The pressure, however, was postponed; and on the 29th McClellan desired Banks to ascertain the intentions of the enemy as soon as possible, and if he were in force to drive him from the Valley of the Shenandoah.  Thus spurred, Banks at last resolved to cross the Rubicon.  “Deficiency,” he replied, “in ammunition for Shields’ artillery detains us here; expect it hourly, when we shall push Jackson sharply.”  It was not, however, till April 2, four days later, that Mr. Lincoln’s protege crossed Tom’s Brook.  His advanced guard, after a brisk skirmish with Ashby, reached the village of Edenburg, ten miles south, the same evening.  The main body occupied Woodstock, and McClellan telegraphed that he was “much pleased with the vigorous pursuit!”

It is not impossible that Banks suspected that McClellan’s commendations were ironical.  In any case, praise had no more effect upon him than a peremptory order or the promise of reinforcements.  He was instructed to push forward as far as New Market; he was told that he would be joined by two regiments of cavalry, and that two brigades of Blenker’s division were marching to Strasburg.  But Jackson, although Ashby had been driven in, still held obstinately to his position, and from Woodstock and Edenburg Banks refused to move.

On April 4, becoming independent of McClellan,* (* On this date McClellan ceased to be Commander-in-Chief.) he at once reported to the Secretary of War that he hoped “immediately to strike Jackson an effective blow.”  “Immediately,” however, in Banks’ opinion, was capable of a very liberal interpretation, for it was not till April 17 that he once more broke up his camps.  Well might Gordon write that life at Edenburg became monotonous!

It is but fair to mention that during the whole of this time Banks was much troubled about supply and transport.  His magazines were at Winchester, connected with Harper’s Ferry and Washington by a line of railway which had been rapidly repaired, and on April 12 this line had become unserviceable through the spreading of the road-bed.* (* The bridges over the railway between Strasburg and Manassas Gap, which would have made a second line available, had not yet been repaired.) His waggon train, moreover, had been diverted to Manassas before the fight at Kernstown, and was several days late in reaching Strasburg.  The country in which he was operating was rich, and requisitions were made upon the farmers; but in the absence of the waggons, according to his own report, it was impossible to collect sufficient supplies for a further advance.* (* On April 3 Jackson wrote that the country around Banks was “very much drained of forage.”) The weather, too, had been unfavourable.  The first days of April were like summer.  “But hardly,” says Gordon, “had we begun to feel in harmony with sunny days and blooming peach trees and warm showers, before a chill came over us, bitter as the hatred of the women of Virginia:  the ground covered with snow, the air thick with hail, and the mountains hidden in the chilly atmosphere.  Our shivering sentinels on the outer lines met at times the gaze of half-frozen horsemen of the enemy, peering through the mist to see what the Yankees had been doing within the last twenty-four hours.  It was hard to believe that we were in the ‘sunny South.’”