Cedar Run Provides Greatest Loss During Entire Conflict For Local Companies, More Than Decimated By Carnage
From the 1938 centennial edition of The Times-Register
Confederate soldiers from Salem and Roanoke county took part in practically every major engagement of the bloody war between the states with the exception of the fighting in the west about Shiloh and Vicksburg. In the greater part of the campaign in Tennessee and that about Atlanta the Roanoke Guards saw much fierce fighting while the other local companies went through the hell of battle in those four awful years in Virginia, Maryland and the one battle on northern soil at Gettysburg.
While men from this county took part in all the major battles in the Virginia campaign and suffered losses at Cold Harbor, Seven Pines, Sharpsburg, the Battle of the Wilderness, Chancellorsville, Gaines Mill, Spottsylvania and other places it is probably that with the exception of Gettysburg more Roanoke county blood was spilled at the comparatively unimportant battle of Cedar Run than at any of the other battlefields.
Cedar Run
At this battle, which was fought on August 8, 1862, fifteen members of the Dixie Grays were killed within a half-hours time and fifteen more were wounded. Four of the wounded subsequently died and when it is considered that the company had been reduced to thirty-eight men before the battle the terrific loss they suffered is realized.
In the annals of the civil war this battle is set down as one of the minor engagements but for Roanoke county it was one of the most deadly battles of the great war.
It was on August 9, 1862 that the Dixie Grays were sent in the vanguard of the charge against a strongly fortified federal position at Cedar Mountain which is in the central part of this state. General Stonewall Jackson was in command of the southern forces as he had been sent to that point to halt General Pope’s army who were endeavoring to get control of the Virginia Central railroad. General N. P. Banks with a force of northern soldiers had advanced further south than the main portion of Pope’s army and they were found encamped on August 9 on Cedar Run. General Jackson’s men attacked a strongly fortified position and were repulsed with heavy losses during the first part of the battle when most of the casualties of the Dixie Grays were sustained. However, Jackson’s men continued the attack and won a sweeping victory. The southerners are said to have lost 1276 men in this engagement.
This battle of Cedar Run is sometimes known as the battle of Cedar Mountain. Close by the place where the bloody battle was fought is a ridge appropriately known as Slaughter Mountain.
Pickett’s Charge
The most dramatic event took place when Pickett made his famous charge at Gettysburg and with Pickett on this drive into the mouth of hell were the Roanoke Grays which with other Virginians reached Cemetery Hill before turning their backs to the enemy. The Dixie Grays, local men were also at the battle of Gettysburg so that this county suffered heavy losses in that battle.
Pickett on his famous charge had only 5,000 men and the losses were frightful. General Lee had intended to send Hood’s and McLaw’s division with Pickett but objections raised to the method of battle by Longstreet was probably the reason he changed his mind. Pickett’s charge was aimed directly at the center of enemy lines, and it was thought that if they could have broken through and taken possession of Cemetery Hill that the southern forces would be in position to command the entire sector.
This wonderful charge was first started soon after one o’clock on July 3, 1863, and when Pickett’s forces returned, they had left the field strewn with hundreds of dead, some of whom were from Roanoke county.
The heaviest losses sustained by the Salem Flying Artillery was at Cold Harbor in 1864. This was largely an artillery battle, and the northern forces raked the southern lines with heavy shells. At this area about Richmond a large number of Roanoke county men were killed during the war. The Roanoke Grays were at Gaines Mill which is sometimes referred to as being in the first Cold Harbor campaign which took place in June, 1862. The federals were driving towards Richmond on both occasions.
At Spottsylvania
While the remained Dixie Grays were at Spottsylvania and engaged in one of the fiercest engagements of the civil war at this place it cannot be said that Roanoke county suffered heavy losses here because of the fact that the local company had been wiped out earlier in the war and only a comparatively few men of the original Dixie Grays were left to give battle there, the remainder being replacements.
However, the Dixie Grays occupied the very tip of Bloody Angle at this battle which is said to have provided the most horrible scene of all the war. Fighting took place at this point for several days but it was on May 12, 1864 that the fiercest fighting took place when the battle lasted sixteen hours and well into the night.
General Lee was determined to hold the log parapet at Bloody Angle or Mule Shoe as it is sometimes called until he could fortify a new line for his men. Northern forces stormed the parapet time and again, sometimes three deep, and their losses were tremendous. It is said that on both sides of the parapet the dead were thrown back out of the way. Sometimes the soldiers fought by thrusting their bayonets through the logs.
Behind the parapet was a sea of mud which had become discolored with blood. The southern soldiers would leap up onto the wall to fire and drop back to this dismal mire.
But one member of the original Dixie Grays was listed as being killed at Spottsylvania but the company suffered heavy losses. The one man of the company formed here who was killed was J. Dabney Shrewsbury who had been through some of the crucial battles of the war including the carnage at Cedar Run, Gettysburg, Kernstown and Chancellorsville.
Bloodiest Day Of War
The bloodiest day of the war is said to have been on September 17, 1862, at Sharpsburg or Antietam as it is sometimes called. Here, the Roanoke Grays suffered losses and this fighting company also left some of their men at Petersburg where the Yankees undermined the confederate position and sent many soldiers to their deaths when explosives were fired that made a deafening roar heard for miles about the place.
The Salem Flying Artillery which had gone through the entire war was still intact when their artillery fired the last shot at Appomattox. They are said to have been the only company which did not split up after the last campaign about Richmond. Soon after the last shot was fired at Appomattox the weary soldiers set out on foot for home after four years of the most brutal warfare in the history of the world.
-Prepared by Lisa King
