Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's Maryland and Louisiana troops steadily pushed Col. John R. Kenly's 1st Maryland Infantry (US) north through occasionally fierce street fighting until Union artillery and infantry on Richardson's Hill opened fire and abruptly halted them at this point. Col. Bradley T. Johnson quickly reorganized the Confederate line, placing the 1st Maryland Infantry (CSA) on the right and Maj. Chatham Roberdeau Wheat's battalion on the left. Entering the meadow, the Confederates found a stone wall running east to west near the foot of Richardson's Hill and took cover behind it while Union shells raked the open ground in front and cannon balls arced over Rose Hill, home of the widow Richardson and her three daughters. Sue Richardson later wrote that the shelling frightened her mother so badly that she became ill, and that the family carried her to the cellar while soldiers filled the yard and Major Wheat gave orders there as they spent the night feeding hundreds of soldiers. Southern artillery on the Randolph Macon Academy ridge west of Front Royal was too far away to silence the Union guns, and for the moment the Confederate advance stopped.
