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Kershaw's men stood at extreme tension watching and waiting the result of the struggle around the fort. Never perhaps were their nerves so strung up as the few moments they awaited in suspense the success or reverse of the assaulting column, bending every effort to catch the first command of "forward."
The next morning Early was joined by Lomax's cavalry from Harrisonburg, Wickham's and Payne's brigades of cavalry also uniting with him from the Luray Valley. His whole army then fell back to the mouth of Brown's Gap to await Kershaw's division and Cutshaw's artillery, now on their return.
He was sent across the Potomac, and next day to Shepherdstown. Returning from leave of absence occasioned by the desperate nature of his wound, he found that he had been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, and that his battalion and the Fifteenth Regiment made a part of Kershaw's Brigade, this being in December, 1862.
This was important, but more valuable still was the fact that we were astride the enemy's line of retreat, and had cut off from joining Longstreet, waiting at Rice's Station, a corps of Confederate infantry under General Ewell, composed of Anderson's, Kershaw's, and Custis Lee's divisions.
Returning home, he organized a company for the Confederate service, was elected Captain, and joined the Fifteenth Regiment, then forming in Columbia under Colonel DeSaussure. He was in all the battles of the Maryland campaign, in the brigade under General Drayton, and in all the great battles with Kershaw's Brigade.
Kershaw's four infantry brigades attacked at once, and Merrit, forced out of Port Republic, fell back toward Cross Keys; and in anticipation that the Confederates could be coaxed to that point, I ordered the infantry there, but Torbert's attack at Wavnesboro' had alarmed Early, and in consequence he drew all his forces in toward Rock-fish Gap.
So when it was learned for a certainty that the old First Brigade was to be transferred to South Carolina, all felt a keen pride in being thus selected, and now stamped it as a settled fact, that which they had always claimed, "the best troops from the State." The State furnished the best to the Confederacy, and a logical conclusion would be "Kershaw's Brigade was the best of the service."
My infantry had just got fairly into this position about an hour before sunset, when along Crook's front a combat took place that at the time caused me to believe it was Early's purpose to throw a column between Crook and Torbert, with the intention of isolating the latter; but the fight really arose from the attempt of General Anderson to return to Petersburg with Kershaw's division in response to loud calls from General Lee.
In reserve were Hood's three brigades, with Kershaw's and Humphries', all under Major General Hood, standing near the center and in rear of the wing.
The evening before a convalescent Confederate officer had visited her mother's house, and in conversation about the war had disclosed the fact that Kershaw's division of infantry and Cutshaw's battalion of artillery had started to rejoin General Lee.
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