One brigade only,* (* Abercrombie’s, 4500 men and a battery.  The brigade marched to Warrenton, where it remained until it was transferred to McDowell’s command.) which the order did not reach, continued the march to Manassas.  This counter-movement met with McClellan’s approval.  He now recognised that Jackson’s force, commanded as it was, was something more than a mere corps of observation, and that it was essential that it should be crushed.  “Your course was right,” he telegraphed on receiving Banks’ report.  “As soon as you are strong enough push Jackson hard and drive him well beyond Strasburg...The very moment the thorough defeat of Jackson will permit it, resume the movement on Manassas, always leaving the whole of Shields’ command at or near Strasburg and Winchester until the Manassas Gap Railway is fully repaired.  Communicate fully and act vigorously."* (* O.R. volume 12 part 3 page 16.)

8000 men (Williams’ division) were thus temporarily withdrawn from the force that was to cover Washington from the south.  But this was only the first step.  Jackson’s action had forcibly attracted the attention of the Federal Government to the Upper Potomac.  The President was already contemplating the transfer of Blenker’s division from McClellan to Fremont; the news of Kernstown decided the question, and at the end of March these 9000 men were ordered to West Virginia, halting at Strasburg, in case Banks should then need them, on their way.* (* Blenker’s division was at Hunter’s Chapel, south of Washington, when it received the order.) But even this measure did not altogether allay Mr. Lincoln’s apprehensions.  McClellan had assured him, on April 1, that 73,000 men would be left for the defence of the capital and its approaches.  But in the original arrangement, with which the President had been satisfied, Williams was to have been brought to Manassas, and Shields alone left in the Shenandoah Valley.  Under the new distribution the President found that the force at Manassas would be decreased by two brigades; and, at the same time, that while part of the troops McClellan had promised were not forthcoming, a large portion of those actually available were good for nothing.  The officer left in command at Washington reported that “nearly all his force was imperfectly disciplined; that several of the regiments were in a very disorganised condition; that efficient artillery regiments had been removed from the forts, and that he had to relieve them with very new infantry regiments, entirely unacquainted with the duties of that arm."* (* Report of General Wadsworth; O.R. volume 12 part 3 page 225.) Lincoln submitted the question to six generals of the regular army, then present in Washington; and these officers replied that, in their opinion, “the requirement of the President that this city shall be left entirely secure has not been fully complied with."* (* Letter of Mr. Stanton; O.R. volume 19 part 2 page 726.)