I looked for whether the Union Church showed up in these passages of JVCampaign I'd typed for my site, & found two mentions for June 8 (Cross Keys), & June 9 (Port Republic). I thought people might like a review, some original writings which have this church in them (I couldn't get colors to work on my phone, so I bolded "church" instead in passages).
Also attached some photos of my 110th PA. grandfather Ephraim's hand-drawn maps where I think he has this church, because on modern maps, this structure appears to be the same building-- the church-- in the same area Ephraim had drawn it in pencil June 9, 1862, for his diary.
I don't have the date for the cemetery close by (when it came to be a burial spot), but Ephraim drew tiny casket-looking figurines in that place where it appears the cemetery exists today (163 years later). I don't believe he meant his drawn figurines in the spot where the cemetery is (on modern maps) to be cannons, because when he'd draw cannons, he make them into straight lines & then label them just such, "cannons."
Also, Ephraim drew in the intersection of roads in the same manner & area they appear on contemporary maps attached. Hopefully I read these visuals right. The Union Church might be the building on the far right, but then, wouldn't the cemetery be set closer to the church itself, like on the same grounds, usually? Or maybe it is, the church is the building to the left he drew, I'm just not oriented.
General Frémont writes in his report to Edwin Stanton (& published in the NYT June 11, 1862) with the dramatic headline: A Battle in the Shenandoah Valley.; Jackson Overtaken by General Frémont and Compelled to Fight. A DESPERATE STRUGGLE Jackson Driven from his Chosen Position with Heavy Loss. MOVEMENTS BEFORE THE BATTLE. Severe Losses of the Enemy in the Skirmishes Near Harrisonburgh. DEATH OF THE FAMOUS GEN. ASHBY. OFFICIAL REPORT OF GEN. FRÉMONT. To E.M. Stanton, Secretary War: https://www.nytimes.com/1862/06/11/...doah-valley-jackson-overtaken-by-general.html
"HEADQUARTERS ARMY IN THE FIELD,
CAMP NEAR PONT REPUBLIC, June 8-9 A.M.
(No. 40.) -- The army left Harrisonburgh at 6 this earning, and at 8 1/2 my advance engaged the rebels about seven miles from that place, near
Union Church. The enemy was very advantageously posted in the timber, having chosen his own position, forming a smaller circle than our own, and with his troops formed en masse. It consisted undoubtedly of Jackson's entire force.
The battle began with heavy firing at 11 o'clock, and lasted with great obstinacy and violence until 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Some skirmishing and artillery firing continuing from that time until dark.
Our troops fought occasionally under the murderous fire of greatly superior numbers; the hottest of the small-arm fire being on the left wing, which was held by STAHL's Brigade, consisting of five regiments.
The bayonet and canister shot were used freely and with great effect by our men.
The loss on both sides is very great; ours is very heavy among the officers.
A full report of those who distinguished themselves will be made without partiality.
I desire to say that both officers and men behaved with splendid gallantry, and that the service of the artillery was especially admirable.
We are encamped on the field of battle, which may be renewed at any moment.
(Signed) J.C. FRÉMONT., Maj.-Gen."
Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson S.C. Gwynne P. 323-325
Somehow it was perfectly in keeping with Frémont's character that he should arrive, bayonets bristling, on the ground across the South Fork of the Shenandoah, where he could only watch helplessly as the Confederates marched their prisoners to the rear. It had escaped his notice, some hours before, that an entire Confederate division had left his front. At about ten o'clock he finally got up the courage to form his army in battle line and move forward, only to find that there was not a single enemy picket in sight. All he found was a
church full of dead and dying men, with the now familiar pile of stacked arms and legs outside. Undaunted, Frémont marched crisply to the North River, where he discovered that the bridge had been burned. In the absence of any other obvious course of action, he mustered his impressive force on the riverbank opposite the battlefield. "In the afternoon he had advanced into the open ground near the river," recalled Confederate chaplain J. William Jones, "and as I gazed on his long line of battle, his bright muskets gleaming in the rays of the sun, his battle flags rippling in the breeze, I thought it was the finest military display I had ever seen."
