Battle of First Kernstown

At about 2:30 PM on March 23, 1862, during the Battle of First Kernstown, the 37th Virginia, the lead regiment of Colonel Fulkerson's brigade, had reached this point as the 33rd Virginia of General Garnett's brigade began to emerge from Barton's Woods. Garnett had been ordered to support Fulkerson, but because General Jackson sent the orders through an aide, Lt. George Junkin, Garnett did not fully understand how to provide that support because he had never been told Fulkerson's orders. Amid this confusion, and by Garnett's own admission because he spent too much time observing Union movements and directing the 33rd Virginia, he failed to order his other three regiments, the 2nd, 4th, and 27th Virginia, to move behind the 33rd as it advanced to support Fulkerson. At this stage of the assault, Union guns on Pritchard's Hill continued effective fire on the advancing Confederates, and Lt. Robinson's battery added solid shot and exploding shell fire, confirming the value of Lt. Col. Daum's decision to direct the move. Trying to lessen the artillery threat to his brigade, Fulkerson ordered an oblique turn to the left, but the effort was negated because the three branches of Hoge Run north of this position, swollen by excessive rain and snow during the winter of 1861-2, made the ground marshy and difficult to cross, and because the movement toward wooded shelter to the west exposed the brigade as a larger target, causing greater losses.

Virginia · United States