On the last of April Jackson slipped away from Swift Run Gap while Ewell quietly took his place and Ashby blinded Banks by driving the Federal cavalry back on Harrisonburg. Jackson's men were thoroughly puzzled and disheartened when they had to leave the Valley in full possession of the enemy while they ploughed through seas of mud towards Richmond. What was the matter? Were they off to Richmond? No; for they presently wheeled round. "Old Jack's crazy, sure, this time." Even one of his staff officers thought so himself, and put it on paper, to his own confusion afterwards. The rain came down in driving sheets. The roads became mere drains for the oozing woods. Wheels stuck fast; and Jackson was seen heaving his hardest with an exhausted gun team.
But still the march went on--slosh, slosh, squelch; they slogged it through. CLOSE UP, MEN!--CLOSE UP IN REAR!--CLOSE UP, THERE, CLOSE UP!
On the fourth of May Jackson got word from Edward Johnson, commanding his detached brigade near Staunton, that Milroy, commanding Fremont's advanced guard, was coming on from West Virginia. Jackson at once seized the chance of smashing Milroy by railing in to Staunton before Banks or Fremont could interfere.
This would have been suicidal against a great commander with a well-trained force. But Banks, grossly exaggerating Jackson's numbers, was already marching north to the railhead at New Market, where he would be nearer his friends if Jackson swooped down. Detraining at Staunton the Confederates picketed the whole neighborhood to stop news getting out before they made their dash against Milroy. On the seventh they moved off. The cadets of the Virginia Military Institute, where Jackson had been a professor for so many years, had just joined to gain some experience of the real thing, and as they stepped out in their smart uniforms, with all the exactness of parade-ground drill, they formed a marked contrast to the gaunt soldiers of the Valley, half fed, half clad, but wholly eager for the fray.
That night Milroy got together all the men he could collect at McDowell, a little village just beyond the Valley and on the road to Gauley Bridge in West Virginia. He sent posthaste for reinforcements. But Fremont's men were divided too far west, fearing nothing from the Valley, while Banks's were thinking of a concentration too far north.
In the afternoon of the eighth, Milroy attacked Jackson with great determination and much skill. But after a stern encounter, in which the outnumbered Federals fought very well indeed, the Confederates won a decisive victory. The numbers actually engaged--twenty-five hundred Federals against four thousand Confederates--were even smaller than at Kernstown. But this time the Confederates won the tactical victory on the spot as well as the strategic victory all over the Valley; and the news cheered Richmond at what, as we have seen already, was its very darkest hour. The night of the battle Jackson sent out strong working parties to destroy all bridges and culverts and to block all roads by which Fremont could reach the Valley. In some places bowlders were rolled down from the hills. In one the trees were felled athwart the path for a mile. A week later Jackson was back in the Valley at Lebanon Springs, while Fremont was blocked off from Banks, who was now distractedly groping for safety and news.
The following day, the famous sixteenth, we regain touch with Lee, who, as mentioned already, then wrote to Jackson about attacking Banks in order to threaten Washington. This dire day at Richmond, the day McClellan reached White House, was also the one appointed by the Southern Government as a day of intercession for God's blessing on the Southern arms. None kept it more fervently, even in beleaguered Richmond, than pious Jackson in the Valley.
Then, like a giant refreshed, he rose for swift and silent marches and also sudden hammer-strokes at Banks.
Confident that all would now go well, Washington thought nothing of the little skirmish at McDowell, because it apparently disturbed nothing beyond the Shenandoah Valley. The news from everywhere else was good; and Federals were jubilant. So were the civilian strategists, particularly Stanton, who, though tied to his desk as Secretary of War, was busy wire-pulling Banks's men about the Valley. Stanton ordered Banks to take post at Strasburg and to hold the bridges at Front Royal with two detached battalions. This masterpiece of bungling put the Federals at Front Royal in the air, endangered their communications north to Winchester, and therefore menaced the Valley line toward Washington. But Banks said nothing; and Stanton would have snubbed him if he had.
On the twenty-third of May a thousand Federals under Colonel Kenly were sweltering in the first hot weather of the year at Stanton's indefensible position of Front Royal when suddenly a long gray line of skirmishers emerged from the woods, the Confederate bugles rang out, and Jackson's battle line appeared.
Then came a crashing volley, which drove in the Federal pickets for their lives. Colonel Kenly did his best. But he was outflanked and forced back in confusion. A squadron of New York cavalry came to the rescue; but were themselves outflanked and helpless on the road against the Virginian horsemen, who could ride across country. Kenly had just made a second stand, when down came the Virginians, led by Colonel Flournoy at racing speed over fence and ditch, scattering the Federal cavalry like chaff before the wind and smashing into the Federal infantry. Two hundred and fifty really efficient cavalry took two guns (complete with limbers, men, and horses), killed and wounded a hundred and fifty-four of their opponents, and captured six hundred prisoners as well--and all with a loss to themselves of only eleven killed and fifteen wounded.