George H. Gordon, From Brook Farm to Cedar Mountain

[211] now an appalling spectacle of carnage, destruction, and demoralization, he avers that he captured only “about two hundred prisoners, with their horses and equipages, and that the great body of the Federal cavalry made good their retreat.”

While numbers of our cavalry did make their way across the fields to the westward of the pike, General Hatch, with a still larger body, turned back towards Strasburg with his six pieces of artillery. With this force, after gaining an advantageous site, he opened a rapid fire upon the enemy. Doubtful whether Banks's main force was yet in rear of or had passed through Middletown, Jackson turned to attack Hatch, impressed with the belief that the latter was attempting to force a passage through his lines. With Taylor's brigade, supported by Campbell's brigade, Jackson brought up his guns and replied to Hatch's fire. After a short skirmish, a column of flame and smoke was seen arising from the bridge over Cedar Creek. The Zouaves d 'Afrique, having been attacked by the part of Jackson's force that had swept southward, had fired the bridge and retreated to Strasburg. Then Hatch, convinced of the uselessness of the effort to cut his way through the enemy, turned to the left with his artillery, and made his way by narrow and obscure roads westward and northward, to effect, if possible, a junction with the main column. Six companies of the Fifth New York cavalry and six of the First Vermont, after repeated efforts to join the column, fell back to Strasburg.¹