"
THE SHENANDOAH BATTLES.; The Battle of Cross Keys, between Frémont and Jackson. Full Particulars from Our Special Correspondent. The Enemy Posted Entirely Under Cover. The Field won by the Superior Fighting of Our Troops. The Battle of Port Republic, between Shields and Jackson. THE HOTTEST FIGHT OF THE WAR. PARTIAL LIST OF CASUALTIES. https://www.nytimes.com/1862/06/16/archives/the-battle-of-port-republic.html
June 16, 1862, Page 1 The New York Times Archives
BATTLE-GROUND OF THE CROSS KEYS, Monday Morning, June 9, 1862.
The glorious sun is looking over the hill-tops, and the smouldering ashes of our camp-fires grow gray in the early light, but the soldiers that slumber around me with their faces turned sky ward, know not that the night has passed and day dawned. Nor will they wake to the reveille, though bugle and drum play it ever so loudly. Poor pate faces, these, looking upward but seeing no sky, their lips parted as though to reproach the fate that stretched them here, but uttering no complaint. But yesterday and these men were busy with all the little problems that agitate the camp and the world, what should they eat, where should they sleep, were they well used, did their comrades encroach noon their individual rights and privileges. What care they now, whether rations are short or long, whether the supply train comes up in season or lags Behind, until the year has run its round? Their bitterest enemy, from whom yesterday they would not have borne a look, may now pluck them by the beard and no hand will be raised to resent the insult. They are wiser than they were a few hours ago; vaster problems occupy them, for they are now solving the mighty secrets that only the dead can know. The petty marches of a day will vex them no more, for they have gone on that long, eternal march whose end is never reached, and where the soldier carries neither canteen nor knapsack, musket nor blanket, -- in this case, not even a winding-sheet.
I am writing on the ground where so many of the Eighth New-York met their doom. Seldom is a wheat field as terribly sown. The poor fellows lie around me in all postures and positions, some on the very spot where they fell, others propped up against the fences where they crawled to die. I think the horrors of the battle-field have been very much exaggerated. The features of these men, save where they have perished from strangulation or received wounds in the face, are as calm and placid as though they had died peacefully in bed. Many of them lie on their backs with their arms stretched wearily, carelessly out, in the attitude of men who have thrown themselves on the ground to rest and suddenly sunk into slumber. I noticed one man in this attitude very particularly. It was impossible to believe him dead, even when he failed to reply to repeated calls, until I endeavored to raise his head in a more comfortable position, and the rigidity of the body told that life was not there. The groans of the wounded, that form one of the great staple horrors, are mainly a fiction. Where the pain is very acute a low moaning is heard, but in the most cases they lie mutely wrapped up in their own thoughts, silent in despair. Their only request is water -- this given them, and they sink back to silence or to death. I apprehend that from a bullet wound life must ebb unconsciously away, the sufferer not knowing that it is going. Hope is so strongly developed within us that I question whether any one ever really believed himself mortally wounded. To a strong man thus suddenly struck down, it seems impossible he should die, and his spirit floats away into space while he is thinking of the glory that will redound to him from his scars. Many of our wounded have lain upon the field all night, and it is questionable whether ambulances will come to their relief much before the middle of the day. I am glad to learn from their lips that they have been kindly treated by the Southern soldiers. Two Germans have just told me how the latter came during the night, covered them over with blankets, brought them water, and in some cases washed their wounds. What I have here witnessed, entirely dispels any faint faith I ever had in what is commonly termed "rebel barbarity." When the news came of ASHBY's death, one of our officers cried like a child -- he was wounded on some field, and ASHBY, he said, came and sat by him all the night through, taking as tender care of him as though he were a brother. I am especially pleased to have learned the truth in this case from the lips of the wounded soldiers themselves, for one of the scouts came into camp a while ago saying that he had been over the field, and the wounded told him the rebels came down and teased them all night long, taking away their canteens and rifting their pockets. These stories arc rife on both sides; manufactured by knaves, they are told to [???] with the intention of engendering a mutual hate. Of nearly every prisoner taken within the past week the question has been asked: How about that courier of ours you blew away from the mouth of a cannon, Yesterday a Louisiana Tiger replied to his interlocutor: Why, you Northern men are as big fools as the Virginians we tell such stories as these about you to them, but didn't expect to find you believing them!
