from the woods.  Then came a race for the wall, and the Confederates won.  A heavy fire, at the closest range, blazed out in the face of the charging Federals, and in a few moments the stubble was strewn with dead and wounded.  A Pennsylvania regiment, leaving a colour on the field, gave way in panic, and the whole of the enemy’s force retreated to the shelter of the woods.  An attempt to turn Jackson’s left was then easily frustrated; and although the Federals maintained a heavy fire, Fulkerson’s men held stubbornly to the wall.

In the centre of the field the Northern riflemen were sheltered by a bank; their numbers continually increased, and here the struggle was more severe.  The 4th and 33rd Virginia occupied this portion of the line, and they were without support, for the 2nd Virginia and the Irish battalion, the last available reserves upon the ridge, had been already sent forward to reinforce the right.

The right, too, was hardly pressed.  The Confederate infantry had everywhere to do with superior numbers, and the artillery, in that wooded ground, could lend but small support.  The batteries protected the right flank, but they could take no share in the struggle to the front; and yet, as the dusk came on, after two long hours of battle, the white colours of the Virginia regiments, fixed fast amongst the rocks, still waved defiant.  The long grey line, “a ragged spray of humanity,” plied the ramrod with still fiercer energy, and pale women on the hills round Winchester listened in terror to the crashing echoes of the leafless woods.  But the end could not be long delayed.  Ammunition was giving out.  Every company which had reached the ridge had joined the fighting line.  The ranks were thinning.  Many of the bravest officers were down, and the Northern regiments, standing staunchly to their work, had been strongly reinforced.

Ashby for once had been mistaken.  It was no rearguard that barred the road to Winchester, but Shields’ entire division, numbering at least 9000 men.  A prisoner captured the day before had admitted that the Confederates were under the impression that Winchester had been evacuated, and that Jackson had immediately moved forward.  Shields, an able officer, who had commanded a brigade in Mexico, saw his opportunity.  He knew something of his opponent, and anticipating that he would be eager to attack, had ordered the greater part of his division to remain concealed.  Kimball’s brigade and five batteries were sent quietly, under cover of the night, to Pritchard’s Hill.  Sullivan’s brigade was posted in support, hidden from view behind a wood.  The cavalry and Tyler’s brigade were held in reserve, north of the town, at a distance where they were not likely to be observed by the inhabitants.  As soon as the Confederates came in sight, and Kimball deployed across the pike, Tyler was brought through the town and placed in rear of Sullivan, at a point where the road dips down between two parallel ridges.