“By nine o’clock,” says Dabney, “the roar of the struggle had passed away, and the green battle-field reposed under the starlight as calmly as when it had been occupied only by its peaceful herds.  Detachments of soldiers were silently exploring the ground for their wounded comrades, while, the tired troops were slowly filing off to their bivouac.  At midnight the last sufferer had been removed and the last picket posted; and then only did Jackson turn to seek a few hours’ repose in a neighbouring farmhouse.  The valley of M’Dowell lay in equal quiet.  The camp-fires of the Federals blazed ostentatiously in long and regular lines, and their troops seemed wrapped in sleep.  At one o’clock the general reached his quarters, and threw himself upon a bed.  When his mulatto servant, knowing that he had eaten nothing since morning, came in with food, he said, ’I want none; nothing but sleep,’ and in a few minutes he was slumbering like a healthy child.”

It seems, however, that the march of the turning column had already been countermanded.  Putting himself in his enemy’s place, Jackson had foreseen Milroy’s movements.  If the one could move by night, so could the other; and when he rode out at dawn, the Federals, as he anticipated, had disappeared.  The next day he sent a laconic despatch to Richmond:  “God blessed our arms with victory at M’Dowell yesterday.”

This announcement was doubtless received by the people of Virginia, as Dabney declares, with peculiar delight.  On May 4 Johnston had evacuated Yorktown.  On the 5th he had checked the pursuit at Williamsburg, inflicting heavy losses, but had continued his retreat.  On the 9th Norfolk was abandoned; and on the 11th the “Merrimac,” grounding in the James, was destroyed by her commander.  “The victory of M’Dowell was the one gleam of brightness athwart all these clouds.”  It must be admitted, however, that the victory was insignificant.  The repulse of 2500 men by 4000 was not a remarkable feat; and it would even appear that M’Dowell might be ranked with the battles of lost opportunities.  A vigorous counterstroke would probably have destroyed the whole of the attacking force.  The riflemen of the West, however, were not made of the stuff that yields readily to superior force.  The fight for the bridge would have been fierce and bloody.  Twilight had fallen before the Confederate reinforcements arrived upon the scene; and under such conditions the losses must have been very heavy.  But to lose men was exactly what Jackson wished to avoid.  The object of his manoeuvres was the destruction not of Fremont’s advanced guard, but of Banks’ army; and if his numbers were seriously reduced it would be impossible to attain that end.  Fremont’s brigades, moreover, protected no vital point.  A decisive victory at M’Dowell would have produced but little effect at Washington.  No great results were to be expected from operations in so distant a section of the strategic theatre; and Jackson aimed at nothing more than driving the enemy so far back as to isolate him from Banks.