As the night began to fall the 5th Virginia, retiring steadily towards the pike, filed into a narrow lane, fenced by a stone wall, nearly a mile distant from their last position, and there took post for a final stand.  Their left was commanded by the ridge, and on the heights in the rear, coming up from the Opequon valley, appeared a large mass of Northern cavalry.  It was a situation sufficiently uncomfortable.  If the ground was too difficult for the horsemen to charge over in the gathering darkness, a volley from their carbines could scarcely have failed to clear the wall.  “A single ramrod,” it was said in the Confederate ranks, “would have spitted the whole battalion.”  But not a shot was fired.  The pursuit of the Federal infantry had been stayed in the pathless woods, the cavalry was held in check by Funsten’s squadrons, and the 5th was permitted to retire unmolested.

(Map.  Battle of Kernstown.  Sunday, march 23rd. 1862.  Showing:  West:  Neal’s Dam, North:  Winchester, South:  Opequon Creek, East:  old Road to Front Royal.)

The Confederates, with the exception of Ashby, who halted at Bartonsville, a farm upon the pike, a mile and a half from the field of battle, fell back to Newtown, three miles further south, where the trains had been parked.  The men were utterly worn out.  Three hours of fierce fighting against far superior numbers had brought them to the limit of their endurance.  “In the fence corners, under the trees, and around the waggons they threw themselves down, many too weary to eat, and forgot, in profound slumber, the trials, the dangers, and the disappointments of the day."* (* Jackson’s Valley Campaign, Colonel William Allan, C.S.A. page 54.)

Jackson, when the last sounds of battle had died away, followed his troops.  Halting by a camp-fire, he stood and warmed himself for a time, and then, remounting, rode back to Bartonsville.  Only one staff officer, his chief commissary, Major Hawks, accompanied him.  The rest had dropped away, overcome by exhaustion.  “Turning from the road into an orchard, he fastened up his horse, and asked his companion if he could make a fire, adding, “We shall have to burn fence-rails to-night.”  The major soon had a roaring fire, and was making a bed of rails, when the general wished to know what he was doing.  “Finding a place to sleep,” was the reply.  “You seem determined to make yourself and those around you comfortable,” said Jackson.  And knowing the general had fasted all day, he soon obtained some bread and meat from the nearest squad of soldiers, and after they had satisfied their hunger, they slept soundly on the rail-bed in a fence-corner.”