DuPont at Rude’s Hill

DuPont at Rude’s Hill. “I had to depend entirely upon myself…”. , Here Capt. Henry DuPont, commanding B Battery, 5th U.S. Artillery, protected Union Gen. Franz Sigel’s defeated army as it retreated after the Battle of New Market on May 15, 1864. Confederate Gen. John C. Breckinridge had routed Sigel’s force that afternoon in an engagement made famous by the participation of 247 cadets from Virginia Military Institute. Arriving on the battlefield about two miles south of this location as the Federals began to withdraw, DuPont immediately deployed his six-gun battery to cover the infantry, placing his cannons across the Valley Turnpike (present-day U.S. Rte. 11). He positioned them in sections of two guns each, then “leap-frogged” each section north to cover the others as well as the army. DuPont shifted his battery several times, and his final combat position was north of the ridge above this site. He then moved the guns two miles farther north along the turnpike to Meems Bottom and burned the bridge across the North Fork of the Shenandoah River., Without DuPont’s artillery to cover the Federal retreat, Sigel would have suffered more casualties and endured a more disorganized withdrawal. Since Civil War commanders seldom planned for defeat, retreats often became disastrous routs. DuPont’s bold leadership typified the seasoned veteran that both sides developed during the war. As DuPont himself later wrote, “I had to depend entirely upon myself and did not receive a single order, either directly or indirectly, from any military superior.”