I have been pretty much over the whole battle-ground of yesterday, and find my hastily-formed conclusions in only correct. The enemy in no case advanced to meet us, but lay in ambush in the wood and behind fences, pouring volleys into our advancing columns. In choosing his position, JACKSON showed a sylvan science that should entitle him to wear an [???] leaf for an [???], as General of the Woods. Every one knows what a horror men have of encountering an unknown force -- of venturing into dark, [???] paths, where it is known that a [???] lurks, but nothing of his numbers or strength. I fancy that a [???] well posted in any respectable who is could [???] a [???] at bav -- unless the brigade knew that only a regiment was there.
Yesterday I [???] our men as they entered a belt of forest. The enemy were shelling the woods from an opposite elevation, and huge bolts came crashing through the tree tops, scattering boughs and leaves in all directions, but of this open, known danger they seemed little afraid, breasting onward with resolute steps, but starting with nervous, convulsive fear if a leaf rustled or a twig cracked behind them. This is undoubtedly the reason that flank movements are so much dreaded. I apprehend that a hundred muskets suddenly opening fire in the rear of a regiment could scatter it in panic and confusion.
I should like to make a few remarks on the affair of yesterday, but it is so excessively mean to sit down and criticise a game after it has been played that I refrain. Certainly had we known that a force was posted here, and a platoon disposed there; that this edge of the woods was lined with rebels, and that lower down our path through the forest was unobstructed, we could have done better. But what use to tell over like beads hours that have fled.
In a former letter I gave you an order of battle. Gen. STAHEL, who, with his brigade, had the left, asked permission to advance. It was given him. He advanced, driving the enemy's through a thin belt of woods and over an open wheat-field into quite a thick woods. It was while crossing this wheat-field in pursuit that his own Eighth New-York Regiment suffered such loss. The enemy, ambushed in the wheat on the edge of the field, behind the fence and in the woods, suddenly revealed themselves by a terrible fire that cut down nearly the whole of the two companies in advance. In accordance with their usual tactics they then gave way, and STAHEL drove them back at the point of the bayonet until he found his brigade with its batteries nearly surrounded. They pressed around the guns, but the pelting storms of grape and canister, with the rifles of my brave "Bucktails," who were detailed to the support of the batteries, held them at bay. STAHEL's command then fell back, at first in some confusion, but finally in good order, and took position on the open ground, expecting the enemy to follow, out they preferred the woods and made no pursuit.
MILROY, in the meanwhile, who had the centre, pressed steadily forward from the ground where he first took position, planting his guns each time nearer and nearer the enemy's batteries. His artillery delivered its fire with a precision truly remarkable. I went over the ground where the enemy's guns were planted, and it was furrowed with our shot and shell as with a plow, and where one battery stood I counted twelve dead horses. MILROY's infantry deployed through the woods, taking advantage of a deep gully to cross a wheat field, where they were exposed, and charged gallantly up the hill where one of the opposing batteries was planted, cutting down the gunners with their fire. Had they been supported I think they would have captured a battery. They made the crest of the hill too hot to hold on the part of the enemy and held their position until recalled.
SCHENCE was disposed on the right, to support MILROY and Col. CLUSIRET -- the latter had the extreme right and the advance. But our right wing, with the exception of CLUSIRET's little Brigade, did not get into action, nor did STEINWAY, who had command of the reserve. JACKSON's reserve was kept shifting from wing to wing during the engagement, as occasion demanded.
By 4 o'clock our whole forces were again in position, and had the enemy only chosen to attack, I imagine his rout would have been complete. But it seems only to have been his intention to hold us in check until his baggage train could cross the river, for he commenced crossing it while the engagement was still progressing. In the morning he had driven back SHIELDS' advance from an attempt to burn the bridge; in the afternoon he came to the support of EWELL in the affair with us. Of course no accurate knowledge of the force opposed to us can be attained, but it greatly exceeded ours. JACKSON's army proper numbers from 20,000 to 25,000 men. But they are greatly demoralized and poorly armed. In the action he had two brigades each on his right, centre and left, with a brigade in reserve that he kept in constant motion along his line. But his brigades are small. Each regiment was drafted up to 750 men, but desertions and straggling have so reduced them that they will probably average scarcely 500 each. Many of these are boys; of course in drafting all manner of material is taken, and drafted men never fight so well as those who go to battle voluntarily. With all his preponderance of numbers he was actually afraid to give us a fight. Our men were footsore and worn down by much marching, little sleep and few rations. But I really believe we came very near whipping hid whole force. Could STAHL have been supported -- the fearful belt of fire to which he was at first exposed had been crossed and we were then fighting on equal footing in the woods -- I think we would have driven his right back on the river. And MILROY's gallant little brigade, if bolstered with an additional regiment or two, would have broken his centre and taken at least one battery.
