Behind the Stonewall the sky began, very faintly, to pale. The native of the country who was guiding spoke briefly. “We’re near the pike. Stephenson’s not far on the other side.” Down the dark line, shadows in the half light, rang an order like a ghostly echo. “Press forward, men! Press forward!” The “foot cavalry” made a sound in its throat, then did its best.
The east grew primrose, the rolling country took form. It was now a haggard country, seamed, burned over, and ruined, differing enough from what it once had been. There came a gleam of the Valley Pike, then with suddenness a heavy sound of firing. “They’re attacking! They’re attacking!” said the Stonewall. “Hurry up there!—hurry up—Double-quick!”
So thick was the fog that it was difficult to distinguish at any distance shape or feature. A mounted man appeared before the head of the column, all grey in grey mist. “It’s Captain Douglas, General, from General Johnson! The enemy’s evacuating Winchester. We’re holding the railroad cut over there, but they’re in strength and threaten to flank us! Ammunition’s almost out. Please come on as fast as you can!”
The Stonewall felt the Valley Pike beneath its feet. Through the fog, a little to the west of the road, they saw a body of troops moving rapidly. In the enveloping mist the colour could not be told. “Grey, aren’t they?—Can you see the flag—?” “No, but I think they’re ours—Steuart or Nicholls ...” “They’re not Steuart and they are not Nicholls,” said Thunder Run. “They’re blue.”
“It’s the Yankee flanking body! ... Fire!”
The dew-drenched hills and misty woods echoed the volley. It was answered by the blue, but somewhat scatteringly. The blue were in retreat, evacuating Winchester, moving toward the Potomac. They were willing to attack the grey regiments known to be holding the railroad cut, but a counter-attack upon their own rear and flank had not entered into their calculations. In the fog and in the smoke it could not be told whether it was one grey brigade or two or four. Soldiers, grey or blue, might be stanch enough, but in this, as in all wars, the cry, “We’re flanked!” stirred up panic. The constitutionally timid, in either uniform, were always expecting to be flanked. They often cried wolf where there was no wolf. This morning certain of the blue cried it lustily. And here, indeed, was the wolf, grey, gaunt, and yelling! The blue, bent on flanking the two brigades and the artillery in and around the railroad cut, found themselves, in turn, flanked by the Stonewall Brigade. They were between Scylla and Charybdis, and they broke. There was a wood. They streamed toward it, and the Stonewall came, yelling, on their tracks. At the same moment at the railroad cut, Nicholls’s Louisiana regiments, Dement’s and Raines’s and Carpenter’s guns, came into touch with and routed the blue cavalry and infantry moving to the left. The cavalry—most of it—escaped, Milroy on a white horse with them. The infantry were taken prisoner. From the centre, where it, too, was victor, rose the jubilant yell of Steuart’s brigade.
The Stonewall reached the rim of the wood. It was filled with purple, early light and with the forms of hurrying men. The charging line raised its muskets; the Stonewall’s finger was on the trigger. Down an aisle of trees showed a white square, raised and shaken to and fro. Out of the violet light came a voice. “Don’t fire! We surrender!”
Steuart and Nicholls and the Stonewall and the artillery took, above Winchester, twenty-three hundred prisoners with arms and equipments, one hundred and seventy-five horses, and eleven stands of colours. Back in Winchester and the surrounding fortifications there fell into Early’s hands another thousand men in blue, other horses, twenty-five pieces of artillery, ammunition, and three hundred loaded wagons and stores. The remainder of Milroy’s command, evacuating the town early in the night, had passed the danger-point on the Martinsburg Pike in safety. Now it was hurrying toward the Potomac, after it Jenkins’s cavalry.
“Dear Dick Ewell” with his crutches, Jubal Early with his eccentricity, his profanity, his rough tongue, his large ability, and heroic devotion to the cause he served, behind them Hays and Gordon and Hoke and Smith, and all the exultant grey officers, and all the exultant grey men passed in the strengthening sunlight through happy Winchester. It was a scarred Winchester, a Winchester worn of raiment and thin of cheek, a Winchester that had wept of nights and in the daytime had watched, watched! Sister Anne, Sister Anne, what do you see? This June morning Winchester was happy beyond words.
Out on the Martinsburg Pike, Ewell and Early met Edward Johnson and his brigadiers. “Rodes is at Martinsburg. His courier got to us across country. He’s taken the stores at Berryville and now at Martinsburg,—five pieces of artillery, two hundred prisoners, six thousand bushels of grain. The enemy’s making for the river, Jenkins behind them. They’ll cross at Williamsport. I’ve sent an order to General Rodes to press on to the Potomac. We’ll rest the men for two hours and then we’ll follow.”