The unsupported Federal gunboats were stopped and turned back at the boom near Drewry"s Bluff. McClellan, bent on besieging Richmond in due form, crawled cautiously about the intervening swamps of the oozy Chickahominy. McDowell, who could not advance alone, remained at Fredericksburg. Shields stood behind him, near Catlett"s Station, to keep another eye on nervous Washington.
In the meantime Stonewall Jackson, still in the Shenandoah, had fought no battles since his tactical defeat at Kernstown on the twenty-third of March had proved such a pregnant strategic victory elsewhere. But late in April he had a letter from Lee, telling of the general situation and suggesting an attack on Banks. Banks, however, still had twenty thousand men at Harrisonburg, with twenty-five thousand more in or within call of the Valley. Jackson"s complete grand total was less than eighteen thousand. The odds against him therefore exceeded five against two; and direct attack was out of the question. But he now began his maneuvers anew and on a bolder scale than ever. He had upset the Federal strategy at Kernstown, when there were less than eight thousand Confederates in the Valley.
What might he not do with ten thousand more? His wonderful Valley Campaign, famous forever in the history of war, gives us the answer.
He had five advantages over Banks. First, his own expert knowledge and genius for war, backed by a dauntless character. Banks was a very able man who had worked his way up from factory hand to Speaker of the House of Representatives and Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts. But he had neither the knowledge, genius, nor character required for high command; and he owed his present position more to his ardor as a politician than to his ability as a general. Jackson"s second advantage was his own and his army"s knowledge of the country for which they naturally fought with a loving zeal which no invaders could equal. The third advantage was in having Turner Ashby"s cavalry.
These were hors.e.m.e.n born and bred, who could make their way across country as easily as the "footy" Federals could along the road.
In answer to a peremptory order a Federal cavalry commander could only explain: "I can"t catch them. They leap fences and walls like deer. Neither our men nor our horses are so trained." The fourth advantage was in discipline. Jackson habitually spared his men more than his officers, and his officers more than himself, whenever indulgence was possible. But when discipline had to be sternly maintained he maintained it sternly, throughout all ranks, knowing that the flower of discipline is self-sacrifice, from the senior general down, and that the root is due subordination, from the junior private up. After the Conscription Act had come into force a few companies, who were time-expired as volunteers, threw down their arms and told their colonel they wouldn"t serve another day.
On hearing this officially Jackson asked: "Why does Colonel Grigsby refer to me to learn how to deal with mutineers? He should shoot them where they stand." The rest of the regiment was then paraded with loaded arms, facing the mutineers, who were given the choice of complete submission or instant death. They chose submission. That was the last mutiny under Stonewall Jackson. Both sides suffered from straggling, the Confederates as much as the Federals. But Confederate stragglers rejoined the better of the two; and in downright desertion the Federals were the worse, simply because their own peace party was by far the stronger. The final advantage brings us back to strategy, on which the whole campaign was turning. Lee and Jackson worked the Confederates together. Lincoln and Stanton worked the Federals apart.
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 Inst.i.tute, 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CIVIL WAR: VIRGINA CAMPAIGNS, 1862]
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 G.o.d"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 hors.e.m.e.n, 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.
Ashby"s cavalry, several hundreds strong, pushed on and out to the flanks, cutting the wires, destroying bridges, and blocking the roads against reinforcements from beyond the Valley. Three hours after the attack a dispatch-rider dashed up to Banks"s headquarters at Strasburg. But Banks refused to move, saying, when pressed by his staff to make a strategic retreat on Winchester, "By G.o.d, sir, I will not retreat! We have more to fear from the opinions of our friends than from the bayonets of our enemies!" The Cabinet backed him up next day by actually proposing to reinforce him at Strasburg with troops from Washington and Baltimore. Nevertheless he was forced to fly for his life to Winchester. His stores at Strasburg had to be abandoned. His long train of wagons was checked on the way, with considerable loss. And some of his cavalry, caught on the road by hors.e.m.e.n who could ride across country, were smashed to pieces.
Jackson pressed on relentlessly to Winchester with every one who could march like "foot cavalry," as his Valley men came to be called.
On the twenty-fifth, the third day of unremitting action, he carried the Winchester heights and drove Banks through the town. Only the Second Ma.s.sachusetts, which had already distinguished itself during the retreat, preserved its formation. Ten thousand Confederate bayonets glittered in the morning sun. The long gray lines swept forward. The piercing rebel yell rose high. And the people, wild with joy, rushed out of doors to urge the victors on.
