Realizing that his position on Pritchard’s Hill was no longer tenable with Confederate forces now occupying Sandy Ridge, Union commander in the field Colonel Nathan Kimball ordered Colonel Erastus Tyler’s 2300-man brigade to take the ridge. Tyler was anxious to redeem his reputation after the fiasco that occurred at the Battle of Kesslers Cross Lanes near Carnifex Ferry in West Virginia. He had failed to place his pickets far enough forward and his small force was routed, see details at the link. Tyler collected his men along the Cedar Creek Grade Road and headed west at 3:15 PM, see the map below. Sandy Ridge was 4 miles long and about three quarters of a mile wide.
In the middle of the ridge stood the Rose Hill farm owned by Colonel William Glass of the 51st VA militia. The farm had several stone walls which would become an important factor in the coming battle. Tyler arranged his troops in an unusual formation with each regiment stacked behind the other, as seen in the map above. This formation helped the column navigate through the woods but would create major problems in battle with the men this tightly bunched. If Tyler’s brigade could deploy into double battle lines before they came under fire, they should have easily overwhelmed the smaller force in front of them. If they advanced into battle bunched, they could suffer severe casualties even if facing a smaller force. Unfortunately for the men in Tyler’s brigade he failed to deploy them in double battle lines. At 3:55 PM skirmishers from the 7th OH and 27th VA encountered each other. The 27th VA under Colonel John Echols was advancing north to protect Carpenter’s exposed Battery. In the ensuing fight Private Frederick Groth of the 7th OH became the first soldier killed on Sandy Ridge. Lieutenant John Buford Lady of the 27th VA would be on the same battlefield opposing his two younger brothers David and Columbus from the 1st WV.
Tyler’s men emerged from the woods near the sign shown below on the Rose Hill Park trail.
The modern-day forest has a lot of secondary overgrowth that was likely not there during the war. The path sits in a ravine and then the men would have proceeded uphill.
Echols realizing that his 200 men were severely outnumbered fell back behind a shoulder-high stone wall. The Federals charged the wall twice without success suffering heavy casualties. Images of the stone wall are shown below. The wall has been reconstructed. The eastern end of the wall where it enters dense vegetation and proceeds uphill is original.
The next three images show the eastern end of the wall which is original entering the dense growth of vegetation proceeding uphill.
The 110th PA fled to the rear taking 300 Union soldiers out of the fight. With 6 companies of the 29th OH in reserve Tyler’s engaged force was now down to about 1800 men. The Federals regrouped and attempted to flank Echol’s right. Colonel Echols was wounded in the left shoulder and command fell to Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Jackson Grigsby. The 21st VA under Lieutenant Colonel John Patton arrived at the wall with 270 reinforcements and drove back the Yankees on the right. Tyler next attempted to extend his right and get behind the Confederate left.
Colonel Joseph Thoburn and his 150 men of the 1st WV were sent forward around 4:10 PM to capture an unoccupied section of the wall on the Confederate left. Thoburn’s men dashed toward the western part of the wall but were beaten there by 500 men from Confederate Colonel Fulkerson’s 23rd and 37th VA. Colonel Thoburn was shot in the arm and crawled back to the main Union line. Some of Thoburn’s men were able to take cover behind a part of the wall that ran perpendicular to the north of the Rebel line, but these men were quickly driven back. The perpendicular section of the wall and the field that Colonel Thoburn’s men charged across is shown below.
The Confederates now had about 1,000 men behind the stone wall with the 23rd and 37th VA on the left, the 21st and 27th VA on the right, with a gap in the middle. The western side of the line was situated in such a way that they could not see their counterparts on eastern side of the line on the high ground above. Lieutenant Colonel Grigsby and Major Patton informed Garnett, now on the ridge, of the situation at the wall requesting reinforcements. Garnett brought forward the 250 men of the 33rd VA on the right and sent the 4th VA to the gap in the center. The two leftmost companies of the 4th were in a ravine and were not within sight of the other companies of their regiment. At 4:45 PM on the right the 1st VA Battalion (Irish Battalion) and the 2nd VA (310 men) arrived. The Confederates now had about 1,700 men at the wall about the same number as Tyler had available to him.
