At Winchester his wife joined him, and of their first meeting she tells a pretty story: 

“It can readily be imagined with what delight General Jackson’s domestic plans for the winter were hailed by me, and without waiting for the promised ‘aide’ to be sent on escort, I joined some friends who were going to Richmond, where I spent a few days to shop, to secure a passport, and to await an escort to Winchester.  The latter was soon found in a kind-hearted, absent-minded old clergyman.  We travelled by stage coach from Strasburg, and were told, before reaching Winchester, that General Jackson was not there, having gone with his command on an expedition.  It was therefore with a feeling of sad disappointment and loneliness that I alighted in front of Taylor’s hotel, at midnight, in the early part of dreary cold December, and no husband to meet me with a glad welcome.  By the dim lamplight I noticed a small group of soldiers standing in the wide hall, but they remained silent spectators, and my escort led me up the big stairway, doubtless feeling disappointed that he still had me on his hands.  Just before reaching the landing I turned to look back, for one figure among the group looked startlingly familiar, but as he had not come forward, I felt that I must be mistaken.  However, my backward glance revealed an officer muffled up in a military greatcoat, cap drawn down over his eyes, following us in rapid pursuit, and by the time we were upon the top step a pair of strong arms caught me; the captive’s head was thrown back, and she was kissed again and again by her husband before she could recover from the delightful surprise he had given her.  The good old minister chuckled gleefully, and was no doubt a sincere sharer in the joy and relief experienced by his charge.  When I asked my husband why he did not come forward when I got out of the coach, he said he wanted to assure himself that it was his own wife, as he didn’t want to commit the blunder of kissing anybody else’s esposa!”

The people amongst whom they found themselves were Virginian to the core.  In Winchester itself the feeling against the North was exceptionally bitter.  The town was no mushroom settlement; its history stretched back to the old colonial days; the grass-grown intrenchments on the surrounding hills had been raised by Washington during the Indian wars, and the traditions of the first struggle for independence were not yet forgotten.  No single section of the South was more conservative.  Although the citizens had been strong Unionists, nowhere were the principles which their fathers had respected, the sovereignty of the individual State and the right of secession, more strongly held, and nowhere had the hereditary spirit of resistance to coercive legislation blazed up more fiercely.  The soldiers of Bull Run, who had driven the invader from the soil of Virginia, were the heroes of the hour, and the leader of the Stonewall Brigade had peculiar claims on the hospitality of the town.  It was to the people of the Valley that he owed his command.  “With one voice,” wrote the Secretary of War, “have they made constant and urgent appeals that to you, in whom they have confidence, their defence should be assigned.”