By the twenty-sixth, the first day on which Stanton"s reinforcements from Baltimore and Washington could possibly have fought at Strasburg, the Confederates had reached Martinsburg, fifty miles beyond it.
Banks had already crossed the Potomac, farther on still. The newsboys of the North were crying, _Defeat of General Banks! Washington in danger!_ Thirteen Governors were calling for special State militia, for which a million men were volunteering, spare troops were hurrying to Harper"s Ferry, a reserve corps was being formed at Washington, the Federal Government was a.s.suming control of all the railroad lines, and McClellan was being warned that he must either take Richmond at once or come back to save the capital. Nor did the strategic disturbance stop even there; for the Washington authorities ordered McDowell"s force at Fredericksburg to the Valley just as it was coming into touch with McClellan.
On the twenty-eighth Jackson might have taken Harper"s Ferry. But the storm was gathering round him. A great strategist directing the Federal forces could have concentrated fifty thousand men, by sunset on the first of June, against Jackson"s Army of the Valley, which could not possibly have mustered one-third of such a number.
McDowell arrived that night at Front Royal. He had vainly protested against the false strategy imposed by the Government from Washington, and he was not a free agent now. Yet, even so, his force was at least a menace to Jackson, who had only two chances of getting away to aid in the defeat of McClellan and the saving of Richmond.
One was to outmarch the converging Federals, gain interior lines along the Valley, and defeat them there in detail. The other was to march into friendly Maryland, trusting to her Southern sentiments for help and reinforcements. He decided on the Valley route and marched straight in between his enemies.
His fortnight"s work, from the nineteenth of May to the first of June, inclusive, is worth summing up. In these fourteen days he had marched 170 miles, routed 12,500 men, threatened an invasion of the North, drawn McDowell off from Fredericksburg, taken or destroyed all Federal stores at Front Royal, Winchester, and Martinsburg, and brought off safely a convoy seven miles long.
Moreover, he had done all this with the loss of only six hundred, though sixty thousand enemies lay on three sides of his own sixteen thousand men.
His remaining problem was harder still. It was how to mystify, tire out, check short, and then immobilize the converging Federals long enough to let him slip secretly away in time to help Johnston and Lee against McClellan. Jackson, like his enemies, moved through what has been well called the Fog of War--that inevitable uncertainty through which all commanders must find their way. But none of his enemies equaled him in knowledge, genius, or character for war.
The first week in June saw desperate marches in the Valley, with the outnumbering Federals hot-foot on the trail of Jackson, who turned to bay one moment and at the next was off again. On the sixth the Federals got home against his rear guard. It began to waver, and Ashby ordered the infantry to charge. As he gave the order his horse fell dead. In a flash he was up, waving his sword and shouting: "Charge, for G.o.d"s sake, charge!" The Confederate line swept forward gallantly. But, just as it left the wood, Ashby was shot through the heart. His men avenged him. Yet none could fill his place as a born leader of irregular light horse.
Next morning the hounds were hot upon the scent again: Shields and Fremont converging on Jackson, whom they would run to earth somewhere north of Staunton. But on the eighth and ninth Jackson turned sharply and bit back, first at Fremont close to Cross Keys, then at Shields near Port Republic. Each was caught alone, just before their point of junction, and each was defeated in detail as well.
Fully to appreciate Jackson"s strategy we must compare the strategical and tactical numbers concerned throughout this short but momentous Valley Campaign. The strategic numbers are those at the disposal of the commander within the theater of operations. The tactical numbers are those actually present on the field of battle, whether engaged or not. At McDowell the Federals had 30,000 in strategic strength against 17,000 Confederates; yet the Confederates got 6000 on to the field of battle against no more than 2500. At Winchester the Federal strategic strength was 60,000 against 16,000; yet the Confederate tactical strength was every man of the 16,000 against 7500--only one-eighth of Banks"s grand total. At Cross Keys the strategic strengths were 23,000 Federals against 13,000 Confederates; yet 12,750 Federals were beaten by 8000 Confederates. Finally, at Port Republic, the Federals, with a strategic strength of 22,000 against the Confederate 12,700, could only bring a tactical strength of 4500 to bear on 6000 Confederates. The grand aggregate of these four remarkable actions is well worth adding up. It comes to this in strategic strength: 135,000 Federals against 58,700 Confederates.
Yet in tactical strength the odds are reversed; for they come to this: 36,000 Confederates against only 27,250 Federals. Therefore Stonewall Jackson, with strategic odds of nearly seven to three against him, managed to fight with tactical odds of four to three in his favor.
