Danville’s Captain Addison Preston Reports on the Shenandoah Valley Campaign

By Gary Far­row, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

In the spring of 1862, the Ver­mont Cav­al­ry was part of an over­all Union effort to pre­vent a Con­fed­er­ate move­ment against Wash­ing­ton. The Fed­er­als had set up head­quar­ters in the Shenan­doah Val­ley town of Stras­burg to con­trol the Man­as­sas Gap Rail­road (South­ern) and the Val­ley Pike. How­ev­er the North­ern­ers were forced to evac­u­ate the town by Gen­er­al Stonewall Jackson’s rapid flank­ing movement.

In a let­ter to the edi­tor, Cap­tain Addi­son Pre­ston of Danville offered a stir­ring account of the action seen by Com­pa­ny D of the Cav­al­ry. This unit was per­son­al­ly recruit­ed and com­mand­ed by Pre­ston. Born in Burke, the fam­i­ly soon moved to Danville. At the age of 21, Pre­ston entered Brown Uni­ver­si­ty and became an accom­plished schol­ar; how­ev­er, after a year and a half he had to with­draw because of illness.

His physi­cian advised a sea voy­age to restore his health. Young Pre­ston trav­eled to Aus­tralia and then Cal­i­for­nia where he spent sev­er­al years only to come back to Danville and go into busi­ness. But like U.S. Grant and William Tecum­seh Sher­man, it was in the mil­i­tary that Addi­son Pre­ston would find his niche.

North Star–June 14, 1862

 The Ver­mont Cav­al­ry — Let­ter from Capt Preston

Army of Shenandoah

Williamsport, May 27, 1862

Mr Eaton — Dear Sir: There is doubt­less much anx­i­ety among the peo­ple of Ver­mont and the friends of the Vt. Cav­al­ry to hear from this reg­i­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly of the com­pa­ny from your vicin­i­ty, and to know what part they per­formed in the very excit­ing and unex­pect­ed retreats and bat­tles of the 24th and 25th of May.

On the 23rd of May, our army occu­pied Stras­burg with the cav­al­ry five miles in advance, on the right bank of the Shenan­doah, watch­ing Jackson’s forces while the 1st Mary­land (infantry) held Front Roy­al, on the main branch­es of the Shenan­doah, watch­ing Ewell’s forces and guard­ing the rail­road bridges at about 12 miles from Stras­burg to its left.

On Fri­day the 23rd, Col Ken­ley, com­mand­ing the 1st Mary­land, was sur­prised, and his forces bad­ly cut to pieces by Ewell’s army, 15,000 strong, who imme­di­ate­ly pushed a large col­umn for­ward to Mid­dle­ton in our rear to cut us off. Gen Banks hear­ing of the rout at Front Roy­al of Col. Kenley’s forces, made prepa­ra­tions for hasty retreat, as his forces are com­par­a­tive­ly small.… [W]e moved back to our old camp. Pass­ing through Stras­burg and cross­ing Cedar Creek, we came up with our bag­gage wag­ons, which were halt­ed with the ene­my in full force in their front.

Our artillery imme­di­ate­ly got into posi­tion, with 300 of the Vt Cav­al­ry drawn up to line for sup­port, and opened rapid and effec­tive fire upon them, which caused them to keep under cov­er of the wood which pro­tect­ed them some­what from shell as well as from a charge of our cav­al­ry. It soon became evi­dent that they were extend­ing their lines in our right with inten­tion of get­ting our rear; and we con­se­quent­ly fell back across the Creek towards Stras­burg. In doing this great con­fu­sion was made with teams and men lead­ing excit­ed hors­es. We con­se­quent­ly became entan­gled in the stream, and the ene­my com­ing on rapid­ly, pour­ing in a brisk fire, we were oblig­ed to leave our teams there.

Our guns were imme­di­ate­ly got in posi­tion again on the oth­er side of the creek and with­out orders I halt­ed my com­pa­ny, dis­mount­ing a part, sent them out as skir­mish­ers against the rebel skir­mish­ers who had also crossed and were fast fol­low­ing us up. A few rounds from my men and a few shells sent them back again in the oth­er side. We shelled them until we could con­sult as to our safety…[W]e were entire­ly cut off from our army on the main road, and the ene­my was fast clos­ing on us. It was thought best to take a back road, and under cov­er of night, which was fast approach­ing, pass around them; and if that could not be done, take to the mountains.

The move­ment was suc­cess­ful. We reached Win­ches­ter about mid­night march­ing 25 miles that night and 30 that day. We arrived in time to lead our hors­es and get a cou­ple of hours sleep, to pre­pare our­selves for anoth­er strug­gle in the com­ing morn.

The morn­ing of May 26th was ush­ered in by the boom­ing of can­non and the brisk dis­charge of mus­ketry, which showed that the rebels had tak­en an ear­ly start. Soon the whole line was engaged. We were drawn up in line rear of the city of Win­ches­ter, to act in an emer­gency and cov­er the retreat if nec­es­sary (for we expect­ed a defeat, and this fact con­tributed to its accom­plish­ment). The rebel line of bat­tle was shut from our view, except the right wing, which extend­ed toward a high ridge, and upon which was plant­ed a bat­tery. This bat­tery did splen­did exe­cu­tion. Its hiss­ing mes­sen­gers of death were hurled in such rapid suc­ces­sion against the press­ing foe, that the sight was at once sub­lime and terrific.

The rebel right was soon hid from sight by dense clouds of smoke. At this point the left under Colonel Don­nel­ly suc­ceed­ed in press­ing back the ene­my front. But this was more than coun­ter­bal­anced by their redou­bled exer­tions on our right under Gen Gor­man, which was now out­flanked and oblig­ed to with­draw — The ene­my had already paid dear­ly for what they had won and they now charged for­ward with tri­umphant shouts.

At this junc­ture, this reg­i­ment was ordered for­ward to charge through the streets and retake the hill if it was deemed pos­si­ble. I was ordered by Col Tomp­kins to fol­low in the rear and cov­er their retreat…Our reg­i­ment dashed through the streets thronged with flee­ing sol­diers and cit­i­zens… Col Tomp­kins see­ing the hill too strong­ly pos­sessed turned his col­umn to the right and came back on a par­al­lel street hard pressed by the foe, but in good order, giv­ing the fugi­tives time to escape. Halt­ing the squadron under my com­mand (com­pa­nies D and I) upon the next street, we checked the advance of the ene­my charg­ing down the street in large force. Being here exposed to a galling fire, which was impos­si­ble to return, and mad­ness to charge into, we made a quick move­ment into a street to our left and fell slow­ly back, the best orga­nized and unbro­ken body that left the city.

But before we got out of the place we were dealt with severe­ly. The ene­my …poured a full vol­ley into our ranks from over fences and gar­den lots. Cor­po­ral Ash­bel C. Meachem here fell mor­tal­ly shot through and through … but we were to cov­er the retreat, and we remained, encour­ag­ing and urg­ing for­ward strag­gling sol­diers, con­tra­bands and fugi­tive cit­i­zens who filled the roads and fields, flee­ing for their lives…

The ene­my pressed us hard all day with light artillery and cav­al­ry shoot­ing all strug­glers they had come to. … We helped to cov­er the retreat for 35 miles that day, slept on our arms that night, and crossed to Williamsport Md., Mon­day morn­ing, May 26th where we are now encamped…

Through­out the whole retreat the boys act­ed with the utmost cool­ness. Young Meacham who was shot, was a very promis­ing and much respect­ed man ever faith­ful and true.…

Yours tru­ly,

A. W. Preston