Defense in the Cemetery: Getty's Stand at Cedar Creek

8:00 to 9:30 a.m. at the Battle of Cedar Creek — part of the Park Service series A Victory Turned From Disaster.

Captain James McKnight's battery (centre), the Vermont Brigade (right) and Confederate artillery along the Valley Pike (centre); Union General Daniel Bidwell (lower right) was mortally wounded in the fight. NPS.

Mount Carmel Cemetery

Mount Carmel Cemetery sits on a ridge above the banks of Meadow Brook, looking east over the town of Middletown and south toward Belle Grove. Before the Civil War the people of Middletown buried their dead there, above the town. During the Battle of Cedar Creek this small graveyard became the scene of a desperate fight to save an army from destruction.

Union officers saw the knoll west of the village as the only place where they could form a strong line and slow the Confederate advance, which had been rolling forward since the surprise attack at dawn.

Getty moves to the high ground

One Union division of the 6th Corps was still untouched. Brigadier General George Washington Getty's command, about 2,500 men, had escaped the Confederate assaults before daybreak and was ready to fight; it was the army's last chance to stall the attack.

Around 8:00 a.m. Getty watched Lieutenant General Jubal Early's victorious Confederates advancing toward him across the fields around Belle Grove. He decided to make a stand and moved his men onto the high ground of the town's cemetery, hoping that a firm stand there would bring stragglers from the 6th, 19th and 8th Corps back into the fight.

George Washington Getty. Library of Congress.

Two assaults beaten back

Early's first attempt to break Getty's line was led by General John Pegram's division. The morning fog was only beginning to lift over the valley floor, and one Union officer told his men to hold their fire "until they could see the enemy and know what they were firing at." When Pegram's men appeared, a withering volley drove them back.

The next attack, meant to push Getty north of town, was led by General Bryan Grimes. His North Carolinians struck the centre of Getty's line, straight at the Vermonters, and some of them went for the Union guns supporting the Vermont Brigade. Lieutenant Colonel Winsor of the 77th New York, commanding part of Getty's left, saw his line start to give way. Looking toward the Vermonters, he called out the words he is remembered for: "Don't run until the Vermonters do!" The line held, and Getty kept the hill.

The cannonade

Frustrated, Early gathered all his artillery — nearly 30 guns — near the Heater House and along the Valley Pike, and for 30 minutes pounded the hill with everything he had. The Union soldiers sheltered however they could. During the bombardment General Daniel D. Bidwell was hit in the shoulder; the wound was mortal, and he died that evening.

When the smoke cleared, Confederate infantry came on for a third time, under Generals Gabriel Wharton and Joseph Kershaw. This attack got closer than the first two, and there was hand-to-hand fighting for the Union guns. "It was now man to man, hand to hand," an artilleryman remembered, "with bayonet and musket butt on their side and revolvers, rammer heads and handspikes on ours."

Withdrawal

The third attack also threatened to turn the Union right. Despite his men's stubborn resistance, Getty saw that the position was lost and ordered a withdrawal. By 9:30 his division was moving northwest of Middletown to rejoin the broken Army of the Shenandoah, and by 10:00 Early's Confederates were marching proudly through the town's streets.

Getty's 90-minute stand on Cemetery Hill was the most determined Union effort to stop the triumphant Confederates, and it was not enough. "At this time the battle seemed lost," a Union soldier recalled, "and all the maneuvering in the Valley for the last two months thrown away."

A Victory Turned From Disaster

The series continues: previous, A Rich Prize; next, The Fatal Halt. The cemetery has its own page: Mount Carmel Cemetery.

Sources

• National Park Service, Cedar Creek & Belle Grove National Historical Park, Defense in the Cemetery.