But the irregular organisation of the Valley forces proved a bar to the fulfilment of Jackson’s hopes.  On approaching Newtown he found that the pursuit had been arrested.  Two pieces of artillery were engaging a Federal battery posted beyond the village, but the Confederate guns were almost wholly unsupported.  Ashby had come up with the convoy.  A few rounds of shell had dispersed the escort.  The teamsters fled, and the supply waggons and sutlers’ carts of the Federal army, filled with luxuries, proved a temptation which the half-starving Confederates were unable to resist.  “Nearly the whole of Ashby’s cavalry and a part of the infantry under his command had turned aside to pillage.  Indeed the firing had not ceased, in the first onset upon the Federal cavalry at Middletown, before some of Ashby’s men might have been seen, with a quickness more suitable to horse-thieves than to soldiers, breaking from their ranks, seizing each two or three of the captured horses and making off across the fields.  Nor did the men pause until they had carried their illegal booty to their homes, which were, in some instances, at the distance of one or two days’ journey.  That such extreme disorders could occur,” adds Dabney, “and that they could be passed over without a bloody punishment, reveals the curious inefficiency of officers in the Confederate army."* (* Dabney volume 2 pages 101 and 102.  “The difficulty,” says General Taylor, speaking of the Confederate cavalry, “of converting raw men into soldiers is enhanced manifold when they are mounted.  Both man and horse require training, and facilities for rambling, with temptation to do so, are increased.  There was little time, and it may be said less disposition, to establish camps of instruction.  Living on horseback, fearless and dashing, the men of the South afforded the best possible material for cavalry.  They had every quality but discipline, and resembled Prince Charming, whose manifold gifts were rendered useless by the malignant fairy.  Assuredly our cavalry rendered much excellent service, especially when dismounted; and such able officers as Stuart, Hampton, and the younger Lees in the east, Forrest, Green, and Wheeler in the West, developed much talent for war; but their achievements, however distinguished, fell far below the standard that would have been reached had not the want of discipline impaired their efforts.”  Destruction and Reconstruction pages 70 to 71.  It is only fair to add, however, that the Confederate troopers had to supply their own horses, receiving no compensation for their loss by disease or capture.  This in some measure excuses their anxiety to loot as many chargers as they could lay hands on.)