Military
5
On September 1, 1862, Confederate forces under Major General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson moved across and to the southwestern edge of this site to engage Union forces trying to prevent a glancing movement on demoralized Union troops fleeing the field at Second Manassas. The battle raged for a little less than three hours and ended in ferocious hand-to-hand combat during a violent late afternoon thunderstorm. Tactically it ended in a stalemate, leaving about 610 dead or wounded Union soldiers and 501 Confederate troops on the field. Union forces suffered the greater loss when Major General Issac I. Stevens was shot and fatally wounded while leading the 79th New York against Hay's Louisiana and Thomas' 49th Georgia Brigades. Major General Philip Kearny, trying to fill a suspected void in Stevens' line, moved out in front of the 21st Massachusetts Brigade into the eastern edge of a cornfield, where he encountered troops, presumably the 49th Georgia, who killed him as he attempted to escape. The battle ended the hostilities of Second Manassas and set into motion General Robert E. Lee's excursion into Maryland and the bloody Battle of Antietam.
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Fair Oaks, Virginia · United States
