On the eighth of June, at Cross Keys, a few miles north of Port Republic, he turned upon Fremont. He was forced to reduce his firing line heavily by detaching a part of his little army to hold Shields in check on the other side of the river, and another part to hold Port Republic and the bridge which constituted his communication. He posted the remainder of his troops in a position of his own choosing and there awaited Fremont's attack.
That attack was made on the eighth of June and was repulsed with so much ease and so much completeness, that Jackson at once decided to assail his other adversary, Shields, in the hope of defeating him in his turn. Leaving a sufficient force on Fremont's side of the river to hold that general in check, or, if need be to destroy the bridge and prevent his crossing, he withdrew his battalions and precipitately assailed Shields, falling upon him in Napoleonic fashion with the head of his own column and trusting to expeditious marching for the coming up of reinforcements in time to prevent a possible failure from maturing into a disaster.
Shields resisted so valiantly and so stubbornly that Jackson's advance corps was very nearly overthrown, but in the end the Confederate commander brought a superior force to bear and completely crushed Shields's defense.
Immediately Fremont and Shields gave up the contest and retreated northward down the Valley, while Jackson rested his army preparatory to a hurried march to join Lee before Richmond while the fear of him should continue to hold Fremont's and McDowell's and Banks's, and what had been Saxton's, forces in the Valley.
For that march and junction Lee had fully prepared. He secretly sent instructions to Jackson to march at once to Ashland, a dozen miles from Richmond, and thence sweep down between the Pamunkey and Chickahominy rivers, in aid of Lee's own movement against McClellan. Then he ordered two divisions ostentatiously detached from the army before Richmond, to go to Jackson's reinforcement in the Valley, and directed Jackson to do all he could to impress the enemy with the belief that he was planning, with a strongly reinforced army, to sweep down the Valley again and press on into Maryland, threatening Washington and Baltimore. Pains were taken to impress the fact of Jackson's strong reinforcement upon Federal officers who, as prisoners, were about to be paroled and sent north and they carried the news, as it was meant that they should do. The deception was so complete that even while Jackson was actively assailing McClellan's rear on the Chickahominy a few days later, General Banks was sending from the Valley dispatches warning the Washington authorities that Stonewall Jackson was preparing immediately to sweep down the Valley at the head of a reinforced and now quite irresistible army.
The result was that Jackson and the divisions sent ostensibly to reinforce him, joined Lee in front of Richmond in time to aid in the Seven Days' battles for McClellan's dislodgment.
[CHAPTER XXVIII]
The Seven Days' Battles
It was explained in the last chapter that Lee's first object when he took personal charge of the army defending Richmond was to raise McClellan's siege of the Confederate capital, drive him away, and transfer the scene of active operations to some more distant field.