The day had begun early for more than Lucius and Ephraim. Movements were afoot which were destined to bring about very important results, and the news from the bridge, which the Federal general so calmly anticipated, was likely, when it arrived, to disturb his equilibrium a good deal more than the loss of his breakfast.
For the last four and thirty days, Stonewall Jackson had been making matters very lively for the northern invaders. He was considerably outnumbered, but with such consummate skill did he handle his forces, that he was able to attack and beat the Federal generals in detail, one after another; nor, chase him up and down as they would, could they ever succeed in effecting a combination of their entire armies against him. Indeed, the rapidity of Jackson’s movements astounded the Federals, for scarcely did they receive reliable news of him in one place than he was upon them in another, and considering the number and vigour of their marvellous forced marches, it is no wonder that his brigades proudly christened themselves ‘Stonewall Jackson’s Foot Cavalry.’
After defeating Milroy, Jackson had rushed through the valley to Winchester, where he fell upon General Banks so fiercely and suddenly that the latter was driven in the wildest confusion clear across the Potomac. The dashing Confederate leader then retreated up the valley by the great turnpike, hotly pursued by Frémont, who could not, however, succeed in bringing him to bay. Shields, meanwhile, had moved up the south-eastern bank of the Shenandoah, and, by co-operation with him, Frémont thought at last to crush the daring rebel. But by a master-stroke Jackson burned the bridge at the mouth of Elk Run Valley, over which Shields would have led his troops—for owing to heavy rains the Shenandoah was not fordable—and took up his position at Port Republic, a little village situated on the south fork of the river. Shields, therefore, advanced to Lewiston, the farm of a General Lewis, and there awaited instructions from Frémont, who was but a few miles off at Harrisonburg. But he might as well have been a thousand miles away, for between the two generals rolled the impassable Shenandoah, and the building of bridges in face of an enemy so vigilant and daring as Stonewall Jackson was a proposition that could not be seriously considered. Nevertheless, communication had been somehow effected, and it so happened that, on the very night that Ephraim and Lucius left Staunton in the balloon, the Federal generals had arranged a combined attack upon the restless Jackson for the next day. Frémont was to advance from Harrisonburg to Cross Keys and engage the Confederate left under Ewell, while at the same moment Shields, by a successful dash across the bridge at Port Republic, was to carry the little town and crumple up the rebel right. But Jackson’s cool head and war-trained mind had foreseen this combination, and his own plans had been formed to keep Shields just where he was on the south-eastern bank of the river until Frémont had been disposed of. When therefore the boys took refuge in the loft, and the Federal officers turned their attention to their desecrated breakfast, Frémont and Ewell were already confronting one another at Cross Keys, while Shields’s cavalry were on their way to rush the bridge at Port Republic and clear the road for the passage of the infantry and artillery. For some time the officers devoted themselves exclusively to their breakfast, but at last General Shields broke the silence by observing, ‘I think we shall fix Jackson this bout.’
‘If the bridge at Port Republic can be carried,’ agreed the brigadier cautiously.
‘If!’ repeated Shields with some irritation. ‘There is no if about it, sir. It must be carried. It cannot fail to be. The whole attention of the enemy will be by this time centred on their left to repulse Frémont’s demonstration at Cross Keys. By ten o’clock my headquarters will be at Port Republic.’
The brigadier did not answer, but he thought his own thoughts. He was not above learning a lesson, even from an enemy, and his experience of Stonewall Jackson as a leader and strategist led him to believe that this confident, even boastful tone was not justified in the face of recent happenings in the valley. However, he was silent in the presence of his commanding officer.
‘Jackson will not expect an attack on the bridge,’ went on Shields, enclosing a slice of ham between two biscuits. ‘He will know nothing of the movement until he finds himself driven out of Port Republic, and then it will be too late.—By the way,’ he broke off, ‘that reconnaissance yesterday was shamefully muddled.’
‘It was,’ agreed the brigadier; ‘and if you will excuse my saying so, I thought it rather an error of judgment to entrust it to Colonel Spriggs. You remember his appearance at Bull Run.’
‘His disappearance, you mean,’ corrected General Shields with a grim smile. ‘Well, perhaps it was; but I couldn’t well help myself.’
‘I am at a loss to know why we are bothered with such a fellow,’ put in the third officer, a staff colonel.