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.”
Marker is on Old Valley Pike (U.S. 11) south of Smith Creek Road (Local Route 620), on the right when traveling south.
Courtesy hmdb.org
