"As the enemy came up again the sharpshooters opened upon him with terrible effect from the stone wall, which they had regained, and checked him completely. I do not hesitate to say that I have never seen so many Yankees killed in the same space of ground in any fight I have seen on any battle field in Virginia that I have been over. We held our ground until ordered by the major-general commanding to retire, and the Yankees had been so severely punished that they did not follow. The sharpshooters of the 5th were mostly captured, this regiment suffering more than any other."[174]
[174] _Life and Campaigns of General J. E. B. Stuart_, by H. B. McClellan, 301.
In truth the Federal soldiers had paid dearly for their victory. Dr. James Moore, who was acting as surgeon with Kilpatrick and afterward wrote a life of that General, calls this engagement "by far the most bloody cavalry battle of the war."[175]
[175] Moore's _Kilpatrick and Our Cavalry_, 71.
While all this desperate fighting was going on around Aldie, Colonel A. N. Duffie, with the 1st Rhode Island Cavalry, was on a scouting expedition, having crossed the Bull Run Mountain at Thoroughfare Gap and being headed for Noland's Ferry. His orders were to camp on the night of the 17th at Middleburg. Approaching that town about 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon, he drove in Stuart's pickets "so quickly that Stuart and his staff were compelled to make a retreat more rapid than was consistent with dignity and comfort."[176] The Confederate forces at Aldie were notified of the situation and ordered to Middleburg but Duffie apparently was not aware of the heavy fighting that had taken place at Aldie. When he at length succeeded in getting a message through to Aldie, asking reinforcements, Kilpatrick replied that his brigade was too exhausted to respond, though he would report the situation at once to General Pleasanton, in command of the Federals. "Thus" writes H. B. McClellan, "Col. Duffie was left to meet his fate.... His men fought bravely and repelled more than one charge before they were driven from the town, retiring by the same road upon which they had advanced." But during the night Duffie was surrounded by Chambliss's Brigade and although Duffie himself, with four of his officers and twenty-seven men, eluded their foes and reached Centreville the next afternoon, he was obliged to report a loss of twenty officers and 248 men. Some of these, at first thought killed or captured, also succeeded in getting back to the Federal lines but the defeat had been crushing.