The situation on Sandy Ridge had reached a stalemate. It was now approaching 5:00 PM with about 2 hours of daylight left. Jackson planned to hold his position here and withdraw during the night (his subordinates did not know this). By this time, Jackson had already violated his instructions from Johnston. He was to keep as many Federals as possible in the valley by remaining close to them without bringing on an engagement. Kimball had other ideas; however, he knew that if he were to drive Jackson off of Sandy Ridge, he would need to commit additional troops to the fight and that was exactly what he intended to do.
Kimball had five regiments, a total of 1,600 men available to him on Pritchard’s Hill. Over the next two hours he would send regiments to attack the eastern part of the Confederate line on the ridge in a piecemeal fashion. First, he sent four companies of the 8th OH (Lieutenant Colonel Franklin Sawyer), a total of only 188 men, toward the ridge. Sawyer lost 20% of his men with 12 killed and 28 wounded. He could do little more than hold his position on the ridge and wait for support. Next the 67th OH, 5th OH, and 84th PA moved out at the same time, see Jespersen’s map. The 67th OH under the temporary command of Lieutenant Colonel Alvin Voris, a total of 350 men, struck the eastern end of the wall where the 2nd VA (Colonel James Allen) was located. The 67th OH’s regular commander Colonel Otto Burstenbinder was under arrest awaiting court marshall. The Buckeyes lost 46 men including Captain H. B. Ford who was killed. The Washington brothers, Corporal Bushrod Washington and Sergeant George Washington, from the 2nd VA were both wounded.
As was true in many battles the color-bearers responsible for carrying the regimental flags suffered a high casualty rate because they were often targeted by the enemy. In the 2nd VA Sergeant Ephraim Crist was shot in the head and killed, Lieutenant J.B. Davis was wounded, Lieutenant Richard H. Lee was shot in the leg and a fourth color-bearer was killed. The 5th OH (Lieutenant Colonel John Patrick) advanced to the left of the 67th between 4:30-5:00 PM. As they moved forward Kimball decided to recall the regiment to Pritchard’s Hill using a bugler. However, only the rear 5 companies who had not yet entered the woods at the base of the hill heard the call and returned. When Patrick arrived at the base of the hill and turned around half of his men were gone. To make matters worse the 84th PA were driven back leaving their left flank completely unsupported. Things quickly went from bad to worse when a Union regiment behind them, the 14th IN, mistook the 5th OH for Confederates and fired into their rear. In the first 30 minutes Lieutenant Colonel Patrick lost 50 men more than 20% of his force. The 255 men of the 84th PA regrouped under Colonel William Murray. They crested the ridge right in front of the Irish Battalion and James Waters’ West Augusta Artillery, at a second stone wall about 500 yards behind the first where the 21st VA was located. The 84th PA lost 36% of their men in less than an hour, including Colonel Murray who was shot in the head. He was the highest-ranking officer to die in the battle. This part of the battle is interpreted by two signs on Sandy Ridge.
The Confederate right to this point had been successful in holding off the 5th, 8th, and 67th OH, and the 84th PA. But things would change with the advance of the 450 men of the 14th IN (Lieutenant Colonel William Harrow) around 5:00 PM. Garnett had about 1,000 men behind the eastern part of the wall and had lost 150 of them to Northern gunfire. Many others were ineffective because they were out of ammunition. The 14th IN stalled at the brow of the hill when a private, Paul Truckey, jumped to the head of the battle line, waived a rifle over his head, shouted, “Come on boys” to the men behind him and charged the Confederate line. The left side of the regiment charged the wall and the right side Captain James Waters’ guns. The Irish Battalion broke and as the 14th IN were about to overrun the 21st VA (Lieutenant Colonel John Patton) Garnett sent word at 6:00 PM via Lieutenant Colonel Johnston to withdraw.
