The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson: In Which is Told the Part Taken by the Rockbridge Artillery in the Army of Northern Virginia — John Shaqi
The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson: In Which is Told the Part Taken by the Rockbridge Artillery in the Army of Northern VirginiaMoore, Edward Alexander
History
The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson: In Which is Told the Part Taken by the Rockbridge Artillery in the Army of Northern Virginia
Moore, Edward Alexander
Confederate States of America. Army. Virginia Artillery. Rockbridge Battery, 1st; Jackson, Stonewall, 1824-1863; Moore, Edward Alexander, 1842-; Soldiers -- Virginia -- Biography; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Campaigns; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Perso
The march of this day was one of the noted ones of the war. Our battery
traveled about thirty-five miles, and the infantry of the brigade, being
camped within a mile of Harper's Ferry, made more than forty miles
through rain and mud. The cause of this haste was soon revealed. General
Fremont, with a large army, was moving rapidly from the north to cut us
off, and was already nearer our base than we were, while General
Shields, with another large force, was pushing from the southeast,
having also the advantage of us in distance, and trying to unite with
Fremont, and General McDowell with 20,000 men was at Fredericksburg. The
roads on which the three armies were marching concentrated at Strasburg,
and Jackson was the first to get there. Two of our guns were put in
position on a fortified hill near the town, from which I could see the
pickets of both the opposing armies on their respective roads and
numbers of our stragglers still following on behind us, between the two.
Many of our officers had collected around our guns with their
field-glasses, and, at the suggestion of one of them, we fired a few
rounds at the enemy's videttes "to hurry up our stragglers."
The next day, when near the village of Edinburg, a squadron of our
cavalry, under command of General Munford, was badly stampeded by a
charge of Federal cavalry. Suddenly some of these men and horses without
riders came dashing through our battery, apparently blind to objects in
their front. One of our company was knocked down by the knees of a
flying horse, and, as the horse was making his next leap toward him, his
bridle was seized by a driver and the horse almost doubled up and
brought to a standstill. This was the only time I ever heard a
field-officer upbraided by privates; but one of the officers got ample
abuse from us on that occasion.
I had now again, since Winchester, been assigned to a Parrott gun, and
it, with another, was ordered into position on the left of the road. The
Federals soon opened on us with two guns occupying an unfavorable
position considerably below us. The gunner of my piece was J. P. Smith,
who afterward became an aide on General Jackson's staff, and was with
him when he received his death-wound at Chancellorsville. One of the
guns firing at us could not, for some time, be accurately located, owing
to some small trees, etc., which intervened, so the other gun received
most of our attention. Finally, I marked the hidden one exactly, beyond
a small tree, from the puff of smoke when it fired. I then asked J. P.,
as we called him, to let me try a shot at it, to which he kindly
assented. I got a first-rate aim and ordered "Fire!" The enemy's gun
did not fire again, though its companion continued for some time. I have
often wished to know what damage I did them.
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