Port Republic

One day after the battle at Cross Keys, Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson concentrated his division east of the South Fork of the Shenandoah River near Port Republic against the isolated brigades of Brig. Gen. Erastus Tyler and Col. Samuel S. Carroll. Confederate assaults across the bottomland of the Lewis family farm, along the River Road, spearheaded by the Stonewall Brigade, were repulsed with heavy casualties. A Confederate flank attack, including a brigade of the Louisiana Tigers, overtook an artillery emplacement on the Union left at The Coaling. A division of Confederate reinforcements under Maj. Gen. Richard S. Ewell at Cross Keys marched to join Jackson at Port Republic, burning the North River Bridge behind them. Union counterattacks under Tyler, the senior brigade commander, failed to reestablish the line, and the Yankees were forced to retreat, losing several hundred captured as prisoners. Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont’s army arrived too late to assist Tyler and Carroll and watched helplessly from across the rain-swollen river. After these dual defeats at Cross Keys and Port Republic, the Union armies retreated, leaving Jackson in control of the upper and middle Shenandoah Valley and freeing his army to reinforce Robert E. Lee before Richmond.