On the 20th of March, 1862, the 1st Division (Gen. Alpheus S. Williams) received orders to reinforce McDowell at Manassas for McClellan's Peninsula Campaign. To a man, the man of the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry was fed up with its service in Northern Virginia, and hoped they were finally going to get into the war.
At Snickers Gap, a breakdown of the ferry left the 2nd Massachusetts stranded on the wrong side of the river. While sitting on the banks waiting for the ferry to be repaired, hurried orders sent the regiment back to Winchester. Stonewall Jackson, who had been given the task of preventing Union reinforcements from leaving the Valley, had attack the Federals under BG Shields at the village of Kernstown. a short distance from Winchester. The 2nd MA was only regiment available for Shields' immediate assitance. Lt. Col. Andrews rushed the regiment back, spurred not only by the prospect of getting into the fight, but mindful that Capt. Richard Cary's company was still acting as garrison to the town.
As usual, the fighting was over before the 2nd MA arrived on the scene. "Again we are hurried by a forced march, over rough roads, to see the dregs and debris of a battle," Maj. Wilder Dwight complained. "The lees and flatness of the sparkling goblet of victory are all that we taste." Lt. Col. Andrews confirmed that all of his officers were "greatly disgusted" that after waiting for so long "they should be ordered off just as the only action in which this division has been engaged should come off."
Unlike at Ball's Bluff, the regiment found its fellow Union troops in high spirits. Because of faulty intelligence provided to Jackson by Ashby's cavalry, he attacked what he thought was a token rear guard and instead ran head-long into Shields' entire 9,000-man division, suffering over 700 casualties and leaving the field to a back-slapping Shields.
While not officially in the battle, Henry Newton Comey reported that several of his company "went out on their own hook" to take part in the fight. "We lost one man, but do not know whether he may turn up yet." One who joined the action was Pvt. Isaac Alexander Stevens, who had just returned to the regiment from a stay at Libby prison, having been taken prisoner while the regiment had been encamped on Maryland Heights the previous autumn. Said Comey; "He arrived in Winchester just after we had left for Centreville, but just in season for the battle. He went out on to the field, took a gun from some fallen soldier, and went in with all the bitterness of a six months' captivity. At the close of the engagement he returned to Winchester, bringing with 2 Rebel guns and a Rebel prisoner as his booty and revenge. He thinks he is even with them now."
Capt. Richard Cary's men spent the night conveying the hundreds of wounded into the houses of Winchester. Upon their arrival, Doctors Leland and Stone immediately offered their services to help treat the wounded but were rebuffed by the surgeon's of Shields' division. Chaplain Quint, who witnessed "soldier after soldier waiting impatiently for necessary care," found this attitude incrediable. "The spirit seemed that of some third-rate physicians in small towns, who are afraid somebody is trying to get away their practices." It was only after the most formal of applications, Quint added, "that the services of our surgeons was reluctantly accepted." But by then, Stone and Leland had taken matters into their own hands. "Our senior surgeon remained all night and all day in the court-house, reduced things to order, and proved himself most admirably qualified for his post. Our assistant surgeon did similar work at the Union Hotel." Lt. Robert Gould Shaw remarked that the surgeons of the 2nd Massachusetts "did more good than all the Ohio and Pennyslvania surgeons together."
The officers gravitated to the Court-House where their disappointment at having missed tha battle was tempered by the shocking sight of the dead and wounded of both armies occupying every possible floorboard. Said Dwight: "Everything shows how easy it is to kill a great many men by shooting very often!" In the entry of the Court-House, Shaw saw 20 dead men laid out "with the capes of their overcoats folded over their faces." While walking among the wounded, Lt. Francis Crowninshield heard someone call out, "Hallo, Crownie, how are you?" It was a college mate who had left Cambridge to fight for the Confederacy and who now lay badly wounded.
Lt. Charles Morse happened upon a boy of 16 or 17 sitting against a wall. Although the youth had a smile on his face, Morse could see his life ebbing away. "It seemed hard that he should have to die there with no one near that knew him." Then there was the Rebel captain who slapped Leland's face "and said he wouldn't let any 'damned Yankee' touch him," but who, said Morse, eventually relented and let his wounds be dressed.
What surprised Dwight was the prevaling belief among the Confederate soldiers that the Yankees would exceute all prisoners-of-war. "Such are some of the lies with which they keep their men up to the fighting point."
Chaplain Quint offered his services to the dying regardless of political affliation. Some took the hard line of the Confederate captain, but most "were glad to see a Christian minister." He came upon a soldier with a fatal neck wound.
