Exultant Union troops clamber over the
much-fought-over stone wall at Kernstown
in this painting by Keith Rocco.S
UNDAY MORNING, March
23, 1862, was sunny and
warm in Virginia’s Shenan-
doah Valley. Confederate gen-
eral Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, a
devout Christian, did not like to fight on
the Lord’s Day. “The enemy could bedestroyed tomorrow,” he reasoned.
“The peace of the Lord would not be
violated.” Still, the sun and warmth
were a welcome relief for Jackson and
his vaunted “foot cavalry,” who for sev-
eral days had been braving high winds,
cold temperatures, and hard rain inendurance-draining marches northward
through the Shenandoah Valley. Some
days they covered as many as 21 miles.
The destination of their exhausting
marches was Winchester, Virginia,
where soldiers from the Union Army of
the Potomac’s V Corps were located, butBY LAWRENCE WEBER
In March 1862, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson moved north through the Shenandoah
Valley to prevent Union reinforcements from heading to the Virginia Peninsula. At Kernstown,
he attacked what he thought was the enemy rear guard. He was wrong.© Keith Rocco, http://www.keithrocco.comCWQ-EW16 Kernstown_Layout 1 10/22/15 3:06 PM Page 91