THE SECOND BATTLE OF WINCHESTER (June 15th, 1863)

Here is how Tom Reed saw this battle

We lay around until 10 or 11 o'clock, when we were ordered to fall in, and we fell in and moved off like we were going away from Winchester, but presently we turned to our right, and after awhile we turned again to our right, and so on until we came to a very high hill, which was covered with thick woods.  Well, we formed a line of battle and stacked our arms. Then the artillery formed in front of us, right on the crest of the hill.  They placed thirty-two pieces, and when everything was in readiness we heard the report of a pistol, and those cannon were turned loose, and such a deafening noise!  It seemed like the hill trembled under those cannon.  The cannonading continued for about thirty minutes, then we were ordered to fall in and "Forward march" was the next command.  On we went, but when we got to the bottom of the hill our line was all broken, so we had to halt and form again.  Then we moved, until we had gone half way, I suppose, when I heard Gen. Harry T. Hayes give the command:

"Hoist those colors in the Ninth!"

I looked and saw a man raising our flag.  A shell had burst near and a piece of it had struck our flag-bearer, James Stewart, on the head and killed him instantly.  On we went and when we were within about one hundred yards of the enemy's breastworks we came to a kind of stockade. This was made of trees fallen or dragged, with the tops of them outward, forming the breastworks, and the small ends of the limbs were cut sharp.  Now, we had to pass through this mass of stuff before getting to the rifle pits, but this did not stop us.  The Major of the 7^th Louisiana regiment was the first man to mount the works, and I was just behind him.  He shouted out:  

"Come on boys!"

I shouted to him, "I am here," and mounted the breastworks.  The Yankees did not know that we were on them until they saw us standing over them.  Then you ought to have seen those fellows run, and as they ran down the hill we poured it into them, but they soon scampered away and we were in possession of the breastworks.   

When things got kinder quiet the Colonel of the 9^th regiment came up and fell on the the breastworks almost tired to death, for he weighed 330 pounds, and had walked in this engagement.  His name was William Peck.  Said he, and you could have heard him get his breath ever so far:

"Bully! Bully! By God! For the old Ninth, by God!"

So we laughed at the Colonel's expense.  

The Federals had a very strong fort, some six or eight hundred yards from the works we had taken, but another part of our army had come up on the other side and had them penned in.  We captured the whole thing - about six thousand prisoners, with all of their stores, artillery, guns and ammunition, and we only lost one man of our company.

Battles