Major E. F. Paxton.
That night Jackson’s little army rested near Newtown, while Ashby kept watch not far from the field of battle. “Jackson,” says Cooke, “got an armful of corn for his horse; and, wrapping his blanket about him, lay down by a fire in a fence corner and went to sleep.” Though defeated for the first and last time, he had won the object of the battle. The fifteen thousand men who had started across the mountains to McClellan were recalled to the Valley, and Johnston was able to move safely behind the Rappahannock river, his new line of defense.
At four o’clock on the morning of the 24th, Jackson began to retreat slowly and in good order. The enemy pursued for awhile, but at last fell back to Winchester.
Jackson’s army was far from cast down by the defeat at Kernstown. The soldiers felt that they had made a splendid fight against four times their number. And now, too, for the first time, it began to dawn upon them that their general was a great leader. As Jackson passed along the columns, the men would cheer themselves hoarse.
Cooke tells us that one man was heard to ask, as he struggled along, “Why is Old Jack a better general than Moses?” “Because it took Moses forty years to lead the Israelites through the wilderness, and Old Jack would have double-quicked them through it in three days!”
It is said by another writer, that the men would laugh and say that the only rest they had was when they were retreating before the enemy. He always led them by forced marches when going to attack the foe, but never fast enough on a retreat to lose the chances of a fight.
The weather was now mild and balmy, and the men suffered few hardships during their slow retreat. At last they reached the old camp at Mt. Jackson, where Jackson gathered up his wounded and sent them up the Valley.
On the 1st of April, he crossed the north fork of the Shenandoah, and took position on Rude’s Hill, five miles below New Market.
General Banks had again come up the Valley, and was pressing upon the rear of Jackson’s army.
It was left for Colonel Ashby to burn the bridge near Mt. Jackson, after the Southern army had passed over. While Ashby and his men were engaged in this work, the Federal cavalry dashed up and a skirmish ensued, in which Ashby’s beautiful snow-white charger was mortally wounded.