Shields occupied a commanding position. He had a six gun battery on a plateau of the mountain that could sweep the whole field to the river, and there was no way to approach him without coming within its galling range. It was absolutely necessary that that battery should be silenced, and the only way to do so was to walk up to it and take it. With this battery in our hands, Jackson made short work of Sheilds. His army was soon routed and nearly all captured, which left us with that side of the river clear of foes and in peaceful possession of the bridge. Jackson had left nearly all of Ewell's Division, and perhaps part of the old division, confronting Fremont, who, as soon as he discovered we were fighting Shields, made an attack on Ewell and was repulsed at every point. It was in this engagement with Fremont that I saw a whole regiment annihilated at a single fire. It was the Seventh New York, composed of freshly imported Germans who could scarcely speak the English language intelligibly. They were so foolish as to attempt to march through an open clover field to a body of timber within our lines, with no sharp shooters in front to locate our position. Two regiments of my brigade, the Twenty-First Georgia and Sixteenth Mississippi, were posted behind a fence that ran along th edge of this woods. There was a large hollow in the clover field just in front of our position, behind the fence. The Germans came marching across the clover field in beautiful line, carrying their guns at "support arms." the Colonel walking backwards in front of them, seeing that they preserved a perfect alignment just as though they were simply drilling. The Georgians and Mississippians were lying flat on the ground, with their guns in the bottom crack of the fence. When the Germans got in the hollow above-mentioned, they could not be seen; but when they crossed it and came into view again, they were within fifty yards of the charge of the fence. Colonel Mercer, of the Twenty-First Georgia, who was commanding this detachment, sent an order down the line that if any man fired before he gave orders to fire, he would have him shot. As the Germans came up out of the hollow, their flag and that of the Georgians exactly confronted each other. This gave the Mississippians and enfilading, or raking fire. The men had their sights drawn and their fingers on the triggers, and in a quiver of excitement they saw the Germans coming up out of the hollow and waited for the order to fire. Colonel Mercer made them hold their fire until they could be seen from their feet up. Our men had a full, clear view, a lying down rest and unobsturcted range of not more than forty yards. When the order "Fire!" rang out from Mercer, a volley from a thousand guns sounded in the air, and a thousand bullets flew to their deadly work. The poor Germans fell all across each other in piles
ON TO RICHMOND
We pushed on up the Valley until we struck the Virginia Central Railroad, where we found a lot of trains of cars awaiting us. So actively had this march been conducted, that not a person along our route knew that Jackson was moving until they saw the army marching by. We were packed in and on the cars almost like sardines in a box, and went whirling through the great Blue Ridge tunnel on to Richmond, or as near Richmond, as it was advisable to go,and tumbled out of the cars, straightened out our limbs and took up the march for McClellan's rear.