While Jackson was fighting in the Valley the Confederates at Richmond were watching the nightly glow of Federal camp fires. McClellan had 30,000 men north of the Chickahominy, waiting for McDowell to come back from his enterprise against Jackson, and 75,000 south of it. What could the 65,000 Confederates do, except hold fast to their lines? TO RICHMOND 4-1/2 MILES: so read the sign-post at the Mechanicsville bridge, and there stood the nearest Federal picket. Johnston and Lee knew, however, that McClellan"s alarmist detectives swore to a Confederate army three times its actual strength at this time; and there was reason to hope that the consequent moral ascendancy would help the shock of an attack suddenly made on one of McClellan"s two wings while the flooded Chickahominy flowed between them and its oozy swamps bewildered his staff.
Hearing that McDowell need not be feared, Johnston attacked at daylight on the thirty-first of May. The battle of Seven Pines (known also as Fair Oaks) was not unlike Shiloh. The Federals were taken by surprise on the first day and only succeeded in holding their own by hard fighting and with a good deal of loss. A mistake was made by the Confederate division told off for the attack on the key to the Federal front (an attack which, if completely successful, would have split the Federals in two) and the main bodies were engaged before this fatal error could be rectified. So the surprised Federals gradually recovered from the first shock and began to feel and use their hitherto unrealized strength. On the second day (the first of June) Johnston, who had been severely wounded, was plainly defeated and compelled to fall back on Richmond again.
On the morrow of this defeat Lee was appointed to "the immediate command of the armies in eastern Virginia and North Carolina."
Davis was not war statesman enough to make him Commander-in-Chief till "65--four years too late. Johnston did not reappear till he tried to relieve Vicksburg from the determined attacks of Grant in "63.
The twelfth of June will be remembered forever in the annals of cavalry for Stuart"s first great ride round McClellan"s host. With twelve hundred troopers and two horse artillery guns he stole out beyond the western flank of the Federals and reached Taylorsville that evening, twenty-two miles north of Richmond. Next day he rode right in among the Federal posts in rear, discovering that McClellan"s right stretched little north of the Chickahominy, that it was not fortified, and that it did not rest on any strong natural feature, such as a swampy stream. This was exactly the information Lee required. So far, so good. The Federals met with up to this time had simply been ridden down. But now the whole country was alarmed and McClellan had forces out to cut Stuart off on his return, while General Cooke (Stuart"s father-in-law) began to pursue him from Hanover Court House.
Then Stuart took the boldest step of all, deciding to go clear round the rest of the Federal army. At Tunstall"s Station on the York River Railroad he routed the guard, tore up the track, destroyed the stores and wagons, cut the wires, burnt the bridge, and replenished his supplies. Thence southeast, by the Williamsburg road, his column marched under a full summer moon, the people running out of doors, wild with joy at his daring. At sunrise he reached the Chickahominy, only to find it flooded, full of timber, and spanned by nothing better than a broken bridge. But, using the materials of a warehouse to make a footway, the troopers crossed in single file, leading their chargers, which swam. Waving his hand to the Federals, who had just arrived too late, Stuart pushed on the remaining thirty-five miles to Richmond, rounding the Federal flank within range of Federal gunboats on the James.
This magnificent raid not only procured in three days information that McClellan"s civilian detectives could not have procured in three years but raised Confederate morale and depressed the Federals correspondingly. Moreover, it drove the first nail into McClellan"s coffin. For in October, just after another Stuart raid, the following curious incident occurred on board the _Martha Washington_ when Lincoln was returning from an Alexandria review which had cheered him up considerably, coming, as it did, after Lee had failed in Maryland. By way of answering the very pertinent question--"Mr.
President, how about McClellan?"--Lincoln simply drew a ring on the deck, quietly adding: "When I was a boy we used to play a game called "Three times round and out." Stuart has been round McClellan twice. The third time McClellan will be out."
Stuart rode ahead of his troopers, straight to Lee, who immediately wrote to Jackson suggesting that the Army of the Valley, while keeping the Federals alarmed to the last about an attack on the line of the Potomac, might secretly slip away and join a combined attack on McClellan. Jackson, who had of course foreseen this, was ready with every blind known to the art of war. Even his staff and generals knew nothing of their destination. The first move was so secret that the enemy never suspected anything till it was too late, while friends thought there was to be another surprise in the Valley. The second move led various people to suspect a march on Washington--no bad news to leak out; and nothing but misleading items did leak out. The Army of the Valley moved within a charmed circle of cavalry which prevented any one from going forward, ahead of the advance, and swept before it all stragglers through whom the news might leak out by the rear. On the twenty-third of June, only eight days after Stuart had reported his raid to Lee, Jackson attended Lee"s conference at the same place, Richmond. The Valley Army was then on its thirty-mile march from Frederick"s Hall to Ashland, where it arrived on the twenty-fifth, fifteen miles north.
