The Coaling Falls

After Union troops recaptured the Coaling again, Confederate Gen. Richard Taylor saw additional Federal troops moving toward the position like a solid wall from the river plain and believed there seemed nothing left but to set their backs to the mountain and die hard. But more Confederates were converging on the height, including the 44th and 58th Virginia under Confederate Gen. Richard S. Ewell. Moving through the trees across the ravine, Ewell went to the front and urged his men back to the battery. As Col. Henry Kelly and other officers started forward, the men rose with a shout and dashed again toward the guns. On the Coaling, the Federals had already begun to withdraw; one Confederate said they were not disheartened, but they were wiped out. As Confederates surged around the height, the exhausted Union troops finally broke. In the river plain, the remaining Union infantry, now outnumbered and with Confederates atop the Coaling behind them, also pulled back. As most of the northerners funneled onto the River Road, modern-day U.S. 340, leading north, Confederates used some of the 5 cannons captured there to shell the fleeing Federals. The bombardment struck the withdrawing troops and turned a disorderly retreat into a rout. The Federals fled north under Confederate pursuit, and Stonewall Jackson and his foot cavalry won a hard-fought but decisive victory. Jackson then rode up to the Coaling to join Generals Ewell and Taylor and declared that anyone who did not see the hand of God in the victory was blind.

Virginia · United States