________ 23rd Va. 37th Va. 27th Va.
________
2lst Va. _______
________ _______ 4th Va. 33rd Va. 2nd Va.
____________
Irish Battn.)

Fulkerson, further to the left, was more fortunate than the 27th.
Before he began his advance along the ridge he had deployed his two
battalions under cover, and when the musketry broke out on his right
front, they were moving forward over an open field. Half-way across
the field ran a stone wall or fence, and beyond the wall were seen
the tossing colours and bright bayonets of a line of battle, just
emerging from the woods. Then came a race for the wall, and the
Confederates won. A heavy fire, at the closest range, blazed out in
the face of the charging Federals, and in a few moments the stubble
was strewn with dead and wounded. A Pennsylvania regiment, leaving a
colour on the field, gave way in panic, and the whole of the enemy's
force retreated to the shelter of the woods. An attempt to turn
Jackson's left was then easily frustrated; and although the Federals
maintained a heavy fire, Fulkerson's men held stubbornly to the wall.

In the centre of the field the Northern riflemen were sheltered by a
bank; their numbers continually increased, and here the struggle was
more severe. The 4th and 33rd Virginia occupied this portion of the
line, and they were without support, for the 2nd Virginia and the
Irish battalion, the last available reserves upon the ridge, had been
already sent forward to reinforce the right.

The right, too, was hardly pressed. The Confederate infantry had
everywhere to do with superior numbers, and the artillery, in that
wooded ground, could lend but small support. The batteries protected
the right flank, but they could take no share in the struggle to the
front; and yet, as the dusk came on, after two long hours of battle,
the white colours of the Virginia regiments, fixed fast amongst the
rocks, still waved defiant. The long grey line, "a ragged spray of
humanity," plied the ramrod with still fiercer energy, and pale women
on the hills round Winchester listened in terror to the crashing
echoes of the leafless woods. But the end could not be long delayed.
Ammunition was giving out. Every company which had reached the ridge
had joined the fighting line. The ranks wer