McClellan had over a hundred thousand men. Lee had less than ninety thousand, even after Jackson had joined him. To attack McClellan"s strongly fortified front, with its almost impregnable flanks, would have been suicide. But McClellan"s farther right, commanded by that excellent officer, FitzJohn Porter, lay north of the Chickahominy, with its own right open for junction with McDowell. So Lee, knowing McClellan and the state of this Federal right, decided on the twenty-fourth to attack Porter and threaten McClellan"s communications not only with McDowell to the north but with White House, the Federal base twenty miles northeast. This was an exceedingly bold move, first, because McClellan had plenty of men to take Richmond during Lee"s march north, secondly, because it meant the convergence of separate forces on the field of battle (Jackson being at Ashland, fifteen miles from Richmond) and, thirdly, because the Confederates were inferior in armament and in supplies of all kinds as well as in actual numbers. Magruder, who had held the Yorktown lines so cleverly with such inferior forces, was to hold Richmond (on both sides of the James) with thirty-five thousand men against McClellan"s seventy-five thousand, while Lee and Jackson converged on Porter"s twenty-five thousand with over fifty thousand.
Then followed the famous Seven Days, beginning on the twenty-sixth of June near the signpost at the Mechanicsville bridge--TO RICHMOND 4-1/2 MILES--and ending at Harrison"s Landing on the second of July.
On the twenty-sixth the attack was made with consummate strategic skill. But it was marred by bad staff work, by the great obstructions in Jackson"s path, and by A. P. Hill"s premature attack with ten thousand men against Porter"s admirable front at Beaver Dam Creek.
Hill"s men moved down their own side of the little valley in dense ma.s.ses till every gun and rifle on Porter"s side was suddenly unmasked.
No scythe could have mowed the leading Confederates better. Two thousand went down in the first few minutes, and the rest at once retreated.
Porter fell back on Gaines"s Mill, where, after being reinforced, he took up a strong position on the twenty-seventh. Again there was failure in combining the attack. Jackson found obstructions that even he could not overcome quickly enough. Hill attacked again with the utmost gallantry, wave after wave of Confederates rushing forward only to melt away before the concentrated fire of Porter"s reinforced command.
But at last the Confederates--though checked and roughly handled--converged under Lee"s own eye; and an inferno of shot and sh.e.l.l loosened and shook the steadfast Federal defense. Lee and Jackson, though far apart, gave the word for the final charge at almost the same moment. As Jackson"s army suddenly burst into view and swept forward to the a.s.sault the joyful news was shouted down the ranks: "The Valley men are here!" Thereupon Lee"s men took up the double-quick with "Stonewall Jackson! Jackson! Jackson!"
as their battle cry. The Federals fought right valiantly till their key-point suddenly gave way, smashed in by weight of numbers; for Lee had brought into action half as many again as Porter had, even with his reinforcements. On the gallantly defended hill the long blue lines rocked, reeled, and broke to right and left all but the steadfast regulars, whose infantry fell back in perfect order, whose cavalry made a desperate though futile attempt to stay the rout by charging one against twenty, and whose four magnificent batteries, splendidly served to the very last round, retired unbroken with the loss of only two guns. Then the Confederate colors waved in triumph on the hard-won crest against the crimson of the setting sun.
The victorious Confederates spent the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth in finding the way to McClellan"s new base. His absolute control of all the waterways had enabled him to change his base from White House on the Pamunkey to Harrison"s Landing on the James. When the Confederates discovered his line of retreat by the Quaker Road they pressed in to cut it. On the thirtieth there was severe fighting in White Oak Swamp and on Frayser"s Farm. But the Federals pa.s.sed through, and made a fine stand on Malvern Hill next day. Finally, when they turned at bay on the Evelington Heights, which covered Harrison"s Landing, they convinced their pursuers that it would be fatal to attack again; for now Northern sea-power was visibly present in flotillas of gunboats, which made the flanks as hopelessly strong as the front.
