Fisher’s Hill

As Gen. George Crook’s corps struck the Confederate left flank, Gen. Stephen D. Ramseur quickly reformed Gen. Cullen A. Battle’s Alabama infantry brigade on high ground across the ravine to face west against the Union assault. Capt. Thomas J. Kirkpatrick’s Amherst Battery supported Battle’s position by firing double canister into Crook’s infantry, and Capt. John Massie’s Fluvanna Artillery also wheeled its guns west to help Battle try to stem the tide of Union infantry. While Confederate artillery and Battle’s Alabamians fired into the attackers, Battle grabbed a cedar stake and rode among his men, waving it over his head and shouting, “Close up! On your life!” Confederate artillerist M.S. Watts of the Amherst Battery later wrote that Battle appeared as a “colossal figure” as he urged his regiments to stand firm against the Union tidal wave. For a brief moment the Confederate fire stymied Crook’s assault, and after the war he wrote that the combination of fire from the two artillery batteries and Battle’s five regiments made “the ground hot for us.” Col. George D. Wells, who commanded one of Crook’s brigades, likewise recalled that the enemy, with musketry and artillery, gave his men heavy fire as they came on. The Confederate success in slowing the Union assault, however, proved temporary.

Virginia · United States