But no one imagined he was going to retreat in the fashion he did, and it offered more chances of success to induce him to attack us than to go blundering through the woods blindly. Had we brought our whole reserve into action, and been defeated, the consequences would have been disastrous in the extreme. We were in an enemy's country, exposed to attack from every quarter, our supply train could be cut off at any moment, and, among these woods and mountains, our little army, if dispersed, would have been captured, man by man.
As the a Hair went, it may be summed up thus: The enemy had every advantage of position, numbers, knowledge of the country, and of compelling us to become the attacking party. Our superiority in artillery was the only thing that went to place us on anything approaching equal terms, if not a victory on our part, it at least was not a defeat. The correspondents of some papers claim it as a victory, and telegraphed that we occupied the battle-ground. These gentlemen, whose feelings and sympathies so influence them that they cannot record faithfully, will have a long account to settle with history some day. It is not the common practice of victors to leave their dead and wounded on the field unattended to over night, and this we did. So far as occupation of the field of battle goes, we camped on the ground where we first formed in line. Certainly we drove the enemy's pickets and skirmishers over It at first, but no attempt was made on the other side to support them. Where the fighting occurs, and the dead and wounded are strewn, the "battle-field" is and this was in the enemy's possession all night. They had our dead and wounded in their hands, and can estimate our loss accurately, if disposed; we can only guess at theirs. We held our own so well in the affair that many of us incline to think that, had we pushed it more on the agressive, we should have won a complete victory. But the policy adopted by Gen. FRÉMONT was the wisest and the best; disaster was guarded against, and only an indisposition on the part of the enemy to continue the battle brought it to an end, without any actual result being obtained. Had he rushed in and hurled his little command like a [???] into the middle of the army opposed, to have it burned up and captured bodily, the old Missouri howl would have been revived to [???] through the mountains with a forty Blair-family power. Some day the public will learn how small the force actually is with which we have been chasing JACKSON down this valley, and then it will [???] wonder that he did not turn and tend us.
Our loss in the fight was heavy, very heavy, considering the numbers engaged and the time the fight lasted. 1 have sent you by telegraph as complete a list of the casualties as could be obtained on the field. I think you will find it to foot up between five and six hundred, Our Generals incline to estimate the enemy's loss as much greater, and stories are told of three or four hundred of their dead being Counted in one pile. Chasing these stories up, I can only find the man who have told by another man that some one else told him, that at some certain spot in an uncertain field, that number of dead was guessed [???] their loss was as great as ours, we have no reason to complain. They were posted in woods, we [???] the open field, and they outnumbered us [???] not truth and common sense satisfy the popular craving, or is it always necessary to pander to the appetite that remands a victory in all cases, an assurance that the enemy lost at least one more man than we?
One thing is certain, JACKSON is equally eminent as a strategist and tactician. He handles his army like a whip, making it crack in out of the way corners Where you scarcely thought the lash would reach. This retreat of his, if retreat it can be called, has been conducted with marvelous skill. He has not much mercy on his men, but he gets extraordinary marches out of them on very short commons, I hope it will not be thought unchristian if I express a wish that he were well out of the way. ASHBY was a brave man and, according to report, a kindly-hearted one, but I think his removal to another sphere of action has shortened the war somewhat and saved an indefinite ratio of lives. Jersey mothers who have sons in the cavalry service can new sleep easier. Again, I repeat, I do not with to be unchristian, but so free am I from all sentimentality on the subject that, if it would but bring the war to a speedy close, I should have no particular objection to seeing President JEFFERSON DAVIS himself transferred to another and a -- hotter world.
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