“We had a hardscrabble up…”

In May 1862, with Union forces occupying Fort Johnson and moving to capture Staunton, “Stonewall” Jackson advanced with speed and secrecy to the foot of Shenandoah Mountain, then moved west and defeated Union Generals John C. Fremont and R.H. Milroy at the Battle of McDowell on May 9. Major Jedediah Hotchkiss, Jackson’s mapmaker, recalled that on Wednesday, May 7, after a ride of 25 miles from Staunton to Rodgers’ Toll-gate in Ramsey’s Draft, where the advance of General Johnson’s men had struck a Federal outpost, killed and wounded several enemy soldiers, and captured stores, Jackson ordered Hotchkiss to climb the mountain spur on the right with skirmishers while Col. Williamson did the same on the left to learn whether the enemy still held Fort Johnson at the pass on the summit. After a hard scramble up the steep slope, Hotchkiss and his party reached the top and found the enemy gone, though their rear guard could be seen on Shaw’s Ridge beyond.

Virginia · United States