the danger was most threatening and the means of defence the most inadequate, came not a whisper of apprehension.  The troops that held the border were but a handful, but Jackson knew enough of war to be aware that victory does not always side with the big battalions.  Neither Johnston nor Davis had yet recognised, as he did, the weak joint in the Federal harness.  Why should the appearance of Hill’s brigade at Winchester discourage Banks?  Johnston had fallen back to the Rapidan, and there was now no fear of the Confederates detaching troops suddenly from Manassas.  Why should the bare idea that reinforcements were coming up embarrass the Federals?

The letter itself does not indeed supply a definite answer.  Jackson was always most guarded in his correspondence; and, if he could possibly avoid it, he never made the slightest allusion to the information on which his plans were based.  His staff officers, however, after the campaign was over, were generally enlightened as to the motive of his actions, and we are thus enabled to fill the gap.* (* Letter from Major Hotchkiss to the author.) Jackson demanded reinforcements for the one reason that a blow struck near Winchester would cause alarm in Washington.  The communications of the Federal capital with both the North and West passed through or close to Harper’s Ferry; and the passage over the Potomac, which Banks was now covering, was thus the most sensitive point in the invader’s front.  Well aware, as indeed was every statesman and every general in Virginia, of the state of public feeling in the North, Jackson saw with more insight than others the effect that was likely to be produced should the Government, the press, and the people of the Federal States have reason to apprehend that the capital of the Union was in danger.

If the idea of playing on the fears of his opponents by means of the weak detachment under Jackson ever suggested itself to Johnston, he may be forgiven if he dismissed it as chimerical.  For 7600 men* (* Jackson, 4600; Hill, 3000.) to threaten with any useful result a capital which was defended by 250,000 seemed hardly within the bounds of practical strategy.  Johnston had nevertheless determined to turn the situation to account.  In order to protect the passages of the Upper Potomac, McClellan had been compelled to disseminate his army.  Between his main body south of Washington and his right wing under Banks was a gap of fifty miles, and this separation Johnston was determined should be maintained.  The President, to whom he had referred Jackson’s letter, was unable to spare the reinforcements therein requested, and the defence of the Valley was left to the 4600 men encamped at Winchester.  Jackson was permitted to use his own judgment as to his own position, but something more was required of him than the mere protection of a tract of territory.  “He was to endeavour to employ the invaders in the Valley without exposing himself to the danger of defeat, by keeping so near the enemy as to prevent his making any considerable detachment to reinforce McClellan, but not so near that he might be compelled to fight."* (* Johnston’s Narrative.)