The separation of the two valleys is accentuated by the fact that save at one point only the Massanuttons are practically impassable. From New Market, in the western valley, a good road climbs the heights, and crossing the lofty plateau, sinks sharply down to Luray, the principal village on the South Fork. Elsewhere precipitous gullies and sheer rock faces forbid all access to the mountain, and a few hunters’ paths alone wind tediously through the woods up the steep hillside. Nor are signal stations to be found on the wide area of unbroken forest which clothes the summit. Except from the peaks at either end, or from one or two points on the New Market–Luray road, the view is intercepted by the sea of foliage and the rolling spurs.
Striking eastward from Luray, two good roads cross the Blue Ridge; one running to Culpeper Court House, through Thornton’s Gap; the other through Fisher’s Gap to Gordonsville.
It was the Massanuttons that weighed on the mind of Banks. The Valley of the South Fork gave the Confederates a covered approach against his line of communications. Issuing from that strait cleft between the mountains Ashby’s squadrons might at any time sweep down upon his trains of waggons, his hospitals, and his magazines; and should Jackson be reinforced, Ashby might be supported by infantry and guns, and both Strasburg and Winchester be endangered. It was not within Banks’ power to watch the defile. “His cavalry,” he reported, “was weak in numbers and spirit, much exhausted with night and day work.” Good cavalry, he declared, would help incalculably, and he admitted that in this arm he was greatly inferior to the enemy.
Nor was he more happy as to the Alleghanies on his right. Frémont was meditating an advance on Lewisburg, Staunton, and the Virginia and Tennessee Railway with 25,000 men.[[8]] One column was to start from Gauley Bridge, in the Kanawha Valley; the other from the South Branch of the Potomac. Milroy’s brigade, from Cheat Mountain, had therefore occupied Monterey, and Schenck’s brigade had marched from Romney to Moorefield. But Moorefield was thirty miles west of Woodstock, and between them rose a succession of rugged ridges, within whose deep valleys the Confederate horsemen might find paths by which to reach to Banks’ rear.
It was essential, then, that his communications should be strongly guarded, and as he advanced up the Valley his force had diminished at every march. According to his own report he had, on April 6, 16,700 men fit for duty. Of these 4,100 were detached along the road from Woodstock to Harper’s Ferry. His effective strength for battle was thus reduced to 12,600, or, including the troops escorting convoys and the garrison of Strasburg, to 14,500 men, with 40 pieces of artillery.[[9]]
Such were the considerations that influenced the Federal commander. Had he occupied New Market, as McClellan had desired, he would have secured the Luray road, have opened the South Fork Valley to his scouts, and have overcome half the difficulties presented by the Massanuttons. A vigorous advance would have turned the attention of the Confederates from his communications to their own; and to drive Jackson from the Valley was the best method of protecting the trains and the magazines. But Banks was not inclined to beard the lion in his den, and on April 16 Jackson had been unmolested for more than three weeks. Ashby’s troopers were the only men who had even seen the enemy. Daily that indefatigable soldier had called to arms the Federal outposts. “Our stay at Edenburg,” says Gordon, “was a continuous season of artillery brawling and picket stalking. The creek that separated the outposts was not more than ten yards wide. About one-fourth of a mile away there was a thick wood, in which the enemy concealed his batteries until he chose to stir us up, when he would sneak up behind the cover, open upon us at an unexpected moment, and retreat rapidly when we replied.” It was doubtless by such constant evidence of his vigilance that Ashby imposed caution on the enemy’s reconnoitring parties. The fact remains that Jackson’s camps, six miles to the rear, were never once alarmed, nor could Banks obtain any reliable information.
This period of repose was spent by Jackson in reorganising his regiments, in writing letters to his wife, and, like his old class-mate, Gordon, in admiring the scenery. It is not to be supposed that his enforced inaction was altogether to his taste. With an enemy within sight of his outposts his bold and aggressive spirit must have been sorely tried. But with his inferior numbers prudence cried patience, and he had reason to be well content with the situation. He had been instructed to prevent Banks from detaching troops to reinforce McClellan. To attain an object in war the first consideration is to make no mistakes yourself; the next, to take instant advantage of those made by your opponent. But compliance with this rule does not embrace the whole art of generalship. The enemy may be too discreet to commit himself to risky manœuvres. If the campaigns of the great masters of war are examined, it will be found that they but seldom adopted a quiescent attitude, but by one means or another, by acting on their adversary’s moral, or by creating false impressions, they induced him to make a false step, and to place himself in a position which made it easy for them to attain their object. The greatest general has been defined as “he who makes the fewest mistakes;” but “he who compels his adversary to make the most mistakes” is a definition of equal force; and it may even be questioned whether the general whose imagination is unequal to the stratagems which bring mistakes about is worthy of the name. He may be a trustworthy subordinate, but he can scarcely become a great leader.
Johnston had advised, when, at the beginning of March, the retreat of the Confederates from Winchester was determined on, that Jackson should fall back on Front Royal, and thence, if necessary, up the South Fork of the Shenandoah. His force would thus be in close communication with the main army behind the Rapidan; and it was contrary, in the General-in-Chief’s opinion, to all sound discretion to permit the enemy to attain a point, such as Front Royal, which would render it possible for him to place himself between them. Jackson, however, declared his preference for a retreat up the North Fork, in the direction of Staunton. Why should Banks join McClellan at all? McClellan, so Jackson calculated, had already more men with him than he could feed; and he believed, therefore, that Staunton would be Banks’ objective, because, by seizing that town, he would threaten Edward Johnson’s rear, open the way for Frémont, and then, crossing the Blue Ridge, place himself so near the communications of the main army with Richmond that it would be compelled to fall back to defend them. Nor, in any case, did he agree with Johnston that the occupation of Front Royal would prevent Banks leaving the Valley and marching to Manassas. Twenty miles due east of Winchester is Snicker’s Gap, where a good road crosses the Blue Ridge, and eight miles south another turnpike leads over Ashby’s Gap. By either of these Banks could reach Manassas just as rapidly as Jackson could join Johnston; and, while 4,500 men could scarcely be expected to detain 20,000, they might very easily be cut off by a portion of the superior force.
If a junction with the main army were absolutely necessary, Jackson was of opinion that the move ought to be made at once, and the Valley abandoned. If, on the other hand, it was desirable to keep Banks and McClellan separated, the best means of doing so was to draw the former up the North Fork; and at Mount Jackson, covering the New Market to Luray road, the Valley troops would be as near the Rapidan as if they were at Front Royal.[[10]] The strategical advantages which such a position would offer—the isolation of the troops pursuing him, the chance of striking their communications from the South Fork Valley, and, if reinforcements were granted, of cutting off their retreat by a rapid movement from Luray to Winchester—were always present to Jackson’s mind.[[11]]
An additional argument was that at the time when these alternatives were discussed the road along South Fork was so bad as to make marching difficult; and it was to this rather than to Jackson’s strategical conceptions that Johnston appears to have ultimately yielded.