"We Shelled the Yanks and the Yanks Shelled Us"

— 1862 Valley Campaign —

On March 28, 1862, just 2 days after his appointment to serve as cartographer on the staff of Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, Jedediah Hotchkiss reported the Valley Army's position at Narrow Passage Creek (four miles north of here) to be "unfavorable for defense." Acting on that advice, Jackson moved his infantry to Rude's Hill, two miles south of Mt. Jackson and directed Col. Turner Ashby to hold "the line of Stony Creek."

On April 1, a section of Capt. Roger P. Chew's horse artillery battery went into position on Cemetery Hill south and west of the creek and began a furious cannonade with the advancing Federals commanded by Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks. George Neese, a gunner in Chew's Battery wrote, "We shelled the Yanks and the Yanks shelled us. The firing was rapid for a while, and right across the center of town." Ashby burned the bridge spanning the creek and extended his defensive position south of the creek from the Shenandoah River to the west. His cavalry, supported by a brigade of infantry with attached artillery, kept the Federals at bay for more than two weeks.

Observers noted many incidences of Ashby's bravery during this period. One day as Ashby, Hotchkiss, and a courier rode along the Stony Creek Line, a Federal sharpshooter fired and killed the courier's horse. The courier "jumped to his feet to run. Ashby called him back to get his saddle and coolly waited for him under a continuing fire from sharpshooters."

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