As he gave the order his horse fell heavily to the ground.  Leaping to his feet in an instant, again he shouted, “Charge, men! for God’s sake, charge!” The regiments rallied, and inspired by his example swept forward from the wood.  But hardly had they left the covert when their leader fell, shot through the heart.  He was speedily avenged.  The men who followed him, despite the heavy fire, dashed at the enemy in front and flank, and drove them from their ground.  The cavalry, meanwhile, had worked round in rear; the horse artillery found an opportunity for action; and under cover of the night the Federals fell back on Harrisonburg.

The losses of the Union troops were heavy; but the Confederate victory was dearly purchased.  The death of Ashby was a terrible blow to the Army of the Valley.  From the outbreak of the war he had been employed on the Shenandoah, and from Staunton to the Potomac his was the most familiar figure in the Confederate ranks.  His daring rides on his famous white charger were already the theme of song and story; and if the tale of his exploits, as told in camp and farm, sometimes bordered on the marvellous, the bare truth, stripped of all exaggeration, was sufficient in itself to make a hero.  His reckless courage, his fine horsemanship, his skill in handling his command, and his power of stimulating devotion, were not the only attributes which incited admiration.  “With such qualities,” it is said, “were united the utmost generosity and unselfishness, and a delicacy of feeling equal to a woman’s.”  His loss came home with especial force to Jackson.  After the unfortunate episode in the pursuit from Middletown, he had rated his cavalry leader in no measured terms for the indiscipline of his command; and for some days their intercourse, usually most cordial, had been simply official.  Sensitive in the extreme to any reflection upon himself or his troops, Ashby held aloof; and Jackson, always stern when a breach of duty was concerned, made no overtures for a renewal of friendly intercourse.  Fortunately, before the fatal fight near Harrisonburg, they had been fully reconciled; and with no shadow of remorse Jackson was able to offer his tribute to the dead.  Entering the room in Port Republic, whither the body had been brought, he remained for a time alone with his old comrade; and in sending an order to his cavalry, added, “Poor Ashby is dead.  He fell gloriously—­one of the noblest men and soldiers in the Confederate army.”  A more public testimony was to come.  In his official report he wrote:  “The close relation General Ashby bore to my command for most of the previous twelve months will justify me in saying that as a partisan officer I never knew his superior.  His daring was proverbial, his powers of endurance almost incredible, his character heroic, and his sagacity almost intuitive in divining the purposes and movements of the enemy.”

On the 6th and 7th the Confederate infantry rested on the banks of Mill Creek, near Cross Keys.  The cavalry, on either flank of the Massanuttons, watched both Fremont’s camps at Harrisonburg and the slow advance of Shields; and on the southern peak of the mountains a party of signallers, under a staff officer, looked down upon the roads which converged on the Confederate position.