"War, grim-visaged war, has at length reared its horrid front among us," the Lynchburg Daily Virginian for April 16, 1861 proclaimed. "That greatest of human calamities, civil war is...absolutely upon us."

The first official action of the militia companies that were to become the Second Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment was the seizing of the arsenal at Harpers Ferry on April 18, 1861.

On April 29, 1861, Colonel Thomas Jonathan Jackson arrived at Harpers Ferry and began organizing the individual militia companies into regiments. The Virginia troops were organized into one brigade comprised of five regiments. The lower valley regiment, officially designated the Second Virginia Volunteer Infantry, was mustered into Confederate State service May 11-13, 1861, under the command of Colonel James W. Allen.

The 2^nd Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment was comprised of companies from Jefferson, Clarke, Frederick and Berkeley Counties in the Northern Shenandoah Valley. Company “F” was raised primarily from the town of Winchester, Virginia. The regiment consisted of the following lettered companies:

On July 15, the First Brigade of Virginia became an official entity, composed of the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 27th, and 33rd Virginia Regiments. Its commander was Colonel (later General) Thomas Jonathan Jackson. A four-gun battery known as the “Rockbridge Artillery” served with the brigade for the first year of the war.

The Second Virginia Volunteer Infantry began its long and illustrious battle record on July 21, 1861 when they went into the line at the Battle of First Manassas. During that famous battle, the men of the First Brigade stood firm earning the name “Stonewall Brigade” alongside General “Stonewall” Jackson. The 2^nd Virginia suffered 76 casualties while earning that name.

The regiment saw only limited action in the remainder of the year 1861. Their next real fighting was in the Valley Campaign in the spring of 1862. During that Campaign, the Brigade marched 646 miles in 48 days, fought four battles, six skirmishes and a dozen delaying actions. “Old Jack” and his “Foot Cavalry” had thwarted the plans of more than 64,000 Union troops, four times more troops than marched with Jackson. The greatest distance traveled in one day by the 2^nd was 36 miles in fourteen hours on May 31^st, 1862.

The regiment fought next at the battle of Kernstown on March 23, 1862. During one of the assaults, the regiment had seven color-bearers fall, one right after another, until finally Colonel Allen sprang from his horse, grabbed the tattered flag himself, and gallantly charged at the head of his regiment. During this action, the regiment suffered 47 casualties.

The 2nd Virginia took part in the “Seven Days Campaign,” engaging in heavy fighting at Malvern Hill on July 1, 1862. In early August they were at the center of the fighting at Cedar Mountain. Three weeks later, the 2nd Virginia and the Stonewall Brigade incurred such heavy battle losses that the effectiveness of the units was permanently impaired. The Second Manassas Campaign took place only sixteen months into the Civil War; yet the Virginia regiments never fully recovered from this bitterly contested struggle that extended more than three days. Due to earlier losses, sickness, and desertions, the 2^nd Virginia entered the Battle of Second Manassas with an estimated 130 men. When the battle was over, the 2^nd Virginia had suffered 82 casualties, leaving less than 50 men fit for duty.

On September 17, 1862, the Stonewall Brigade fought at Sharpsburg (called Antietam by the Federals) in what was to become the bloodiest one-day battle of the entire Civil War. The Stonewall Brigade took 250 men into action, and suffered 11 killed and 77 wounded. The 2nd Virginia had been detached from the Stonewall Brigade just before Sharpsburg and so they did not participate in the battle. They were on picket duty in Martinsburg.

The 2nd Virginia fought next at Fredericksburg on December 13th and 14th, 1862, but were not as heavily engaged. They suffered an additional 20 casualties in that action.

Spring 1863: For the Virginia soldiers, the last three years of the Civil War were a time of attrition; a painful period of increased suffering and hardship, of depleted ranks becoming thinner because war consumed more men than patriotism could produce. The most traumatic battle of the war for the regiment occurred in May of 1863 at Chancellorsville. During heavy fighting on the second day of the battle, Sunday, May 3rd, the Stonewall Brigade commander, General E. Franklin Paxton, was killed only moments into the battle. The Second Virginia suffered an additional 50 casualties in this campaign.

