the slippery tracks; many waggons were overturned, and the bloody knees and muzzles of the horses bore painful witness to the severity of the march.  The bivouacs were more comfortless than before.  The provision train lagged far in rear.  Axes there were none; and had not the fence-rails afforded a supply of firewood, the sufferings of the troops would have been intense.  As it was, despite the example of their commander, they pushed forward but slowly through the bitter weather.  Jackson was everywhere; here, putting his shoulder to the wheel of a gun that the exhausted team could no longer move; there, urging the wearied soldiers, or rebuking the officers for want of energy.  Attentive as he was to the health and comfort of his men in quarters, on the line of march he looked only to the success of the Confederate arms.  The hardships of the winter operations were to him but a necessary concomitant of his designs, and it mattered but little if the weak and sickly should succumb.  Commanders who are over-chary of their soldiers’ lives, who forget that their men have voluntarily offered themselves as food for powder, often miss great opportunities.  To die doing his duty was to Jackson the most desirable consummation of the soldier’s existence, and where duty was concerned or victory in doubt he was as careless of life and suffering as Napoleon himself.  The well-being of an individual or even of an army were as nothing compared with the interests of Virginia.  And, in the end, his indomitable will triumphed over every obstacle.

January 10.

Romney village came at length in sight, lonely and deserted amid the mountain snows, for the Federal garrison had vanished, abandoning its camp-equipment and its magazines.

No pursuit was attempted.  Jackson had resolved on further operations.  It was now in his power to strike at the Federal communications, marching along the Baltimore and Ohio Railway in the direction of Grafton, seventy-five miles west of Romney.  In order to leave all safe behind him, he determined, as a first step, to destroy the bridge by which the Baltimore and Ohio Railway crossed the Potomac in the neighbourhood of Cumberland.  The Federal forces at Williamstown and Frederick drew the greater part of their supplies from the West; and so serious an interruption in the line of communication would compel them to give up all thought of offensive enterprises in the Valley.  But the sufferings that his green soldiers had undergone had sapped their discipline.  Loring’s division, nearly two-thirds of the command, was so discontented as to be untrustworthy.  It was useless with such troops to dream of further movements among the inhospitable hills.  Many had deserted during the march from Unger’s Store; many had succumbed to the exposure of the bivouacs; and, more than all, the commander had been disloyal to his superior.  Although a regular officer of long service, he had permitted himself a license of speech which was absolutely unjustifiable, and throughout