Civil_War_Quarterly_-_Spring_2016_

onslaught. Indeed, they made havoc on the

column, capturing wagons and sending

Federals to flight. But as it turned out, this

was the rear of Banks’ column; the remain-

der had gotten away. Much of Ashby’s cav-

alry broke discipline to loot the rich loads

of material they found in the wagons,

some even took off to visit “the home

folks.” Rich as the rewards of the fight at

Middletown were, it could have been far

more ruinous for the Federals, and Jackson

was furious.

The Northerners put up some skilled

resistance in their flight toward Winches-

ter. Nevertheless, Jackson pressed his men

hard in pursuit, even through the night.

The men were exhausted from their

marching and fighting, but still Jackson

pressed. “I am obliged to sweat them

tonight, that I might save their blood

tomorrow,” he told a subordinate who

pleaded for a short halt. “The line of hills

southwest of Winchester must not be occu-

pied by the enemy’s artillery. My own must

be there and in position by daylight.” The

men knew nothing of this, only that they

were pursuing a crippled army. And if their

feet were bleeding, their complaints and

suspicions of their leader were dropping

away as so many stragglers. The seemingly

crazy orders of “Ol’ Jack” might not be

the product of a cracked mind after all; he

was leading them to victory after victory.

Both Confederates and Federals were

positioning before sunrise on the 25th. The

Confederates had seized one line of heights

south of the town, but Banks’ men held

the last ridge and their artillery could still

play havoc on advancing graybacks. Jack-

son commanded the battle west of the

pike. On the other side Ewell was coming

up on a diagonal road his men had taken

from Front Royal.

The Federal artillery and supporting

infantry were holding well and stalling the

Confederate advance. Jackson saw the

need to outflank them to the west and sent

Brig. Gen. Richard Taylor’s Louisianians

to the job. These men formed for the

advance and then marched on the North-

erners. A Confederate private nearby

wrote: “That charge of Taylor’s was the

grandest I saw during the war: ... every

man was in his proper place. There was all

the pomp and circumstance of war about

it that was always lacking in our charges.”

The sun was not yet very high in the sky.

With Ewell pressing the Federal left flank,

Taylor the right, and Brig. Gen. Charles

Winder with the Stonewall brigade press-

ing the center, the Federal line collapsed.

Union soldiers fell back through Winches-

ter and the Confederates entered to the

cheers of the townspeople. It was well nigh

a celebration. Jackson was especially

revered—the Liberator! But Jackson knew

this was no time to rest on laurels; his

enemy was in ragged retreat, so fragile it

might break to pieces with a concerted

blow. He called for Ashby, but Ashby was

off chasing prizes of his own. Jackson called

for the cavalry under Ewell, but had to wait

two hours for two regiments of Virginia

cavalry under Brig. Gen. George Steuart

Meanwhile, Banks had made good use

of the time, heading for Williams- port

where his army could cross the Potomac

River, and leaving scores of wagons in his

haste. “Never have I seen an opportunity

when it was more in the power of cavalry

to reap a richer harvest of the fruits of vic-

tory,” Jackson lamented. Jackson threw

his infantry into the pursuit, but the men

had not been fed in two days and had been

Marching is hard work under any circum-

stances. The men of the valley army

marched in drizzle, thunderstorms, heat,

and mud. Going all day—or even two days—

without food was not uncommon. Tempers

gave out first, then feet, then bodies.

Even as early in the campaign as the

march from Staunton to McDowell, soldiers

were feeling desperate. One private,

despairing the weight of his pistol, offered

it to anyone who would take it. No one

would. He threw it into the bushes. He

offered his sword, again no takers, and

again the discard into the bushes. No one

wanted his blanket either, and so the side

of the trail reaped that as well. Thrown

away were all the trappings of magisterial

war that the soldiers earlier had believed

would be theirs: high hats and uniform fin-

ery. The valley soldier was soon stripped to

nothing but the essentials.

Straggling was always a problem, not so

much owing to morale as mere exhaustion

or physical breakdown. One Alabamian

wrote, “My feet were blistered all over, on

top as well as on the bottom. I was never

so tired and sleepy.”

Richard Taylor’s Louisianians did better

than most. Taylor had told his men to

bathe their feet at the end of each day,

instructed them on treating sores and

how to pick boots, of which he wanted

each soldier to have two pairs. On the

march Taylor remained at the rear of his

command to discourage straggling; so

did his junior officers.

But Taylor’s hopes of two pairs of boots

per man could hardly be achieved,

especially after the beginnings of the

trials of the campaign. Shoes were soon

held together with twine, or abandoned

altogether. Hundreds of men marched

barefoot.

The retreat from Harper’s Ferry was

especially devastating. Although Jackson

lost 400 casualties in the fighting from

Front Royal to Winchester, he lost thou-

sands to straggling in the retreat from the

Potomac back to Strasburg. Captain James

Edmondson of the 27th Virginia Regiment,

part of the Stonewall Brigade, observed: “I

never saw a Brigade so completely broken

down.... [It] has lost at least 1,000 men

broken down, left on the way and cap-

tured.” The 27th began with 418 men and

finished with 150 ready for duty. Only half

of the Stonewall Brigade arrived in Stras-

burg at the same time as its commander,

MARCHING TO JACKSON’S TUNE

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