The success which the Confederates had achieved was undoubtedly important.  The Valley army, posted in Brown’s Gap, was now in direct communication with Richmond.  Not only had its pursuers been roughly checked, but the sudden and unexpected counterstroke, delivered by an enemy whom they believed to be in full flight, had surprised Lincoln and Stanton as effectively as Shields and Fremont.  On June 6, the day Jackson halted near Port Republic, McCall’s division of McDowell’s Army Corps, which had been left at Fredericksburg, had been sent to the Peninsula by water; and two days later McDowell himself, with the remainder of his force, was directed to join McClellan as speedily as possible overland.  Fremont, on the same date, was instructed to halt at Harrisonburg, and Shields to march to Fredericksburg.  But before Stanton’s dispatches reached their destination both Fremont and Shields had been defeated, and the plans of the Northern Cabinet were once more upset.

Instead of moving at once on Fredericksburg, and in spite of McDowell’s remonstrances, Shields was detained at Luray, and Ricketts, who had succeeded Ord, at Front Royal; while Fremont, deeming himself too much exposed at Harrisonburg, fell back to Mount Jackson.  It was not till June 20 that Ricketts and Shields were permitted to leave the Valley, ten days after the order had been issued for McDowell to move on Richmond.  For that space of time, then, his departure was delayed; and there was worse to come.  The great strategist at Richmond had not yet done with Lincoln.  There was still more profit to be derived from the situation; and from the subsidiary operations in the Valley we may now turn to the main armies.

By Jackson’s brilliant manoeuvres McDowell had been lured westward at the very moment he was about to join McClellan.  The gap between the two Federal armies had been widened from five to fifteen marches, while Jackson at Brown’s Gap was no more than nine marches distant from Richmond.  McClellan, moreover, had been paralysed by the vigour of Jackson’s blows.

On May 16, as already related, he had reached White House on the Pamunkey, twenty miles from the Confederate capital.  Ten miles south, and directly across his path, flowed the Chickahominy, a formidable obstacle to the march of a large army.

On the 24th, having already been informed that he was to be reinforced by McDowell, he was told that the movement of the latter for Fredericksburg was postponed until the Valley had been cleared.  This change of plan placed him in a most awkward predicament.  A portion of his army, in order to lend a hand to McDowell, had already crossed the Chickahominy, a river with but few points of passage, and over which, by reason of the swamps, the construction of military bridges was a difficult and tedious operation.  On May 30, two army corps were south of the Chickahominy, covering, in a partially intrenched position, the building of the bridges, while three army corps were still on the further bank.