At one point on June 5, 1864, the opposing lines at Piedmont, Virginia, stood just 20 yards apart. When the Confederate commander, Gen. William "Grumble" Jones, rode into the melee to steady his men, he was shot dead, and his line began to crumble. By the end of the day it had collapsed into a rout, and the next morning Federal troops marched into Staunton, a key town of the Shenandoah Valley.
A new commander
After their defeat at New Market in May, the Federal troops in the Valley pulled back to Middletown. On May 21, Gen. David "Black Dave" Hunter replaced Gen. Franz Sigel. His goals were Sigel's: clear the Valley of Confederate forces, stop the use of Staunton as a supply center, join Gen. George Crook's Army of West Virginia, and cross the Blue Ridge to Charlottesville and Gordonsville, wrecking more of the Virginia Central Railroad. He ordered his roughly 8,500 men to travel light. As Col. George Wells of the 34th Massachusetts wrote, Hunter meant "to subsist this army" on the Valley's food "and destroy the rest."
The Confederates gather
At first Hunter faced only about 2,000 cavalry under Gen. John Imboden; most of the troops who had won at New Market under Gen. John C. Breckinridge had gone east to join Robert E. Lee near Richmond. When Lee heard Hunter had moved south on May 26, he ordered Jones, commanding in eastern Tennessee and southwest Virginia, to "get all the available forces you can and move at once to Imboden's assistance." Jones gathered about 3,600 men, including some 1,000 Tennesseans under Gen. John C. Vaughn.
Hunter's march was hard — hot, humid, some men without shoes — but his troops wanted to erase the stain of New Market. On June 4, finding Imboden blocking the North River crossing at Mount Crawford, Hunter left his cavalry under Gen. Julius Stahel to keep Imboden busy and swung southeast through Port Republic around the Confederate right. Jones, arriving that morning to take command, shifted his army to Piedmont.
The battle
| Time / phase | What happened |
|---|---|
| About 5–7 a.m. | Stahel's cavalry ran into the 18th Virginia Cavalry; the outnumbered Confederates fell back to Jones's main line, on a wooded ridge north of Piedmont behind Walker's Lane, with the Middle River at its back and Vaughn's Tennesseans about 600 yards off to the right rear |
| First Federal attack | Col. Augustus Moor's brigade — the 18th Connecticut, 5th New York Heavy Artillery and 116th Ohio — drove in 500 dismounted cavalry under Maj. Richard Brewer but was repulsed with heavy losses at the main line |
| Artillery duel | Hunter's chief of artillery, Capt. Henry DuPont, turned all 22 of his guns on one Confederate battery at a time — "the precision of fire was wonderful" — forcing Jones's 16 guns to withdraw, then shelled the infantry |
| Second Federal attack | also repulsed; Jones considered a counterattack |
| Flank attack | Hunter sent Col. Joseph Thoburn's three regiments uphill against the Confederate right; under cover of the artillery fire they were not seen until less than 100 yards away. In the vicious fight that followed, Jones was killed |
| Collapse | Moor pressed forward again, the whole Confederate line gave way, and many who fled down the hill to the Middle River were captured |
The cost, and what came next
| Confederate | Federal | |
|---|---|---|
| Killed or wounded | over 600 | some 850 |
| Captured | about 1,000 | — |
The Federals also took three battle flags and nearly 2,000 small arms. It was the costliest day of battle in the Shenandoah Valley up to that time. Vaughn, now in command, fell back to Rockfish Gap in the Blue Ridge, and on June 6 Hunter marched into Staunton, ready to move on Lynchburg. The victory forced Lee to send Breckinridge's troops back to the Valley, and soon after, Gen. Jubal Early's Second Corps. The Valley was about to see the very worst of the war.
Visiting
Virginia historical highway marker A-111 marks the battle, on the southbound side of Battlefield Road (State Route 603) in Augusta County, just south of Piedmont Road.
Sources
Based on "Battle of Piedmont," National Park Service (Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park), a work of the United States government in the public domain.
收录于这些合集Cedar Creek & Belle Grove National Historical Park
许可协议： CC0 1.0（公有领域） · 改编自 www.nps.gov
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