At the First Battle of Kernstown on March 23, 1862, the first major Civil War battle fought in the Shenandoah Valley, 16 Union cannons on Pritchard’s Hill held off Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s overmatched Confederate command through the morning. Acting on intelligence soon proved faulty, Jackson attacked a force that outnumbered his by 3,000 men and failed to dislodge the Union guns by direct assault. In mid-afternoon, the fighting swept over the William W. Glass farm, known as Rose Hill, when Jackson ordered Col. Samuel Fulkerson’s and Gen. Richard B. Garnett’s brigades to Sandy Ridge against the Federal right flank, and Union Col. Nathan Kimball countered with reinforcements. The Confederate line held for about two hours behind a stone wall east of the Glass house, sometimes exchanging fire at a distance of only 80 yards, but Garnett’s brigade finally retreated after running out of ammunition, Fulkerson’s followed, and the withdrawal nearly became a rout. By the time the Confederates retreated, one out of every seven had been killed or wounded. Although Kernstown was the only defeat of Jackson’s career, it led the U.S. War Department to send 25,000 additional men to the Shenandoah Valley instead of to other areas, and it began the campaign that soon made Stonewall Jackson famous throughout America.
