‘Research lodge to visit Shenandoah Valley’

    

On this date—and at this hour—in 1862, a lesser known, but nevertheless consequential, clash raged in the Shenandoah Valley during the U.S. Civil War—so that’s were the research lodge is headed next month.

Civil War Lodge of Research 1865, chartered by the Grand Lodge of Virginia in 1995, will meet Saturday, April 11. Odd thing: We will open at one location, but close at another. No Mackey Landmark nor Schrödinger theory is a factor.

Specifically, we will meet Saturday morning at ten o’clock inside Magnetic Lodge 184’s home in Stanley. I don’t know the meeting agenda, but after it’s tackled we’ll go on refreshment, have lunch there, and then travel a few minutes north to Mount Jackson Lodge 103, in Mount Jackson, to close.

The night before, we will gather for dinner at Southern Kitchen in New Market, but the customary extracurricular activities (visits to historic places, Saturday supper) are not pre-planned this time, which is disappointing, but we’ll think on our feet.

The recommended sites to see include:

➣ Strayer House Museum

➣ New Market Battlefield

➣ Virginia Museum of the Civil War

➣ Bushong Farm and Battlefield

➣ Mount Jackson Museum

➣ Union Church

I doubt I’ll have time for all those, but I’ll see what the brethren prefer and go with them.

The Battle of Kernstown? The lodge trestleboard informs us:

Intelligence Failures

and the Road to Kernstown

Nathaniel P. Banks

By March 1862, Maj. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s command in the Valley had dwindled to fewer than 4,000 effective soldiers due to illness and reassignments. Facing a Union force of nearly 20,000 under Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks, Jackson was forced to retreat forty miles south of Winchester to Mount Jackson. Believing the Confederates were no longer a threat, the U.S. War Department ordered Banks to move most of his command east to support Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign.

James Shields

On March 21, Confederate sympathizers observed Union troops leaving Winchester but failed to notice that Brig. Gen. James Shields’ division remained nearby. This faulty intelligence led Jackson to believe he faced only a small rear guard. Eager to prevent Union reinforcements from reaching McClellan, Jackson marched his exhausted division northward to strike.

The Battle for Pritchard’s Hill

On March 22, a skirmish broke out south of Winchester. During the fight, General Shields was wounded by shrapnel, leaving Col. Nathan Kimball in operational command. Despite Shields’ orders to chase the Confederates, Kimball held the high ground at Pritchard’s Hill.

The main battle began at nine the following morning. Jackson, still operating under the belief that he held the numerical advantage, conducted a brief reconnaissance and decided to attack. In reality, Kimball had roughly 7–9,000 troops available, significantly outnumbering Jackson’s 4,000 men.

 

The Fight for Sandy Ridge

Finding the Union center at Pritchard’s Hill too strong, Jackson moved his infantry and artillery westward toward Sandy Ridge to attempt a flanking maneuver. By 3 p.m., Confederate artillery on the ridge had successfully suppressed the Union guns on the hill.

The tide turned when Union Col. Erastus B. Tyler’s brigade counterattacked. The fighting centered around a shoulder-high stone wall, where Confederate infantry under Brig. Gen. Richard B. Garnett held their ground with desperate tenacity. For more than an hour, the two sides engaged in a blistering musketry duel at close range. By late afternoon, the Confederate line began to buckle. Jackson’s troops were running dangerously low on ammunition, and Kimball had funneled fresh Union reinforcements into the fight. Seeing his flank being turned and his men exhausted, Garnett ordered a retreat near sunset to save his command.

Kernstown Battlefield Association

Kernstown Battlefield will be open today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. for tours, etc. to mark the 164th anniversary of the first Battle of Kernstown.

Aftermath and Strategic Impact

The Battle of Kernstown ended after ten hours of combat. The casualties were heavy relative to the size of the forces:

• Confederate: 733 killed, wounded, or captured (22 percent of the force).

• Union: 575 casualties.

Though Jackson lost the battle—his only defeat as an independent commander—he achieved his primary goal. The intensity of the attack convinced Washington that Jackson had a much larger army. Fearing for the safety of the capital, the War Department pulled 20,000 Union troops away from the Peninsula Campaign and sent them back to the Shenandoah Valley. This diversion weakened McClellan’s advance on Richmond and allowed Jackson to begin the series of victories that would make him a legend.

Is there a Masonic link to all this? I guess we’ll find out when a paper is presented in lodge.

Our next meeting will be July 18 at Monterey Pass, Pennsylvania, not far from Gettysburg. On October 10 we’ll be back in Virginia at Fort Monroe.

Get well wishes to Bro. Bennett Hart, our Secretary and our District Deputy Grand Master. I hope we’ll see him there in three weeks.