The 2nd Virginia suffered an even greater “personal loss” a week later, when their former Brigade commander, General Thomas Jonathon “Stonewall” Jackson died on May 10, 1863 of pneumonia after being accidentally wounded by his own men. Morale now plummeted amid the skeletal ranks of the Brigade. Thereafter, the 2nd Virginia fought from instinct and a sense of duty rather than from enthusiasm.

Perhaps the regiment’s finest achievement was their victory on June 15th, 1863 at the battle of Second Winchester. During the fight, the 2nd Virginia captured 816 prisoners and six stands of enemy colors. The six Federal regiments that surrendered were the 18th Connecticut, 5th Maryland, 122nd Ohio, 123rd Ohio, 87th Pennsylvania and the 12th West Virginia. The 2nd Virginia suffered casualties of only 2 wounded. In no other campain, did the men of the 2^nd Virginia gain so much while losing so little.

The Stonewall Brigade arrived at Gettysburg at sundown on July 1, 1863 as the first day’s combat ended. They deployed in a position southeast of the town on Culp’s farm, near the Hanover road. The only action they saw that day was to drive Federal sharpshooters out of a wheat field to their front. It wasn’t until July 3, 1863, that the regiment was brought into the fight when the Federal 12th Corps attempted to recapture the breastworks at the base of Culp’s Hill. The regiment was able to hold the Federal advance, suffering 28 casualties. The regiment had been spared the heavy casualties that were suffered by many of the other Confederate units during this fight. They then joined the Confederate retreat back across the Potomac River.

On November 26, 1863, the Stonewall Brigade advanced to the Rapidan River defenses. The following day the regiment marched to Mine Run, one of the rivers tributaries. The Brigade was third in line of march when gunfire exploded on its flank from Federals concealed in nearby woods. The regiment wheeled to the left and for two hours kept up a steady exchange of musket fire with the Federals. Confederates and Federals met in the cleared field of a farm belonging to a man named Payne.

When the Northerners began falling back in confusion, the Stonewall Brigade regiments swept forward in expectation that the Federal line had disintegrated; but as the Virginians ran across the open ground, they unexpectedly met a severe oblique fire from the Federals in the woods to their left. When the battle of Payne’s Farm ended with darkness, the 2nd Virginia had suffered 5 dead and 40 wounded.

The 2nd Virginia went into winter quarters at Pisgah Church during the winter of 1863-64.

In May of 1864, the Stonewall Brigade fought in the two-day battle known as “The Wilderness.” The 2nd Virginia suffered losses of 1 killed, 6 wounded. But the worst was yet to come.

At Spotsylvania, the 2nd Virginia was occupying a point initially known as “The Salient.” On May 12, 1864, General Ulysses S. Grant threw three divisions at “The Salient,” (known thereafter as “The Bloody Angle”) that poured over the earthworks. The 2nd Virginia desperately turned at right angles in the trenches to deliver some enfilading fire to no avail. The Stonewall Brigade was trapped. Those not dead or wounded dropped their rifles and surrendered. Casualties in the 2nd Virginia were 5 wounded, and 95 captured.

After the disaster at Spotsylvania, the Stonewall Brigade ceased to exist as an independent unit. The fragments of its regiments were combined with bits and pieces of nine other regiments and formed into a heterogenous brigade under General William Terry. This so-called “brigade” was not even the size of a full strength regiment. What was left of the Stonewall Brigade was so small as to be indistinguishable in the march. Its regiments averaged no more than forty-five men each.

Of the 1,631 men that had served in the 2nd Virginia during the course of the war, only sixty-nine men were on hand to surrender at Appomattox. No men were left to surrender from Company “F.”

Condensed from “2nd Virginia Infantry,” The Virginia Regimental Histories Series, written by Dennis E Frye, 1984.

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