[28] See ante, pp. 185, 269, 275.

[29] Jackson fully recognised the fine fighting qualities of his compatriots. “As Shields’ brigade (division),” he wrote on April 5, “is composed principally of Western troops, who are familiar with the use of arms, we must calculate on hard fighting to oust Banks if attacked only in front, and may meet with obstinate resistance, however the attack may be made.”

[30] Dabney, vol. ii, p. 73.

[31] Report of Colonel Scott, 44th Virginia Infantry. O.R., vol. xii, part 1, p. 486.

[32] Dabney, vol. ii, p. 77.

[33] Ibid, p. 78. On May 9, in anticipation of a movement down the Valley, he had ordered thirty days’ forage, besides other supplies, to be accumulated at Staunton. Harman MS.

[34] Frémont’s Report, O.R., vol. xii, part i, p. 11.

Chapter X
WINCHESTER

1862, May That week in May when the Army of the Valley marched back to the Shenandoah was almost the darkest in the Confederate annals. The Northern armies, improving daily in discipline and in efficiency, had attained an ascendency which it seemed impossible to withstand. In every quarter of the theatre of war success inclined to the Stars and Stripes. At the end of April New Orleans, the commercial metropolis of the South, had fallen to the Federal navy. Earlier in the month a great battle had been fought at Shiloh, in Tennessee; one of the most trusted of the Confederate commanders had been killed;[[1]] his troops, after a gallant struggle, had been repulsed with fearful losses; and the upper portion of the Mississippi, from the source to Memphis, had fallen under the control of the invader. The wave of conquest, vast and irresistible, swept up every navigable river of the South; and if in the West only the outskirts of her territory were threatened with destruction, in Virginia the roar of the rising waters was heard at the very gates of Richmond. McClellan, with 112,000 men, had occupied West Point at the head of the York River; and on May 16 his advance reached the White House, on the Pamunkey, twenty miles from the Confederate capital. McDowell, with 40,000 men, although still north of the Rappahannock, was but five short marches distant.[[2]] The Federal gunboats were steaming up the James; and Johnston’s army, encamped outside the city, was menaced by thrice its numbers.