conceal them; and if, by any possibility whatever, the gossip and guesses of the camp may come to the enemy’s ears, it is well that curiosity should be baulked.  Nor is it undesirable that the privacy of headquarters should be respected.  The vanity of a little brief authority has before now tempted subordinate officers to hint at weaknesses on the part of their superiors.  Ignorance of war and of the situation has induced them to criticise and to condemn; and idle words, greedily listened to, and quickly exaggerated, may easily destroy the confidence of the soldiery in the abilities of their leader.

By the middle of December Jackson’s small army had become fairly effective.  Its duties were simple.  To watch the enemy, to keep open the communication with Manassas, so as to be ready to join the main army should McClellan advance—­such were Johnston’s orders.  The Upper Potomac was held by the enemy in force.  General Banks, a volunteer officer, who was yet to learn more of Stonewall Jackson, was in command.  The headquarters of his division, 18,000 strong, were at Frederick City in Maryland; but his charge extended seventy-five miles further west, as far as Cumberland on the Potomac.  In addition to Banks, General Kelly with 5000 men was at Romney, on the South Branch of the Potomac, thirty-five miles north-west of Winchester by a good road.  The Federal troops guarding the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and that portion of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad which was still intact were necessarily much dispersed, for the Confederate guerillas were active, and dam and aqueduct, tunnel and viaduct, offered tempting objectives to Ashby’s cavalry.  Still the force which confronted Jackson was far superior to his own; the Potomac was broad and bridgeless, and his orders appeared to impose a defensive attitude.  But he was not the man to rest inactive, no matter what the odds against him, or to watch the enemy’s growing strength without an endeavour to interfere.  Within the limits of his own command he was permitted every latitude; and he was determined to apply the aggressive strategy which he was so firmly convinced should be adopted by the whole army.  The Secretary of War, Mr. Benjamin, in detaching him to the Valley, had asked him to “forward suggestions as to the means of rendering his measures of defence effectual."* (* O.R. volume 5 page 909.)

The earliest information he had received on his arrival at Winchester pointed to the conclusion that the enemy was meditating an advance by way of Harper’s Ferry.  His first suggestion thereupon was that he should be reinforced by a division under General Loring and a brigade under Colonel Edward Johnson, which were stationed within the Alleghanies on the great highways leading to the Ohio, covering Staunton from the west.* (* Loring was at Huntersville, Johnson on Alleghany Mountain, not far from Monterey.  General Lee, unable with an inferior force to drive the enemy from West Virginia, had been transferred