The Battle of Cool Spring, July 18, 1864

In July 1864, after a partly successful raid on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal Early pulled his 15,000-man Army of the Valley back west into the Shenandoah Valley. He had won the Battle of Monocacy near Frederick, Maryland, on July 9, but was turned back at Fort Stevens, just outside the capital, on July 11–12. Fearing for Washington and President Lincoln, General Ulysses S. Grant had rushed his 6th Corps and other troops north just in time.

Early had still done two things for his commander, General Robert E. Lee: he had threatened the Union capital, and he had drawn a sizable force away from Grant, who was fighting Lee around Richmond.

Island Ford, looking west, where Thoburn's men crossed the Shenandoah River (NPS photo).

The pursuit

A Union force from the 6th, 8th and 19th Corps under Major General Horatio Wright followed Early across northern Virginia. Early crossed the Blue Ridge at Snicker's Gap on July 16–17, crossed the Shenandoah River and set up a temporary base at Berryville. Hearing that Union cavalry was coming through the Blue Ridge, he had Major General John C. Breckinridge send two divisions back to block any crossing at nearby Castleman's Ferry. Wright, meanwhile, resolved to force a crossing the next day, July 18, 1864 — apparently expecting little resistance, on the assumption that Early was retreating toward Richmond.

Across the river

Wright ordered Brigadier General George Crook and his 8th Corps (the Army of West Virginia) "to cross the river if practicable and attack," with the 6th Corps in support and the 19th following. When Union cavalry found no good openings, Crook and Wright chose to go around the Confederates from the north.

Around 2 p.m., Colonel Joseph Thoburn of Ohio, a veteran of many battles in the Valley and West Virginia, led one of Crook's divisions about two miles north to Island Ford. His orders: cross, then turn south along the west bank and strike the Confederates holding Castleman's Ferry. Crook staged a small diversion against Major General John Brown Gordon's troops at the ferry — but Gordon had already posted pickets on the west bank at Island Ford, near a spring called Cool Spring.

Colonel George Wells's brigade, including the 34th Massachusetts and 5th New York Heavy Artillery, waded the shallow river under cover of the woods and was met by musket fire from Virginia pickets. Wells's skirmishers drove them off, and the rest of the brigade crossed to hold a foothold.

Backs to the water

From prisoners, Thoburn learned that large Confederate forces under Major General Robert Rodes and Brigadier General Gabriel Wharton were on the way. He asked for orders. Crook apparently wanted to pull him back, but Wright overruled him and sent James Ricketts's 6th Corps division to reinforce. Thoburn took the strongest position he could on the west bank and waited.

His position was precarious — river behind, enemy of unknown strength ahead — but he was lucky to find a stone wall running parallel to the river. He put his reserve behind it and pushed his front line about 50 yards forward to a low ridge, hoping to spot the enemy through the trees. His force probably numbered fewer than 5,000.

The Confederate attack

Surprised by the crossing downstream, Breckinridge sent Wharton's division forward on Gordon's left; Union guns on the east bank shelled it, but Thoburn's men near the river could not see it. By 4 p.m. Rodes's 3,000-man division was moving too, unseen, onto high wooded ground on Wharton's left. Thoburn now faced about 8,000 Confederates.

Sharpshooters from Gordon's, Wharton's and Rodes's divisions drove the Union skirmishers back to the main line. Around 6 p.m. Rodes struck, mostly hidden by woods: Alabamians and Georgians swept south along the river against Thoburn's far right, while North Carolinians came down through the trees against his right front. Thoburn sent the 4th West Virginia and some dismounted cavalry to help the 18th Connecticut.

The pressure was too much. The dismounted cavalry broke, many plunging into the river. The 4th West Virginia fell back to the stone wall, and the 18th Connecticut, joined by the 12th and 1st West Virginia, the 2nd Maryland and artillery fire from across the river, fought to slow the advance. As one North Carolina soldier put it, "The Yankees were driven pell-mell into the river, with a heavy loss in killed and wounded."

Expecting the main blow on his right, Thoburn swung troops over from his lightly engaged left. That move exposed men from at least six regiments — Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York — to fire from Wharton's Virginians on higher ground. North Carolinians from William Cox's brigade seized the chance and charged downhill for part of the stone wall; "away went both lines of battle at full speed as fast as their feet could carry them…," one wrote. Their volley sent the Federals back toward the river, and crossfire from Wharton's and Gordon's sharpshooters mortally wounded Union brigade commander Colonel Daniel Frost and set off a panic.

Holding the wall

Most of Thoburn's men still fighting — from the 18th Connecticut, 2nd Maryland, 12th and 4th West Virginia and 116th Ohio, with others who chose to stay — rallied behind the stone wall. Thoburn slowed the Confederate advance and covered the men retreating across the river. "He was the coolest man on the field," one Union soldier said of him.

Ricketts's division reached the east bank around 6 p.m. but, seeing Thoburn's men already falling back, declined to join what looked like a lost fight. Crook urged Wright to order Ricketts in; Wright refused. The 6th Corps' artillery chief, Colonel Charles Tompkins, did place three batteries on the east bank to break up Confederate attacks and cover the withdrawal — fire some Confederates later believed saved Thoburn's force from destruction.

Thoburn's wet, exhausted men camped in the woods on the east bank. Union losses were 422, Confederate about 400 — lower than they might have been thanks to the stone wall and Thoburn's plugging of gaps.

A victory abandoned

On July 19 pickets traded shots across the river, but no one attacked. Warned that a large Union force was nearing Berryville from the north, Early withdrew west to Winchester, and Wright's troops crossed the Shenandoah easily in pursuit. The Confederate tactical victory at Cool Spring meant little — but frustration with the war in the Valley soon led Grant to rebuild the Army of the Shenandoah under a new, aggressive commander, Major General Philip H. Sheridan.

Today the battlefield, a former golf course, is cared for by Shenandoah University as an outdoor classroom for the university and the public.

Sources

• National Park Service, Cedar Creek & Belle Grove National Historical Park: "Battle of Cool Spring," part of the series Great Alarm at the Capital.