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Updated: June 2, 2025
Kenly had pitched his camp between the town and the river, covering the bridges, and two companies were on picket beyond the houses. In front were the dense forests which fill the Luray Valley and cover the foothills of the mountains, and the view of the Federal sentries was very limited.
A few artillerymen, a squad or two of cavalry with several officers, Marchmont among them, got away. They were all who broke the trap. Kenly himself, twenty officers and nine hundred men, the dead, the wounded, the surrendered, together with a section of artillery, some unburned stores, and the Northern colours and guidons, rested in Jackson's hands.
His eyes were glittering and terrible to see at the potentialities of that finding. Yet in an instant he knew that death had likely already claimed the elder Rutheford. Otherwise he himself would have come back, long since, to recover the mine. He would be financing the expedition, rather than his brother Kenly.
It is true that it was fortified, but therein lay the very reason that would induce the enemy to turn it by Front Royal. Nor did the idea, which seems to have held possession of his mind throughout the night, that Ewell alone had been sent to destroy Kenly, and had afterwards fallen back, show much strategic insight. Front Royal was the weak point in the Federal position.
They were not running, exactly, but Kenly, always alert and cool, had seen the passage of the ford by the Virginians, and unlimbering his guns, was retreating in good order, but swiftly, his rear covered by the New York cavalry. Now Harry saw all the terrors of war. It was not sufficient for Jackson to defeat the enemy. He must follow and destroy him.
Kenly had just made a second stand, when down came the Virginians, led by Colonel Flournoy at racing speed over fence and ditch, scattering the Federal cavalry like chaff before the wind and smashing into the Federal infantry.
Musketry and artillery, Kenly opened upon them. Many a poor fellow, who until this war had never seen a railroad bridge, threw up his arms, stumbled, slipped between the ties, went down into the flood and disappeared. Stonewall Jackson continued his orders. "Skirmishers forward! Clear those combustibles out of the bridge. Cross, Wheat's Battalion! First Maryland, follow!"
A portion of the same regiment under Colonel John R. Kenly, at Front Royal, added new lustre to their fame, on the twenty-third of the same month, during "Stonewall's" flank movement on General Banks at Strasburg, and fought bravely during that memorable retreat to Maryland.
More of his army crossed at the fords and more poured over the bridge. The New York cavalry, despite courage and tenacity, could not withstand the onset of superior numbers. They were compelled to give way, and Kenly ordered his infantry, retreating on the turnpike, to turn and help them.
Meanwhile the victorious Southerners were spending a few moments in enjoying their triumph. They captured great quantities of food and clothing which Kenly had not found time to destroy, and which they joyously divided among themselves. Harry found the two colonels and all the rest of the Invincibles lying upon the ground in the fields. Some of them were wounded, but most were unhurt.
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