The manoeuvre certainly surprised the Federals, and it very nearly beat them.  Tyler’s brigade was unsupported for nearly an hour and a half.  Had his battalions been less staunch, the tardy reinforcements would have been too late to save the day.  Coming up as they did, not in a mass so strong as to bear all before it by its own inherent weight, but in successive battalions, at wide intervals of time, they would themselves have become involved in a desperate engagement under adverse circumstances.  Nor is Kimball to be blamed that he did not throw greater weight on Jackson’s turning column at an earlier hour.  Like Shields and Banks, he was unable to believe that Jackson was unsupported.  He expected that the flank attack would be followed up by one in superior numbers from the front.  He could hardly credit that an inferior force would deliberately move off to a flank, leaving its line of retreat to be guarded by a few squadrons, weakly supported by infantry; and the audacity of the assailant had the usual effect of deceiving the defender.

Kernstown, moreover, will rank as an example of what determined men can do against superior numbers.  The Confederates on the ridge, throughout the greater part of the fight, hardly exceeded 2000 muskets.  They were assailed by 3000, and proved a match for them.  The 3000 were then reinforced by at least 3000 more, whilst Jackson could bring up only 600 muskets to support an already broken line.  Nevertheless, these 6000 Northerners were so roughly handled that there was practically no pursuit.  When the Confederates fell back every one of the Federal regiments had been engaged, and there were no fresh troops wherewith to follow them.  Jackson was perfectly justified in reporting that “Night and an indisposition of the enemy to press further terminated the battle."* (* O.R. volume 12 part 1 page 382.)

But the action was attended by features more remarkable than the stubborn resistance of the Virginia regiments.  It is seldom that a battle so insignificant as Kernstown has been followed by such extraordinary results.  Fortune indeed favoured the Confederates.  At the time of the battle a large portion of McClellan’s army was at sea, and the attack was delivered at the very moment when it was most dreaded by the Northern Government.  Nor was it to the disadvantage of the Southerners that the real head of the Federal army was the President, and that his strategical conceptions were necessarily subservient to the attitude of the Northern people.  These were circumstances purely fortuitous, and it might seem, therefore, that Jackson merely blundered into success.  But he must be given full credit for recognizing that a blow at Banks might be fraught with most important consequences.  It was with other ideas than defeating a rear-guard or detaining Banks that he seized the Kernstown ridge.  He was not yet aware of McClellan’s plan of invasion by sea; but he knew well that any movement that would threaten Washington must prove embarrassing