felt that his actions at Gettysburg were a
pointed attempt to regain the reputation he
had lost at Kernstown.
Kernstown remained Stonewall Jack-
son’s only major tactical defeat during the
war. But while the Union succeeded in
forcing Jackson’s men off the field and into
retreat the following day, Jackson in the
end accomplished most of his original
objectives, albeit inadvertently. Abraham
Lincoln, upon learning of the surprising
battle in the Shenandoah, became overly
concerned about the potential threat to
Washington. He ordered two full divisions
from Banks’s corps back into the valley
and recalled Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell’sI Corps to Washington as well, drawing at
least 50,000 valuable men away from
McClellan’s upcoming Peninsula Cam-
paign. The absence of these men may well
have been a determining factor in McClel-
lan’s eventual defeat. In this way, at least,
Kernstown could be considered a strategic
victory for Jackson and the Confederates,
despite the fact they had been driven from
the field.
That was the position Jackson took as
well. In an after-action report filed during
the second week of April, he maintained:
“Though Winchester was not recovered,
yet the more important object, for the
present, that of calling back troops thatwere leaving the valley, and thus prevent-
ing a junction of Banks’ command with
other forces was accomplished, in addi-
tion to his heavy loss in killed and
wounded.” A few days later, Jackson
wrote to his wife, Anna: “I am well satis-
fied with the result. Time has shown that
while the field is in possession of the
enemy, the most essential fruits of the bat-
tle are ours. For this and all our Heavenly
Father’s blessings, I wish I could be ten
thousand times more thankful.”
Jackson spent the remaining months of
spring engaged in his Valley Campaign
constantly disrupting Union forces and
preventing them from reinforcing McClel-
lan. The Battles of McDowell, FrontRoyal, First Winchester, Cross Keys, and
Port Republic were all victories for Jack-
son. By the time the Battle of Port Repub-
lic was over in early June 1862, Jackson
was able to join General Robert E. Lee for
the Seven Days’ Battles, where Lee suc-
cessfully defeated McClellan and forced
him to retreat back to the Virginia Penin-
sula, thus ending the Peninsula Campaign.
As one modern historian has noted: “Had
Jackson won the Battle of Kernstown, he
could scarcely have achieved a more favor-
able result. History can provide few exam-
ples of a defeat that so favored the
defeated. Jackson’s lucky star had begun
its ascendancy.”ABOVE: Combat artist Alfred Waud’s eyewitness sketch of the Union attack
on the stone wall at Kernstown was published three weeks later in Harper’s
Weekly. OPPOSITE: Another northern artist, Edwin Forbes, made this vivid
drawing of ragtag Confederate prisoners after Kernstown. A total of 263
Confederates were captured at the battle.CWQ-EW16 Kernstown_Layout 1 10/22/15 3:07 PM Page 97