Jackson’s marching columns, with Maj. Gen. A.P. Hill’s Light Division bringing up the rear, lay strung out over 10 miles of hot, dusty Virginia countryside. Hill’s first indication of contact occurred about six miles from Culpeper Courthouse. The divisional commander, it appears, was not aware of Jackson’s battle plan.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in America's Civil War magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

While Early waited for Winder to bring up his division, the general led a reconnaissance. His efforts soon bore fruit, as he was able to locate an old farm lane that exited Culpeper Road and spilled out of the woods directly onto the Crittenden farm, where the Federal cavalry had formed. Early pushed, prodded, swore and cursed the brigade through the forest that shielded the movement. As Early’s men advanced through the woods, Ewell’s artillery, which had kept well closed on the infantry columns, opened up on the unseen Federals who lay beyond the rolling countryside of the farm. The Rebels managed to fire 14 rounds of spherical case shot before the Federals responded with a splendid salvo of counterbattery fire that showered the choleric Early with dirt and dust.

With Colonel James A. Walker’s game 13th Virginia posted as skirmishers and the 12th Georgia of Trimble’s brigade posted on the right flank, the Confederates debouched from the woods, advanced across a farm lane and formed a battle line just north of the clapboard-sided Crittenden farmhouse. Shots were exchanged with the two recalcitrant Federal cavalry regiments, and Early advanced his 1,500-man brigade to a rise that provided a panoramic view of the battlefield. As the brigade appeared across the crest of the ridge, Federal artillerists opened at a range of 1,600 yards and forced the Confederates to withdraw to the west side of the hill.

Ewell’s remaining two brigades (Trimble’s and Forno’s) exited Culpeper Road just beyond the ford and moved on Early’s right, along the north shoulder of the mountain. Well to their left and far below their present position on the mountainside, the infantry could clearly make out Early’s men.

Just after 2 p.m., Winder’s division came up and began the arduous and time-consuming task of linking battle lines with Early. To the rear, along Culpeper Road, the six brigades of A.P. Hill’s enormous Light Division stretched along the dusty road for miles. Ahead, Hill’s veterans could hear the familiar report of brass 12-pounders, and realized that the battle had been joined.

Early had carefully studied the landscape that lay before his command: the rolling wheat fields and immense cornfields directly on his front and right, the undulating swales and gullies that could easily hide a regiment, the north and south forks of Cedar Run and, finally, a copse of cedar trees on his immediate right front that seized his imagination as an ideal post for a well-appointed battery. A runner was sent to Ewell with the call for artillery support, but Ewell’s prescient artillery chief, A.R. Courtney, had already dispatched Captain W.D. Brown of the Chesapeake Artillery, pulling one 3-inch Whitworth rifle, and Captain W.F. Dement of the Maryland line, with two 12-pounder Napoleons. Within minutes the three Confederate pieces were lobbing spherical shells toward their Union counterparts.

Winder began to move his artillery up Culpeper Road with the assistance of his chief of artillery, Major Snowden Andrews. The general wanted as many rifled pieces as they could muster, and Andrews sent Parrott rifles and Napoleons to the gate where the farm lane exited Culpeper Road.

Initially, Early’s line ran all the way to Culpeper Road, but when the van of Winder’s division came up, he quickly shortened his brigade front to the south. Brigadier General W.B. Taliaferro’s amalgamated Virginia and Alabama brigade began to fill in on the left, while Colonel T.S. Garnett’s Virginia brigade, after taking a severe shelling at the gate, moved northeastward across Culpeper Road into a line of woods that fronted an open wheat field. There the brigade formed an “L” facing both south to Early’s left and northeast toward the wheat field.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to