It was not, however, on such expedients that Jackson principally relied to keep his enemy in the dark.  The use he made of his cavalry is perhaps the most brilliant tactical feature of the campaign.  Ashby’s squadrons were the means whereby the Federals were mystified.  Not only was a screen established which perfectly concealed the movements of the Valley army, but constant demonstrations, at far distant points, alarmed and bewildered the Federal commanders.  In his employment of cavalry Jackson was in advance of his age.  His patrols were kept out two or three marches to front and flank; neither by day nor by night were they permitted to lose touch of the enemy; and thus no movement could take place without their knowledge.  Such tactics had not been seen since the days of Napoleon.  The Confederate horsemen in the Valley were far better handled than those of France or Austria in 1859, of Prussia or Austria in 1866, of France in 1870, of England, France, or Russia in the Crimea.

In the flank march on Sebastopol the hostile armies passed within a few miles, in an open country, without either of them being aware of the proximity of the other, and the English headquarter staff almost rode into a Russian baggage-train.  At Solferino and at Sadowa, armies which were counted by hundreds of thousands encamped almost within sight of each other’s watch-fires, without the slightest suspicion that the enemy lay over the next ridge.  The practice of Napoleon had been forgotten.  The great cloud of horsemen which, riding sometimes a hundred miles to the front, veiled the march of the Grand Army had vanished from memory.  The vast importance ascribed by the Emperor to procuring early information of his enemy and hiding his own movements had been overlooked; and it was left to an American soldier to revive his methods.

The application of Jackson’s second precept, “to hurl your own force on the weakest part of the enemy’s,” was made possible by his vigorous application of the first.  The Federals, mystified and misled by demonstrations of the cavalry, and unable to procure information, never knew at what point they should concentrate, and support invariably came too late.  Jackson’s tactical successes were achieved over comparatively small forces.  Except at Cross Keys, and there he only intended to check Fremont for the moment, he never encountered more than 10,000 men on any single field.  No great victory, like Austerlitz or Salamanca, was won over equal numbers.  No Chancellorsville, where a huge army was overthrown by one scarce half the size, is reckoned amongst the triumphs of the Valley campaign.  But it is to be remembered that Jackson was always outnumbered, and outnumbered heavily, on the theatre of war; and if he defeated his enemies in detail, their overthrow was not less decisive than if it had been brought about at one time and at one place.  The fact that they were unable to combine their superior numbers before the blow fell is in itself the strongest