Battle of Falling Waters

Battle of Falling Waters. Jackson’s Coolness Under Fire. , On the morning of July 2, 1861, Federal troops under Gen. Robert Patterson crossed the Potomac River from Maryland and marched south toward Martinsburg. Colonel Thomas J. Jackson sent his men north from their camp north of town to block them and to determine whether they approached in force, as General Joseph E. Johnston had directed him. Jackson was to retire if the Federal troops outnumbered his own. After he discovered that he was outnumbered, Jackson fought a brief delaying action near Falling Waters (near Hoke’s Run, another name for the engagement) and then fell back. He paused here to write a message to Johnston regarding the Union strength. Corporal William M. Brown later recalled what happened next., “Seating himself on a large, loose, round stone on the west side of the road, [Jackson] commenced to write. A shot from a Federal battery struck centrally, ten feet from the ground, a large white oak tree that stood in the fence corner close to Jackson and knocked a mass of bark, splinters and trash all over him and the paper on which he was writing. He brushed away the trash with the back of his hand, finished the dispatch without a sign that he knew anything unusual was going on, folded it, handed it to the courier and dismissed him courteously: ‘Carry this to General Johnston with my compliments, and see that you lose no time on the way.’ ”, Jackson then said, “They have gotten our range. I suppose we had better retire.” Relieved, the troops near Jackson moved on.