McClellan therefore remained safely behind his entrenchments, with the navy in support. He had to his own credit the strategic success of having foiled Lee by a clever change of base; and to the credit of his army stood some first-rate fighting besides some tactical success, especially at Malvern Hill. Nevertheless the second invasion of Virginia was plainly a failure; though by no means a glaring disaster, like the first invasion at Bull Run.
McClellan, again reinforced, still professed his readiness to take Richmond under conditions that suited himself. But the most promising Northern force now seemed to be Pope"s Army of Virginia, coming down from the line of the Potomac, forty-seven thousand strong, composed of excellent material, and heralded by proclamations which even McClellan could never excel. John Pope, Halleck"s hero of Island Number Ten, came from the West to show the East how to fight. "I presume that I have been called here to lead you against the enemy, and that speedily. I hear constantly of taking strong positions and holding them--of lines of retreat and bases of supplies. Let us discard such ideas. Let us study the probable line of retreat of our opponents, and leave our own to take care of themselves."
His Army of Virginia contained Fremont"s (now Sigel"s) corps, as well as those of Banks and McDowell--all experts in the art of "chasing Jackson."
Jackson was soon ready to be chased again. The Confederate strength had been reduced by the Seven Days and not made good by reinforcement; so Lee could spare Jackson only twenty-four thousand men with whom to meet the almost double numbers under Pope. But Jackson"s men had the better morale, not only on account of their previous service but because of their rage to beat Pope, who, unlike other Northerners, was enforcing the harshest rules of war. His lieutenant, General von Steinwehr, went further, not only seizing prominent civilians as hostages (to be shot whenever he chose to draw his own distinctions between Confederate soldiers and guerillas) but giving his German subordinates a liberty that some of them knew well how to turn into license. This, of course, was most exceptional; for nearly all Northerners made war like gentlemen. Unhappily, those who did not were bad enough and numerous enough to infuriate the South.
Halleck, who had now become chief military adviser to the Union Government, was as cautious as McClellan and had so little discernment that he thought Pope a better general than Grant. Lincoln, Stanton, and Halleck put their heads together; and an order soon followed which had the effect of relieving the pressure on Richmond and giving the initiative to Lee. Halleck ordered McClellan to withdraw from Harrison"s Landing, take his Army of the Potomac round by sea to Aquia Creek, and join Pope on the Rappahannock--an operation requiring the whole month of August to complete.
Lee lost no time. His first move was to get Pope"s advanced troops defeated by Jackson, who brought more than double numbers against Banks at Cedar Run on the ninth of August. The Federals fought magnificently, nine against twenty thousand men. After the battle Jackson marched across the Rapidan, and Halleck wisely forbade Pope from following him, even though the first of Burnside"s men (now the advanced guard of McClellan"s army) had arrived at Aquia and were marching overland to Pope. Then followed some anxious days at Federal Headquarters. Jackson vanished; and Pope"s cavalry, numerous as it was, wore itself out trying to find the clue. McClellan was still busy moving his men from Harrison"s Landing to Fortress Monroe, whence detachments kept sailing to Aquia. What would Lee do now?
On the thirteenth he began entraining Longstreet"s troops for Gordonsville. On the fifteenth he conferred with his generals.
And on the seventeenth, from the lookout on Clark"s Mountain, he saw Pope"s unsuspecting army camped round Slaughter Mountain within fifteen miles of the united Confederates. Halleck had just given Pope the fatal order to "fight like the devil" till McClellan came up. Pope was full of confidence. And there he lay, in a bad strategic and worse tactical position, and with slightly inferior numbers, just within reach of Jackson and Lee. Pope was, however, saved from immediate disaster by an oversight on the part of Stuart. In ordering Fitzhugh Lee"s cavalry brigade to rendezvous at Verdierville that night Stuart forgot to make the order urgent and the missing brigade came in late. Stuart, anxious to see the enemy"s position for himself, rode out and was nearly taken prisoner. His dispatch-box fell into Pope"s hands, with a memorandum of Jackson"s reinforcements. Jackson was for attacking next day in any case and groaned aloud when Lee decided not to, owing to the failure of cavalry combination in front and the belated supplies in the rear. Pope retired safely on the eighteenth, and on the nineteenth a thick haze hid his rear from Lee"s lookout.
Lee was now in a very difficult position, apparently face to face with what would soon be the joint forces of Pope, McClellan, and probably another corps from Washington: the whole well fed, well armed, and certainly more than twice as strong as the united Confederates. But Jackson and Stuart multiplied their forces by skillful maneuvers and mystifying raids, and presently Stuart had his revenge for the affront he had suffered on the seventeenth.