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Updated: May 13, 2025
To the right was a deep gorge, nearly half a mile across from cliff to cliff, dividing Sitlington's Hill from the heights to northward; and through this dangerous defile ran the turnpike, eventually debouching on a bridge which was raked by the Federal guns. To the left the country presented exactly the same features.
On May 7 he had been advised by his scouts and spies that Jackson and Johnson had combined, and that they were advancing to attack him at M'Dowell. At 10 A.M. the next day Schenck's brigade arrived from Franklin, after a march of thirty-four miles in twenty-three hours, and a little later the enemy's scouts were observed on the lofty crest of Sitlington's Hill. The day wore on.
Four days later, on Sitlington's Hill, on the Bull Pasture Mountain, thirty miles to the west of Staunton, a man sat at nightfall in the light of a great camp-fire and wrote a dispatch to his Government.
He proposed, therefore, while his staff explored the mountains for a track which might lead him the next day to the rear of the Federal position, merely to hold his ground on Sitlington's Hill. His immediate opponent, however, was a general of more resource and energy than Banks. Milroy was at least able to supply himself with information.
Had the Confederate artillery been brought to the brow of Sitlington's Hill, the valley would doubtless soon have become untenable, and the enemy have been compelled to retire through the mountains. It was by no means easy, however, to prevent them from getting away unscathed. But Jackson was not the man to leave the task untried, and to content himself with a mere cannonade.
The head of the column was halted near the top of Bull Pasture Mountain, and General Johnson, accompanied by a party of thirty men and several officers, with a view to a reconnaissance of the enemy's position, ascended Sitlington's Hill, an isolated spur on the left of the turnpike and commanding a full view of the village of M'Dowell.
These were Federal guns; but so great was the angle of elevation that but one man on Sitlington's Hill was struck by a piece of shell. Jackson, in order to conceal his actual strength, had declined to order up his artillery.
Mountain after mountain, ridge after ridge, cleft by shadowy crevasses, and clothed with great tracts of forest, rolled back in tortuous masses to the backbone of the Alleghanies; a narrow pass, leading due westward, marking the route to Monterey and the Ohio River. Although commanded by Sitlington's Hill, the Federal position was difficult to reach.
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