the operations had shown his unfitness for his position.  Placed under the command of an officer who had been his junior in the Army of the United States, his sense of discipline was overborne by the slight to his vanity; and not for the first time nor the last the resentment of a petty mind ruined an enterprise which would have profited a nation.  Compelled to abandon his projected march against the enemy, Jackson determined to leave a strong garrison in Romney and the surrounding district, while the remainder of the force withdrew to Winchester.  The two towns were connected by a good high-road, and by establishing telegraphic communication between them, he believed that despite the Federal numbers he could maintain his hold on these important posts.  Many precautions were taken to secure Romney from surprise.  Three militia regiments, recruited in the country, and thus not only familiar with every road, but able to procure ample information, were posted in the neighbourhood of the town; and with the militia were left three companies of cavalry, one of which had already been employed in this region.

In detailing Loring’s division as the garrison of Romney Jackson seems to have made a grave mistake.  He had much reason to be dissatisfied with the commander, and the men were already demoralised.  Troops unfit to march against the enemy were not the men to be trusted with the security of an important outpost, within thirty miles of the Federal camps at Cumberland, far from their supports, and surrounded by bleak and lonely mountains.  A man of wider sympathy with human weakness, and with less rigid ideas of discipline, might possibly have arranged matters so that the Stonewall Brigade might have remained at Romney, while Loring and his division were transferred to less exacting duties and more comfortable quarters.  But Loring’s division constituted two-thirds of Jackson’s force, and Romney, more exposed than Winchester, required the stronger garrison.  A general of Loring’s temper and pretensions would scarcely have submitted to the separation of his brigades, and would probably have become even more discontented had Garnett, the leader of the Stonewall Brigade, been left in command at Romney, while he himself played a subordinate part at Winchester.  It is only too possible, however, that matters were past mending.  The feeble discipline of Loring’s troops had broken down; their enthusiasm had not been proof against the physical suffering of these winter operations.

The Stonewall Brigade, on the other hand, was still staunch.  “I am well assured,” wrote Jackson at this time, “that had an order been issued for its march, even through the depth of winter and in any direction, it would have sustained its reputation; for although it was not under fire during the expedition at Romney, yet the alacrity with which it responded to the call of duty and overcame obstacles showed that it was still animated by the same spirit that characterised it at Manassas.”  But Jackson’s old regiments were now tried soldiers, inspirited by the memories of the great victory they had done so much to win, improved by association with Johnston’s army, and welded together by a discipline far stricter than that which obtained in commands like Loring’s.