May 31.

On the night of the 30th the whole Army of the Valley was ordered back to Strasburg; and early next morning the prisoners, escorted by the 21st Virginia, and followed by the convoy of waggons in double column, covering seven miles of road, led the way.  Captain Hotchkiss was sent with orders to Winder to hasten back to Winchester, and not to halt till he had made some distance between that place and Strasburg.  “I want you to go to Charlestown,” were Jackson’s instructions to his staff officer, “and bring up the First Brigade.  I will stay in Winchester until you get here, if I can, but if I cannot, and the enemy gets here first, you must conduct it around through the mountains.”

The march, however, as the general had expected, was made without molestation, and during the afternoon the main body reached Strasburg, and camped there for the night.  The Stonewall Brigade, meanwhile, had passed through Winchester, halting near Newtown; the 2nd Virginia Regiment having marched thirty-five miles, and all the remainder twenty-eight.  Little had been seen of the enemy.  Fremont had passed Wardensville, and, marching through heavy rain, had halted after nightfall at Cedar Creek, six miles west of Strasburg.  On the road to Front Royal, only a few scouts had been encountered by the Confederate patrols, for Shields, deceived by a demonstration which the Louisiana Brigade had made from Winchester, had let the day pass by without a decisive movement.  The difficulties on which Jackson had counted had weighted the feet of his adversaries with lead.* (* Up to the time that they arrived within striking distance of Jackson they had acted vigorously, Shields marching eighty miles in five days, and Fremont seventy over a mountain road.) Fremont, with two-and-twenty miles to march, had suffered Ashby to delay his progress; and although he had promised Lincoln that he would be in Strasburg at five o’clock that evening, he had halted on the mountains six miles distant.  Shields, far ahead of the next division, had done nothing more than push a brigade towards Winchester, and place strong pickets on every road by which the enemy might approach.  Neither Federal general could communicate with the other, for the country between them was held by the enemy.  Both had been informed of the other’s whereabouts, but both were uncertain as to the other’s movements; and the dread of encountering, unsupported, the terrible weight of Jackson’s onset had sapped their resolution.  Both believed the enemy far stronger than he really was.  The fugitives from Winchester had spread exaggerated reports of the Confederate numbers, and the prisoners captured at Front Royal had by no means minimised them.* (* According to the Official Records, 156 men were taken by General Shields.  It is said that when Colonel Connor, in command of the 12th Georgia Regiment, reported to Jackson at Winchester, and gave rather a sensational account of his defeat, the General looked up, and asked in