Stewart, Nicholl, and Walker's (Stonewall) brigades. Johnson was censured for not having reached and covered the Martinsburg road earlier in the night of the 14th of June. He reported his command in a critical situation for a time after our attack upon it; that "two sets of cannoniers (13 out of 16) were killed or disabled."(16)
The war furnishes no parallel to the fighting at Winchester, and there is no instance of the war where a comparatively small force, after being practically surrounded by a greatly superior one, cut its way out.
Johnson's division was so roughly handled on the morning of the 15th that it did not pursue us, nor was it ordered to march again until some time the next day. The plan of Lee was for Ewell's corps to push forward rapidly into Pennsylvania. His delay at Winchester postponed Lee's giving the order to Ewell "to take Harrisburg" until June 21st.(17) The loss of three or more days at Winchester most likely saved Pennsylvania's capital from capture.
The disaster to the Union arms at Winchester was, by General Halleck, charged upon General Milroy, and General Schneck was ordered by Halleck to place Milroy in arrest. In August, 1863, a Court of Inquiry convened at Washington to investigate and report upon Milroy's conduct and the evacuation of Winchester. Schenck's action in relation to the matter was also drawn in question. The court was in session twenty-seven days, heard many witnesses, including Generals Schenck and Milroy, and had before it a mass of orders and dispatches. I was a known friend of Milroy, hence was not called against him, and he did not have me summoned because I had differed so radically with him as to the necessity of evacuating Winchester. The testimony, while doing me ample justice, did not disclose much of the information communicated by me to Milroy, nor my views with respect to the judgment displayed by him in a great emergency. Milroy and his friends maintained, with much force, that his holding Winchester for about three days delayed, for that time or longer, Lee's advance into Pennsylvania, and thus saved Harrisburg from capture, and gave the Army of the Potomac time to reach Gettysburg, and there force Lee to concentrate his army and fight an unsuccessful battle. The Court of Inquiry made no formal report, but Judge-Advocate-General Holt reviewed the testimony, and reached conclusions generally exonerating Milroy from the charge of disobedience of orders and misconduct during the evacuation, but reflecting somewhat on Schenck for not positively ordering the place evacuated. President Lincoln made a characteristic indorsement on this record, not unfavorable to either Schenck or Milroy, concluding with this paragraph:
"Serious blame is not necessarily due to any serious disaster, and I cannot say that in this case any of the officers are deserving of serious blame. No court-martial is deemed necessary or proper in this case."(18)
Halleck did not, however, cease in his hostility to Milroy, and not until in the last months of the war did the "Gray Eagle" have another command in the field. He was a rashly-brave and patriotic man, and his whole heart was in the Union cause. In battle he risked his own person unnecessarily and without exercising a proper supervision over his entire command. He died at Olympia, Washington, March 29, 1890, when seventy-five years of age. The colored people of America should erect a monument to his memory. He was their friend when to be so drew upon him much adverse criticism.
( 1) Manassas to Appomattox (Longstreet), pp. 242, 257, 401.
( 2) Ibid., 263.