United States or Ukraine ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Meanwhile, having been ordered by McDowell to support Ricketts's Battery, Howard has formed his four tired regiments into two lines Berry's 4th Maine, and Whitney's 2nd Vermont, on the right and left of the first; and Dunnell's 5th, and his own 3rd Maine, under Staples, in the second line. Howard himself leads his first line up the elevated plateau of the Henry House.
He waved his handkerchief to her until the big unfinished dome of the Capitol began to fade on the distant horizon. To meet three great armies converging on Richmond along the James under McClellan, from the North under McDowell, and the West by the Shenandoah Valley, the South had barely fifty-eight thousand men commanded by Joseph E. Johnston and eighteen thousand under Stonewall Jackson.
For with this last breath he whispered the words which he had repeated a dozen times before, "Remember, old chap, you win or lose the moment McDowell first sets his eyes on you!" And then, with a strange kind of sob in his chest, he was gone, and Keith's eyes were blinded by the miracle of a hot flood of tears, and there rose in him a mighty pride in the name of Derwent Conniston.
Colonel J. A. McDowell, commanding the first brigade, held his ground on Sunday, till I ordered him to fall back, which he did in line of battle; and when ordered, he conducted the attack on the enemy's left in good style. In falling back to the next position, he was thrown from his horse and injured, and his brigade was not in position on Monday morning.
The second Rockbridge Artillery Company, organized July 10, 1861, like the first Rockbridge Artillery, was commanded by a clergyman, the Rev. John Miller, of Princeton, New Jersey, as captain. In honor of his wife's sister, Miss Lily McDowell, daughter of Governor McDowell, of Virginia, who furnished in large part the outfit of this company, it was named "McDowell Guards."
On the other hand, the complete ignorance, at this time, of McDowell on this point, and the further fact that he has been lulled into a feeling of security on the subject, by General Scott's emphatic assurance to him that "if Johnston joins Beauregard, he shall have Patterson on his heels" is a great disadvantage to the Union general.
Although our left was thus turned, and the enemy was pressing our whole line, I deemed Shiloh so important, that I remained by it and renewed my orders to Colonels McDowell and Buckland to hold their ground; and we did hold these positions until about 10 a.m., when the enemy had got his artillery to the rear of our left flank and some change became absolutely necessary.
On June 24 he made a hurried visit to the veteran General Scott at West Point, for consultation on the existing military conditions, and on his return to Washington called General Pope from the West, and, by an order dated June 26, specially assigned him to the command of the combined forces under Frémont, Banks, and McDowell, to be called the Army of Virginia, whose duty it should be to guard the Shenandoah valley and Washington city, and, as far as might be, render aid to McClellan's campaign against Richmond.
We fought them back and I was wounded. They took me to McDowell, and no man was unkind until the night they put me in the iron cell with Sanchez, and he told me I should never see the Great Chief, my father; that I should hang for shooting the white chief, Willett. When I slept he was there. When I awakened he was gone, and the iron bars were gone.
Banks might have been reinforced by Blenker, of whose whereabouts Jackson was uncertain. Banks might have marched to join McDowell at Fredericksburg. McClellan might have pressed Johnston so closely that a decisive battle could not have been long delayed. McDowell might have marched on Richmond, intervening between the Valley army and the capital.