Battles of Manassas • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments • Facts • The Armies
The Shooting Gallery wayside marker is at Stop 7 of the Manassas Battlefield Driving Tour.
From the wayside marker:
The Shooting Gallery
From here, Confederate gunners had a clear view of Porter’s attack – the most formidable onslaught of the three days. There were few trees between S.D. Lee’s Battalion and the nearest Union columns a third of a mile away. As thousands of bluecoats swept across the field, Colonel Lee’s men jumped to their guns and opened fire.
The heavy bombardment, a rain of whizzing shell fragments, kept reinforcements from crossing the field, and helped ensure Union defeat at Deep Cut.
When the first group of Federals finally retreated from the railroad grade, Lee’s artillerists fired shell and case shot onto the field with pinpoint accuracy. “The ground,” wrote one survivor, “seemed like a millpond in a shower, so frequently did shells rip the earth.”
From the caption to the drawing in the upper right:
Confederate Col. Stephen D. Lee’s Artillery Battalion. Eventually S.D. Lee had eighteen cannon along this line during Porter’s attack. Counterfire from Union batteries was ineffective.
