The regiment was greatly outnumbered, and was hurled back terribly shattered, Major Peter Keenan being among the killed. But the Confederate advance had been checked long enough for Pleasanton to get his artillery into position, and he opened with deadly effect.
The Confederates paused in the face of the terrible fire, and Jackson and his staff pushed forward on a personal reconnoissance. As he was returning to his lines, he and his companions were mistaken for Union troops by his own men and were fired upon. Jackson fell, pierced by three bullets.
"THE BRIGADE MUST NOT KNOW, SIR!"
[May 2, 1863]
"Who've ye got there?"—"Only a dying brother,
Hurt in the front just now."
"Good boy! he'll do. Somebody tell his mother
Where he was killed, and how."
"Whom have you there?"—"A crippled courier, Major,
Shot by mistake, we hear.
He was with Stonewall." "Cruel work they've made here;
Quick with him to the rear!"
"Well, who comes next?"—"Doctor, speak low, speak low, sir;
Don't let the men find out!
It's Stonewall!"—"God!"—"The brigade must not know, sir,
While there's a foe about!"
Whom have we here—shrouded in martial manner,
Crowned with a martyr's charm?
A grand dead hero, in a living banner,
Born of his heart and arm:
The heart whereon his cause hung—see how clingeth
That banner to his bier!
The arm wherewith his cause struck—hark! how ringeth
His trumpet in their rear!
What have we left? His glorious inspiration,
His prayers in council met.
Living, he laid the first stones of a nation;
And dead, he builds it yet.
Early on the morning of Sunday, May 3, 1863, the Confederates again attacked, and after two days' heavy fighting, drove the Union army back across the river, with a loss of seventeen thousand men. But the Confederate victory was almost outweighed by the loss of Stonewall Jackson, who died May 10.