Engines of Destruction

On December 13, 1862, nine Confederate cannon on this knoll helped repulse one of two major Union attacks against Jackson's front. At noon, Union infantry crashed into the Confederate infantry line to the right-front, and Captain Greenlee Davidson's cannoneers fired double rounds of canister at just 300 yards' range. Davidson wrote that the Yankees broke in a stampede. Before and after this attack, his men fought fierce artillery duels with Union cannon. By day's end, the Confederate artillery was battered, Bernard's Cabins were in ruins, and the surrounding landscape was scarred, with the grove of pines in Davidson's front shattered.

Virginia · United States