The Maine bugle ... campaign; 1-5 Jan. 1894-Oct. 1898 - Maine.gov

152 7'//£: MAINE BUGLE.
With this force driven away the army rested quietly at Stras-
burg until the twenty-third, when messengers arrived from Co.'s
B and D who had the day before been sent to reinforce Col.
Kenly at Front Royal, with information that Kenly had been at-
tacked by an overwhelming force under Stonewall Jacksofi and
urgently calling for reinforcements. Gen. Banks did not appear
to think that the trouble at Front Royal serious; but gave immediate
orders for the Second Massachusetts Infantry and some
other troops, all he could spare from his already depleted army to
go to his assistance. Pursuant to an order dated Washington, D.
C, May 15th, 1862, Gen. Banks had sent Gen. Shield's division
to report to Gen. McDowell then in command of the department
of the Rappahannock, vvhich left him only Gen. Wil-
liam's division and some cavalry, barely seven thousand men in
all, nine hundred of which were at Front Royal. Banks was
aware that Jackson was within striking distance of him, for he
had learned that there had been an engagement between him
and Gen. Milroy in the Bull Pasture mountains on the seven-
teenth. But Ashby's Cavalry kept Jackson's movements so
well covered that he came down on the unsuspecting little gar-
rison at Front Royal twenty thousand strong, with all the assur-
ing confidence that great strength gives over the weak.
That little band under their gallant leader, Col. Kenly, made a
brilliant and stubborn fight as did also Co.'s B and U of the
P^ifth New York Cavalry under their brave leader Capt. A. H.
White, who subsequently became Col. of the regiment. As be-
fore stated Banks had been informed of the attack at Front
Royal by messengers, one of whom, Sergeant Greenleaf of Co. D
asked for a fresh horse of Gen. Banks and immediately set out
to return to his company. Before reaching them he met some
mounted soldiers standing by the roadside, who in answer to
his inquiries, replied that they were a part of Gen. Jackson's
staff. As they did not halt him, he rode a short distance be-
yond them and met another man with a nuiskct on his shoulder
who informed him that he belonged to the ICighth Louisiana
regiment and that Jackson was advancing on that road twenty