and wounded, he ordered that nothing of their stores or medicines should be removed, and having ministered to the sufferers with generous attention during the weck they were in his power, he left everything untouched, when Winchester was again evacuated. The seven hundred enemies were paroled, not to fight again until exchanged.

The 31st of May, the 21st Virginia regiment left Winchester, in charge of twenty-three hundred prisoners of war. The whole number of the enemy captured was about three thousand and fifty. One hundred beeves, thirty-four thousand pounds of bacon, and great masses of flour, biscuit, and groceries, were secured by the Chief Commissary, while the Quartermasters removed stores in their department, to the amount of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. Two hundred wagons and ambulances, with a number of horses, which would have been very great, but for the rapacity of the Confederate cavalry, were also secured. But the most precious acquisition was the ordnance stores, containing, besides ammunition, nine thousand, three hundred and fifty small arms, perfectly new, and of the most approved patterns.

These results of the week's campaign were won with small expenditure of blood by the patriot army. In all the engagements, from Front Royal to Strasbourg, sixty-eight men were killed, three hundred and twenty-nine were wounded, and three were missing; making a total loss of four hundred men. The General closed his official narrative with these words: "Whilst I have had to speak of some of our troops in disparaging terms, yet it is my gratifying privilege to say of the main body of the army, that its officers and men acted in a manner worthy of the great cause for which they were contending, and to add that, so far as my knowledge extends, the battle of Winchester was, on our part, a battle without a straggler."

INHABITANTS PLUNDERED BY FEDERALS.

391

It was while reposing after his victory at Winchester, that he wrote thus to Mrs. Jackson:

"Winchester, May 26th, 1862. An ever kind Providence blessed us with success at Front Royal on Friday, between Strasbourg and Winchester on Saturday, and here with a successful engagement yesterday. . . I do not remember having ever seen such rejoicing as was manifested by the people of Winchester, as our army yesterday passed through the town in pursuit of the enemy. The town was nearly frantic with joy. Our entrance into Winchester was one of the most stirring scenes of my life. Such joy as the inhabitants manifested, cannot easily be described. The town is greatly improved in its loyalty."

A few days after, while threatening Harper's Ferry, he sent messages to the Confederate Government by his zealous supporter and assistant, the Hon. Mr. Boteler of the Congress, begging for an increase of his force. He pointed out again that an assault upon the enemy's territory, indicating danger to their capital, was the most ready and certain method to deliver Richmond from the approaches of General M'Clellan. "Tell them," he said, "that I have now but fifteen thousand effective men. If the present opening is improved as it should be, I must have forty thousand." But the Government was unable to advance these reinforcements, and Divine Providence reserved to him the glory of assisting in the deliverance of our capital in a more direct manner.

This chapter will be closed with a reference to a fact which assists in fixing the seal of infamy upon the Federal Government, generals, and armies; the authorized robberies now begun in the valley of Virginia. Not only were the inhabitants plundered by the Federal soldiers as they marched through the peaceful country, but they were systematically robbed of their horses,

and other live-stock by General Banks, in his march to and from Harrisonburg. This commander officially boasted to his Government, that the results of his conquest had supplied his artillery and trains with enough of excellent horses, besides many other valuable resources. Now none of these were prize of war; for so accomplished a leader was Jackson, in retreat as well as in triumph, that nothing belonging to his army fell into his enemy's hands. These horses, and other animals, were simply stolen from the rich and peaceful farmers of Rockingham and Shenandoah. Here was the beginning of a system of wholesale robbery, since extended to every part of the Confederate States which the enemy has reached! But if the reader assigned to General Banks any pre-eminence of crime or infamy, above his nation, he would do him injustice. The Federal Congress and Executive had already, by formal and unblushing legislation, ordained that the war should be a huge piracy, as monstrous as the rapacity of any of their lieutenants could make it. Under pretexts which could be used by any other nation, in any other war, with equal plausibility, to steal any species of private property whatever, laws had been passed, declaring all tobacco, cotton, and labor of slaves, in the Confederate States, or coming thence, to be "contraband of war," and liable to confiscation. The true intent of this law was to subject these three kinds of property, the most important in our country, to systematic theft, and this purpose has since been most diligently and consistently carried out.

PORT REPUBLIC.

393

CHAPTER

XIII.

PORT REPUBLIC.

IT has been related how General Jackson assembled his army at Strasbourg before the occupation of that place by Fremont, and thus eluded the combination designed by him and Shields, in his rear. On the evening of June 1st, he resumed his retreat up the Valley. The object immediately demanding his attention was the rescue of his army from its perilous situation. The indirect purpose of the campaign was already accomplished; his rapid movements and stunning blows had neutralized the efforts of General M'Dowell against Richmond -Banks was driven from Winchester the 25th of May, and the Federal authorities were panic-struck by the thought of a victorious Confederate army, of unknown numbers, breaking into Maryland by Harper's Ferry, and seizing Washington City. Just at this juncture, M'Clellan had pushed his right wing to a point north of Richmond, at Hanover Court House, and within a single march of M'Dowell's advanced posts. On the 27th of May, the Confederate General Branch was defeated at that place with loss, and the fruit of this success was the occupation of all the roads, and of the bridges across the waters of the Pamunkey, connecting Richmond with Fredericksburg and Gordonsville, by the Federalists. Had the advice of M'Clellan been now followed, the result must have been disastrous to General Lee, and might well have been ruinous. The Federal

commander urged his Government to send General M'Dowell, with all the forces near Manassa's, under Sigel and Augur, by the route thus opened to them, to effect an immediate junction with his right wing, to hold permanently these lines of communication between Lee and Jackson, and to complete the investment of Richmond. These operations, which the Confederates had no means to resist, with the addition of the forty thousand troops which they would have brought to M'Clellan's army, already so superior in numbers, would have greatly endangered Richmond and its army. But the terror inspired by Jackson caused the President to refuse his consent; he was unwilling to expose his Capital to a sudden blow from this ubiquitous leader; and instead of sending General M-Dowell forward, he commanded him to retire nearer to Washington. General M'Clellan was further ordered by telegraph, to burn the bridges across the south Pamunkey, won by his recent victory, and by which his reinforcements. should have joined him, lest the Confederates should move by them against Washington! Thus Providence employed the movements of General Jackson's little army to paralyze the forces of Fremont, Banks and MDowell, amounting to eighty thousand men, during the critical period of the campaign. It is therefore with justice, that his successes in the Valley are said to have saved Richmond and Virginia. When the small means, the trivial losses, and the short time, with which this great result was wrought, are considered, it will be admitted that military genius has never, in any age, accomplished a more splendid achievement. It was indeed so brilliant, that the doubt has been suggested, whether the mind of Jackson or of any other strategist, was prophetic enough to forecast and provide for so grand a conclusion, or whether it was the fortunate and unforeseen dispensation of chance, or of Providence. To the latter he delighted to attribute all his success; and he would