Taylor's Coffee (Middletown, June 1, 1862)

Started by MengJiao, November 09, 2022, 03:32:19 PM

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MengJiao


  About a week before Shields almost captured Stonewall Jackson and routed the Stonewall Brigade at Port Republic, Ewell was waiting for Jackson and the Stonewall Brigade at Middletown with
Fremont and Shields closing in from both sides.  Early in the morning, Taylor's fine Louisiana Brigade was being shelled.  Ewell came up to check on the Brigade and found Taylor (in Taylor's account)
was very jumpy under fire and making his horse nervous.  Taylor apologized, but Ewell said that he thought Taylor's morning coffee had been too strong and anyway never mind -- says Ewell in Taylor's
account, I'll go forward and check on the skirmish line (this is all from Cozzen's book on the Valley campaign):


MengJiao

Quote from: MengJiao on November 09, 2022, 03:32:19 PM

  About a week before Shields almost captured Stonewall Jackson and routed the Stonewall Brigade at Port Republic, Ewell was waiting for Jackson and the Stonewall Brigade at Middletown with
Fremont and Shields closing in from both sides. 

  At that point, Lincoln stopped sending direct orders over the telegraph lines.  All he did was forward standard orders to all commands
and say "The Game is before you."  Meaning, I guess that he had put down the
the pieces and it was time to strike.  Then he changed his mind and told Fremont to stop, but Fremont did not get the stop order.  So, on June 1, he might have
attacked since he thought Shields was there near Middletown with a large force.  In reality, Shields wasn't there (he apparently thought he's been trapped by Longstreet...hmmm)
BUT Carrol's raid could have been aimed at the bridge over Cedar Creek thus triggering Fremont's attack which by 9 AM is going well:




MengJiao

Quote from: MengJiao on November 11, 2022, 09:30:53 AM

BUT Carrol's raid could have been aimed at the bridge over Cedar Creek thus triggering Fremont's attack which by 9 AM is going well:

  I'm afraid it looks like Jackson could have been in quite a fix at Middletown during his retreat from the valley.  What would have happened (and what seems to be happening on the board)
is that a strung-out force like Jackson's needs cavalry to work its way out of its problems.  Jackson had very little cavalry in the valley campaign and by the end of the campaign (as here),
it was not working well.  Ashby (the Cavalry commander) was killed accidentally by his own men during a skirmish with a Hungarian-led company of Yankee cavalry.  Munford took over Jackson's
cavalry and did a better job in terms of the very tricky escape from the valley campaign.

ArizonaTank

Johannes "Honus" Wagner
"The Flying Dutchman"
Shortstop: Pittsburgh Pirates 1900-1917
Rated as the 2nd most valuable player of all time by Bill James.

MengJiao

Quote from: ArizonaTank on November 12, 2022, 09:09:19 AM
Is this from GMT's Death Valley?

  Yep.  Middletown is where the valley turnpike crosses Cedar Creek so its in the game for the 1864 battle, but in 1862, Fremont and Sheilds were (theoretically in Shield's case) close to doing a
Cross Keys/Port Republic on Jackson while he was waiting for the Stonewall Brigade to get back from Harper's Ferry.  At that point, Jackson was basically trying to get out of the valley as fast as
possible and Lincoln was on the telegraph lines trying to trap him.

MengJiao

Quote from: MengJiao on November 12, 2022, 11:21:33 AM

Middletown is where the valley turnpike crosses Cedar Creek so its in the game for the 1864 battle, but in 1862, Fremont and Sheilds were (theoretically in Shield's case) close to doing a
Cross Keys/Port Republic on Jackson while he was waiting for the Stonewall Brigade to get back from Harper's Ferry.  At that point, Jackson was basically trying to get out of the valley as fast as
possible and Lincoln was on the telegraph lines trying to trap him.

  Jackson is edging away at 10am.  Trimble's brigade is in reserve to work on recovering routed troops.


MengJiao

Quote from: MengJiao on November 14, 2022, 01:48:54 PM
Quote from: MengJiao on November 12, 2022, 11:21:33 AM

Middletown is where the valley turnpike crosses Cedar Creek so its in the game for the 1864 battle, but in 1862, Fremont and Sheilds were (theoretically in Shield's case) close to doing a
Cross Keys/Port Republic on Jackson while he was waiting for the Stonewall Brigade to get back from Harper's Ferry.  At that point, Jackson was basically trying to get out of the valley as fast as
possible and Lincoln was on the telegraph lines trying to trap him.

  Jackson is edging away at 10am.  Trimble's brigade is in reserve to work on recovering routed troops.

  Not too surprisingly given that Cedar Creek isn't a major barrier, Jackson was able to use a ford upstream from the Turnpike bridge and head on down the valley.