280 DOWN THE SHENANDOAH. field of operations, mapping out the country-not only giving its great features, its mountains and valleys and rivers, but the minutest details, to every country road and every gap in the mountains, by which perchance he might execute a flank movement, and by a rapid night march appear in the morning in the rear of the enemy. Thus the engineer sometimes virtually designated the field in which the general was to fight his battles. This old companion of the great Confederate leader, gave up a day to accompany me down the Shenandoah Valley, part of the Valley of Virginia. The object of our excursion was to visit the wonderful Grottoes of the Shenandoah, but in our way we passed over the ground, which was the scene of all those campaigns in "The Valley," of which we heard so constantly in the war-events which were now described by one who was an actor in them. Indeed, I hope my readers will appreciate my opportunities as second only to those of an eye-witness, for if the Major rode by the side of Stonewall Jackson, I rode by the side of the Major, and listened to the marvellous story. True, between his ride and mine twenty-five years had come and gone, but as the memory was fresh in his mind, and he fought the battles over again, some faint reflection of his own vivid impressions fell upon me, and I felt that to hear him describe Stonewall Jackson, was next to seeing the old hero himself. From the outbreak of the war, Jackson had attached supreme importance to keeping possession of the Valley, as a barrier against invasion from the North. He said, "If the Valley is lost, Virginia is lost." But how to hold it against much greater forces, was the problem. With his quick military eye, he saw that it could only be done by what is known in war as an offensive-defensive campaign, in which the weaker side makes the attack, in order NAPOLEON HIS MASTER IN WAR. 281 to prevent being closed in upon and crushed by overwhelming numbers. "The Valley Campaign" of 1862, which was entirely Jackson's own, the Major looks upon as the most brilliant of the whole war. As we were riding in the carriage, he took out a pad, and drew a sketch of the country, showing the position of the several armies (for there were two or three operating at once against Jackson), in order to illustrate the latter's moves in this great game of war. Jackson had made a study of the campaigns of Napoleon, whose secret of victory he found to be in his marvellous combinations, and in a rapidity of movement of which there had been no example before. This was carrying into war the simple rule in mechanics, that the momentum of a ball depends on its weight and its velocity; and sometimes what is wanting in weight can be made up by increased velocity. Reasoning from this principle, Jackson was sure that what the French had done, Americans could do. He believed that an army could be marched twenty-five miles a day, and still retain strength to fight a battle: indeed he once marched his Stonewall Brigade forty miles! To do this, he must needs make the day a long one, by starting with the first streak of light in the east. This was his habit, so that the boys used to say, "He always marches at early dawn, except when he starts the night before.” It is a study in war to see how he carried out this principle in the famous Valley Campaign. His principal antagonist in the field was General Banks at the head of a large army, whose chief business seemed to be to watch Jackson, and keep him from crossing the Potomac and threatening Washington. At the same time Fremont was * On the 6th of April, 1862, Banks reported 23,093 men present for duty. Ten weeks later (June 16th) he reported nearly ten thousand less, or 13,631. 282 THE VALLEY CAMPAIGN. menacing his left at the head of a force on the west, with which he might advance into the Valley and put himself in Jackson's rear. With these two enemies to look after, Jackson suddenly disappeared from the one in front (leaving Banks still "watching" his abandoned camp), and literally hurled his small force across half a dozen mountains and as many valleys, and struck Fremont a blow which sent him reeling down the valley of the South Branch of the Potomac ; and then, before he could recover from it, he turned upon Banks, who, as soon as he had heard of Fremont's defeat, had fallen back in haste to Strasburg, where he was overtaken by Jackson, who gave him a similar "love-tap" that sent him on sixty miles farther, clear across the Potomac. The moral effect of these two defeats was not limited to those immediately engaged: it stopped McDowell, who was on the march with 40,000 men, to take part in the campaign against Richmond-a movement which was immediately arrested, that he might be held in a position to cover Washington. Having thus defeated two armies and paralyzed a third, Jackson obeyed the injunction to "gather up the fragments that nothing be lost." At Winchester the Government had accumulated enormous stores-the waggon train that took them up the Valley was fourteen miles long!—all of which fell into Jackson's hands, and was removed to Staunton to furnish supplies for the Confederate army. No wonder that they nicknamed Banks their Commissary General! But Jackson's work was not over, for other forces were gathering against him. McDowell was preparing to cross the mountains; while Fremont, who had been reinforced, was returning to the attack, so that Jackson was confronted by sixty thousand men approaching from opposite quarters. In the advance of such forces he fell back till he could place himself between the two; and |