in all particulars, but his family is the reverse (sic).  On reaching Winchester I found things decidedly squally, and concluded to get out.  I was carried to Martinsburg, and being offered by the agent of a luggage train to take me to Baltimore, I concluded to accept the offer, and took a sleeping bunk, arriving in Baltimore the next afternoon.”  He then proceeded to Philadelphia, and sent for his physician.  Several of his officers whom he found in the town he immediately sent back to the colours; but as he believed that “the morale of his regiment was not as it should be” he remained himself in Philadelphia.)

A failure in staff duties marred to some extent the Confederate success.  “A vicious usage,” according to Dabney, “obtained at this time in the Southern armies.”  This was the custom of temporarily attaching to the staff of a general commanding a division or an army a company of cavalry to do the work of orderlies.  By this clumsy contrivance the organisation of the cavalry regiments was broken up, the men detached were deprived of all opportunity for drill, and the general had no evidence whatever of their special fitness for the responsible service confided to them.  Nay, the colonel of cavalry required to furnish them was most likely to select the least serviceable company.  At the time of the combat of Front Royal the duty of orderlies was performed for General Jackson by a detachment from one of Ashby’s undisciplined companies, of whom many were raw youths just recruited and never under fire.  As soon as the Federal pickets were driven in, orders were despatched to the rear brigades to avoid the laborious route taken by the advance, and to pursue the direct highway to the town, a level track of three miles, in place of a steep byway of seven or eight.  The panic-struck boy by whom the orders were sent was seen no more.  When Jackson sent orders to the artillery and rear brigades to hurry the pursuit, instead of being found near at hand, upon the direct road, they were at length overtaken toiling over the hills of the useless circuit, spent with the protracted march.  Thus night overtook them by the time they reached the village.  This unfortunate incident taught the necessity of a picked company of orderlies, selected for their intelligence and courage, permanently attached to headquarters, and owing no subordination to any other than the general and his staff.  Such was the usage that afterwards prevailed in the Confederate armies.* (* Dabney volume 2 pages 93 and 94.  It may be recalled that Wellington found it necessary to form a corps of the same kind in the Peninsular War; it is curious that no such organisation exists in regular armies.)