In the second place, Jackson probably remembered that the Stonewall Brigade at Bull Run, dashing out with the bayonet on the advancing Federals, had driven them back on their reserves.  It seems hardly probable, had Garnett at Kernstown held his ground a little longer, that the three regiments still intact could have turned the tide of battle.  But it is not impossible.  The Federals had been roughly handled.  Their losses had been heavier than those of the Confederates.  A resolute counterstroke has before now changed the face of battle, and among unseasoned soldiers panic spreads with extraordinary effect.  So far as can be gathered from the reports, there is no reason to suspect that the vigour of the Federal battalions was as yet relaxed.  But no one who was not actually present can presume to judge of the temper of the troops.  In every well-contested battle there comes a moment when the combatants on both sides become exhausted, and the general who at that moment finds it in his heart to make one more effort will generally succeed.  Such was the experience of Grant, Virginia’s stoutest enemy.* (* Grant’s Memoirs.) That moment, perhaps, had come at Kernstown; and Jackson, than whom not Skobeleff himself had clearer vision or cooler brain in the tumult of battle, may have observed it.  It cannot be too often repeated that numbers go for little on the battle-field.  It is possible that Jackson had in his mind, when he declared that the victory might yet have been won, the decisive counterstroke at Marengo, where 20,000 Austrians, pressing forward in pursuit of a defeated enemy, were utterly overthrown by a fresh division of 6000 men supported by four squadrons.* (* The morning after the battle one of the Confederate officers expressed the opinion that even if the counterstroke had been successful, the Federal reserves would have arrested it.  Jackson answered, “No, if I had routed the men on the ridge, they would all have gone off together.”)

Tactical unity and morale are factors of far more importance in battle than mere numerical strength.  Troops that have been hotly engaged, even with success, and whose nerves are wrought up to a high state of tension, are peculiarly susceptible to surprise.  If they have lost their order, and the men find themselves under strange officers, with unfamiliar faces beside them, the counterstroke falls with even greater force.  It is at such moments that cavalry still finds its opportunity.  It is at such moments that a resolute charge, pushed home with drums beating and a loud cheer, may have extraordinary results.  On August 6, 1870, on the heights of Worth, a German corps d’armee, emerging, after three hours’ fierce fighting, from the great wood on McMahon’s flank, bore down upon the last stronghold of the French.  The troops were in the utmost confusion.  Divisions, brigades, regiments, and companies were mingled in one motley mass.  But the enemy was retreating; a heavy force of artillery was close at hand, and the infantry must have numbered at least 10,000 rifles.  Suddenly three battalions of Turcos, numbering no more than 1500 bayonets, charged with wild cries, and without firing, down the grassy slope.  The Germans halted, fired a few harmless volleys, and then, turning as one man, bolted to the shelter of the wood, twelve hundred yards in rear.