"He asked me who I was."
"A Chaplain."
"Of what denomination?"
"Congregationalist."
"Ah, I don't like them much."
"Why?"
"Well, I've met some I didn't think much of. I'm a Methodist; been a church member this long while."
"But I love the Lord Jesus Christ."
"Well, then, I guess you are all right; now pray with me."
While the fighting men of both sides found room in their hearts for compassion, this feeling did not extend to the citizens of Winchester. "To the eternal infamy of this rebel town, it was hard to procure even a few [beds]," Quint fumed. "One man, living in a fine house, had 'no beds for damned Yankee soldiers. Let them lie on the ground." And while the Northern troops administered to the comforts of both friend and foe, the women of Winchester showed up with luxuries to get given to Southern soldiers only. Quint concluded, "The inhuman feelings of these people are painful."
Once the women were made to realize, however, that all help and comforts would be refused so long as they remained exclusive to one group, and then witnessed the equal kindness their men were receiving, they began themselves, said Dwight, "to get a little humanity, and work for all." Nevertheless, Dwight used the incident to illustrate the "base and brutalizing influence at work here in Rebeldom."
Lt. Col. Andrews was one of the curious drawn to the battlefield. "Many of the dead & all the wounded have been removed, still the horror of a battlefield was there," he wrote to his wife. "The battle was quite a good one although there was very little skill or discipline on either side...I am inclined to think that our side would have been beaten if the Rebels had been well handled."
Morse made the 5 mile walk with Jim Savage and Henry Russell. The road was littered with shell holes, and dead horses and cows were lying where they had been struck down. "The hardest fighting was along a ridge which the enemy attempted to hold. Along it for nearly a mile, the bodies of our soldiers and those of the enemy were scattered thick, although most of them were the enemy. In one little piece of thick woods, there were at least 30 of the enemy lying just as they fell." Morse noted that while some of the dead were "terrible to look at," others appeared to be "peaceful as if they were asleep." It struck him as odd "how much less repulsive" bodies on a battlefield looked compared to those that were "regularly laid out in rows for burial."
With great interest, Morse studied the effects of the battle on the bushes and trees. "There was not a twig the size of your finger that was not cut off, and trees the size of a man's body had every one at least 3 or 4 bullets in it."
Witnessing the aftermath of the fight made a deep impression upon Henry Scott, who wrote to his sister, "I have always been eager for a fight before, but when I saw the terrible wounds, the thickets all cut up to perfect slivers by the storm of bullets, and the open field our men had to fight from, I wasn't so anxious, and I only hope my cowardly legs won't run away with me when the time comes."
From his interviews with survivors, Robert Gould Shaw concluded, "There is one thing, about which every man who has been in battle seems to be pretty sure, and that is, that he doesn't want to go into another if he can avoid it." He added, "I have no doubt, though, that this feeling wears off after a man has had more experience in fighting."
Capt. William B. Williams saw the battle of Kernstown less a Union victory as it was an opportunity lost. "There was no reason why we could not have taken Jackson's entire force, and I am more convinced every day that our battles are won--and will be won--by the private soldiers. It is rare that any generalship is shown--with good officers to have planned the attack our loss could have been very small. A Colonel in one of Shields'regiments had command during the fight on Sunday."
Shaw agreed with Williams. "If you could see what officers most regiments are afflicted with, you would be convinced that all the praise and glory should be given to the privates....It is the pure bravery and intelligence of our people that are winning our battles."
Maj. Dwight found the published reports of the battle exagerated at best and pure fiction at worst, with Shields himself the prime offender. "A more barefaced series of Irish romances I never read," Dwight scoffed. "The man actually has the effrontery to connect his fortunate blunders into a chain of shrewd strategems, and with after-event wisdom to glorify himself." All of this, of course, at the expense of the fighting men under his command. Well, Dwight sighed, "Possibly there will be truth in history hereafter; there is none in the present record."
There was one incident during the battle that brought Dwight some satisfaction, which proved to him that "the Second Regiment has a name in this Valley." The story that Dwight heard was that at a point during the battle when an Ohio regiment was broken by enemy fire and faltered, "some of the Rebels jumped up from the corner of their stone wall and shouted, 'Where's Gordon's bloody Second? Bring it on!'" Quipped Dwight, "They might any of them have seen it the other day if they would only have waited!"
On a final note, Dwight hoped that the Union high command would recognize the wake-up call Jackson had delivered. "We left a door open, and in came Jackson. We must not leave another door open." Dwight's words became prophetic, for within 2 months the Federals would leave a wide door open at Front Royal.
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