A most determined and stubborn conflict now took place, and, as at Kernstown, at the closest range.  The Ohio troops repelled every effort to drive them back.  Winder’s line was thin.  Every man was engaged in the firing line.  The flanks were scourged by bursting shells.  The deadly fire from the road held back the front.  Men and officers were falling fast.  The stream of wounded was creeping to the rear; and after thirty minutes of fierce fighting, the wavering line of the Confederates, breaking in disorder, fell back upon the guns.  The artillery, firing a final salvo at a range of two hundred yards, was ordered to limber up.  One gun alone, standing solitary between the opposing lines, essayed to cover the retreat; but the enemy was within a hundred yards, men and horses were shot down; despite a shower of grape, which rent great gaps in the crowded ranks, the long blue wave swept on, and leaving the captured piece in rear, advanced in triumph across the fields.

In vain two of Ewell’s battalions, hurrying forward to the sound of battle, were thrown against the flank of the attack.  For an instant the Federal left recoiled, and then, springing forward with still fiercer energy, dashed back their new antagonists as they had done the rest.  In vain Jackson, galloping to the front, spurred his horse into the tumult, and called upon his men to rally.  Winder’s line, for the time being at least, had lost all strength and order; and although another regiment had now come up, the enemy’s fire was still so heavy that it was impossible to reform the defeated troops, and two fresh Federal regiments were now advancing to strengthen the attack.  Tyler had ordered his left wing to reinforce the centre and it seemed that the Confederates would be defeated piecemeal.  But at this moment the lines of the assailant came to a sudden halt; and along the slopes of the Blue Ridge a heavy crash of musketry, the rapid discharges of the guns, and the charging yell of the Southern infantry, told of a renewed attack upon the battery on the mountain side.

The Louisianians had come up in the very nick of time.  Pursuing his march by the forest path, Taylor had heard the sounds of battle pass beyond his flank, and the cheers of the Federals proved that Winder was hard pressed.  Rapidly deploying on his advanced guard, which, led by Colonel Kelley, of the 8th Louisiana, was already in line, he led his companies across the ravine.  Down the broken slopes, covered with great boulders and scattered trees, the men slipped and stumbled, and then, splashing through the stream, swarmed up the face of the bank on which the Federal artillery was in action.  Breaking through the undergrowth they threw themselves on the guns.  The attention of the enemy had been fixed upon the fight that raged over the plain below, and the thick timber and heavy smoke concealed the approach of Taylor’s regiments.  The surprise, however, was a failure.  The trails were swung round in the new direction,