1862
TIMELINE:
APRIL
6 (Sunday) - Federals under Milroy reach Monterey after marching
in bad weather (icy roads) and stay 14 days
APRIL 16
(Wednesday) - Skirmish with Confederate cavalry
END APRIL
- Milroy's Federal troops advance to McDowell and establish camp.
Has difficulty finding subsistence. Foraging parties scour the
valleys; one waylaid near Williamsville (about 10 miles south of
McDowell) by Bath Cavalry with a train (wagon train?) captured and
burned; 1 man wounded and cared for.
MAY 4
(Sunday - Stonewall Jackson and troops arrive in Staunton, 30
miles west of McDowell
MAY 6
(Tuesday ) - Skirmishing between Confederate Johnson and Federal
Milroy between Staunton and McDowell
MAY 7
(Wednesday) - Confederates moving toward McDowell; Confederate
headquarters at John Wilson's on the Cowpasture 5 miles west of
McDowell
MAY 8 (Thursday)
- BATTLE OF McDOWELL
Three hundred
thousand bullets were used with 1 in 400 striking a man. Casualties:
US 256; CS 498 including 75 Confederates killed in woods east of pike
on Sitlington Hill. Prisoners: US 4; CS few. Federals left greater
share of their dead at the Presbyterian Church; others at houses in
town. Buried at low bluff west of town. Federals burned commissary
store on the west end of town and dumped ammunition in Crab Run. In
the morning, Confederate troops entered McDowell, halted, and
received rations at the Felix Hull house where Stonewall Jackson
established his headquarters.
MAY 9
(Friday) - "Local residents were glad the Confederates had punished
the enemy. They had been victimized by burnings and harrasment.
Headquarters was placed at Mrs. [Felix] Hull's house in
Mcdowell. Confederate dead were buried in a bend in the road." -
Schildt
Stonewall
Jackson's mapmaker Jedidiah Hotchkiss remarks, "Old Mr. Robert
Sitlington met us, in the turnpike, in the morning as we rode forward
towards McDowell, very much excited. He said: 'I thank God that you
have so punished the insolent foe that has been tyrranizing over us.'
The [enemy] burned several houses as they left said to have
contained stores and some of them dead men."
MAY 10
(Saturday) - Hotchkiss remarks, "On the road from McDowell today we
met many citizens going to look after friends and relatives who had
been in the battle."
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