The Eclipse of the Fireside, 1865–1930

Abstract

On June 14, 1863, Cornelia Peake McDonald sat with a friend on her porch in Winchester, VA, watching a battle progressing in the valley below. “We were yet on the outskirts, and could see the troops deploying, skirmish lines thrown forward and mounted men galloping from one point to another, batteries wheeling into position, and every now and then the thunder of cannon and the shriek of shell.” The firing and shelling gradually came closer as the morning matured. “So they go, whizzing, screaming, and coming down with a dreadful thud or crash and then burst. We hold our breath and cover our eyes till they pass. I gather all the children in till the firing ceases.” By noon the front was quiet, but only because a division of Confederates was sneaking around behind the Union forces to surround them. By three o’clock McDonald’s Confederates had won the day, and Union troops were scattering. Some had wandered into her yard, where her two little boys, Donald and Roy, “seemed to forget the shells and were … running and catching the men as they passed and saying, ‘I take you prisoner.’” Soon the Union forces were in full retreat, with the Confederates following after and raining shells down on them. “One battery from the hill opposite our house rushed down and through our yard, their horses wounded and bleeding, the men wounded also, and pale with fright.”