Captain Waters was able to withdraw three of his four guns. The rest of the eastern side of the wall withdrew including the 33rd VA, three Irish Battalion companies, and the 27th VA. General Jackson had made at least two judgmental errors. First, he had not anticipated a prolonged infantry battle at the ridge and his reserve ammunition supply wagons were 4 miles south of the battlefield. Second, he held about 1,000 men in reserve but called for them too late. Jackson ordered Major Frank Jones to bring up the reserve from the Valley Pike 30 minutes earlier but the 5th and 42nd VA would not arrive in time and the 48th VA was several miles behind them guarding the wagon train. These men would have been more than adequate to hold the ridge. When the entire eastern part of the Confederate line withdrew Tyler’s men took up the chase. On the western side of the stone wall Fulkerson’s Brigade was positioned in such a way that they could not see the action at the top of the ridge, and no one had ordered them to withdraw. They sent an officer to reconnoiter the eastern side of the wall who discovered that the Confederates there were withdrawing. He reported back and Fulkerson and his men managed to escaped to the west. Similarly on the far right of the Confederate line Colonel James Allen of the 2nd VA never received the order to fall back and 42 of his men were captured.
When the 5th VA (Colonel William Harman) came up Jackson had its drummer Hugh Barr beat a drum rally, but it had no effect on the panicked troops. For the remainder of his life Barr was known as the drummer boy of Kernstown. Garnett ordered Harman to position his men behind a fence south of an open field to cover the retreat of the army. Jackson, however, ordered them forward where they were surrounded on three sides and were forced back to their original position. Lieutenant William T. Poague lost one of his cannons in the retreat. The 5th VA continued to gradually fall back into the woods where they were joined by the 47th VA. Jackson was furious when he saw Garnett moving troops to the rear demanding to know why he was not trying to rally them to fight. Garnett then gathered the 5th and 47th VA and moved them forward to the stone wall. They successfully held off a mix of about 700 Federals from the 14th IN, the 5th and 67th OH, and the 110th PA but could not withstand an assault from a new Union regiment charging from the east, the 13th IN under Lieutenant Colonel Robert Foster.
The two Confederate regiments fell back another 500 yards south before withdrawing into Barton’s woods down the farm lane to the Valley Pike. Union Cavalry under Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Copeland joined the charge of the routed Confederates. The 1st OH Cavalry chased and captured a group of Rebels that headed directly south toward the Big Woods southwest of Neal’s Dam. The 1st WV Cavalry captured two captains, four lieutenants, and 115 privates. Combined the Union Cavalry captured over 200 Confederates while losing only 9 men. Jackson’s men had crossed the Opequon River and were in Bartonsville by 8:00 PM. The battle was over. Casualty figures are shown below from a sign on the battlefield. At least sixty of the Union wounded would die over the next three weeks of their wounds.
The next several days in the Winchester area were spent caring for the wounded and burial of the dead. The town was overwhelmed with the wounded and Confederate prisoners. Two hundred and thirty-four Confederate prisoners were loaded onto trains and transported to a temporary prison in Baltimore and then to prison camps including Fort Delaware. Although Jackson lost the battle, he achieved his strategic goal when Brigadier General Alpheus Williams’ division was moved back to the Shenandoah Valley and eventually a total of about 20,000 men were sent to the valley that would not be available to McClellan in front of Richmond. On April 1st Jackson still angry with Garnett for withdrawing from Sandy Ridge during the battle placed him under arrest for neglect of duty. A move that was very unpopular with the officers and men of the Stonewall Brigade.
Source
Stonewall Jackson’s 1862 Valley Campaign- War Comes to the Homefront by Jonathan A. Noyalas
We are in for it The First Battle of Kernstown by Gary L. Ecelbarger
Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign Shenandoah 1862 by Peter Cozzens