there was much anxiety evinced to hear the news from the front.  What the enemy was doing across the Potomac, scarce thirty miles away, was naturally of intense interest to the people of the border town.  But not the smallest detail of intelligence, however unimportant, escaped his lips.  To his wife he was as uncommunicative as to the rest.  Neither hint nor suggestion made the least impression, and direct interrogations were put by with a quiet smile.  Nor was he too shy to suggest to his superiors that silence was golden.  In a report to Johnston, written four days after Kernstown, he administered what can scarcely be considered other than a snub, delicately expressed but unmistakable:—­

“It is understood in the Federal army that you have instructed me to keep the forces now in this district and not permit them to cross the Blue Ridge, and that this must be done at every hazard, and that for the purpose of effecting this I made my attack.  I have never so much as intimated such a thing to anyone."* (* O.R. volume 12 part 3 page 840.)

It cannot be said that Jackson’s judgment in attacking Shields was at once appreciated in the South.  The defeat, at first, was ranked with the disasters in the West.  But as soon as the effects upon the enemy were appreciated the tide of popular feeling turned.  The gallantry of the Valley regiments was fully recognised, and the thanks of Congress were tendered to Jackson and his troops.

No battle was ever yet fought in exact accordance with the demands of theory, and Kernstown, great in its results, gives openings to the critics.  Jackson, it is said, attacked with tired troops, on insufficient information, and contrary to orders.  As to the first, it may be said that his decision to give the enemy no time to bring up fresh troops was absolutely justified by events.  On hearing of his approach to Kernstown, Banks immediately countermarched a brigade of Williams’ division from Castleman’s Ferry.  A second brigade was recalled from Snicker’s Gap on the morning of the 24th, and reached Winchester the same evening, after a march of six-and-twenty miles.  Had attack been deferred, Shields would have been strongly reinforced.

As to the second, Jackson had used every means in his power to get accurate intelligence.* (* The truth is that in war, accurate intelligence, especially when two armies are in close contact, is exceedingly difficult to obtain.  At Jena, even after the battle ended, Napoleon believed that the Prussians had put 80,000 men in line instead of 45,000.  The night before Eylau, misled by the reports of Murat’s cavalry, he was convinced that the Russians were retreating; and before Ligny he underestimated Blucher’s strength by 40,000.  The curious misconceptions under which the Germans commenced the battles of Spicheren, Mars-la-Tour, and Gravelotte will also occur to the military reader.) Ashby had done his best.  Although the Federals had 780 cavalry present, and every approach