thought he might literally be insane. Cer-
tainly he was odd, and extremely secretive
about his plans. But he could understand
like no one else—with the exception of
Robert E. Lee—the battleground of Vir-
ginia as a whole and how one part was not
disconnected from the others, but instead
strategically linked. He could see the
Shenandoah Valley as a whole and how
the varying military units in and near it
were not isolated forces but rather more
like pieces on a chessboard, each not only
holding its own power but gaining or los-
ing power depending on its position and
all having an overall power depending on
their positions taken together.
Indeed, no other field in the American
Civil War lends itself more to the analogy
of chess than the valley in the spring of- The valley is the chessboard and the
various Confederate and Union armies the
opposing pieces. This valley has different
definitions, but for our purposes it stretches
from Staunton in the south to Williamsport
and Harper’s Ferry in the north, a total of
120 miles. Jackson’s valley campaign was
a campaign of distances. The distance from
Winchester to Strasburg is 18 miles, from
Strasburg to New Market, 30 miles. Even
more important, Washington, DC, was 50
miles from Harper’s Ferry.
From Strasburg nearly all the way to
Staunton runs 55-mile-long Massanutten
Mountain, dividing the valley down the
middle into two parallel valleys. The west-
ern valley is about 9 miles wide and had
much open country by way of farms. It also
enjoyed the best road, the Valley Pike. The
eastern, or Luray Valley, is about 6 miles
wide, was largely wooded and had an infe-
rior road. Only one road traversed Mas-
sanutten Mountain, running roughly east-
west from New Market to Luray.
Massanutten is a key feature on the chess-
board. Armies marching up one side might
not be detected on the other, and whichever
army held the road that passed over its
midpoint could control a good many pos-
sibilities for movement up and down the
valley as a whole (“up” always meaning inthe southerly direction owing to the
northerly direction of the flow of the
Shenandoah River). Conceivably, a Federal
force could be marching up the western val-
ley while a Confederate one marched down
the Luray Valley to seize Front Royal.
But the Luray Valley could also be a
trap. A strong Federal presence in Front
Royal matched with Federals at the Mas-
sanutten crossing would require that a
Confederate force abandon the Luray Val-
ley by way of any of several gaps (from
north to south—Thorton’s, Fisher’s, Swift
Run, Brown’s, and Rockfish) over the Blue
Ridge and into the Piedmont area of Vir-
ginia, or remain bottled up in the south-
ern Luray Valley, or retreat farther south.
Several other points need to be made in
advance of a discussion of Jackson’s valley
campaign. One is cavalry. Jackson was for-
tunate to have men who not only loved to
ride but who did it very well and, even
more important, knew the valley as well
as the backs of their horses’ heads. The
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