which ran at right angles to the road, overlooking a wheat-field but lately reaped, on the further side of which, and three hundred yards distant, was dense wood.  This point was the most vulnerable, for there was no support at hand, and a great tract of forest stretched away westward, where cavalry was useless, but through which it was quite possible that infantry might force its way.  Jackson ordered Colonel Garnett, commanding the brigade on this flank, “to look well to his left, and to ask his divisional commander for reinforcements.”  The brigadier sent a staff officer and an orderly to reconnoitre the forest to the left, and two officers were dispatched to secure the much-needed support.

But at this juncture General Winder was mortally wounded by a shell; there was some delay in issuing orders, and before the weak place in the line could be strengthened the storm broke.  The enemy’s batteries, five in number, although the concentrated fire of the Confederates had compelled them to change position, had not yet been silenced.  No large force of Federal infantry had as yet appeared; skirmishers only had pushed forward through the corn; but the presence of so many guns was a clear indication that a strong force was not far off, and Jackson had no intention of attacking a position which had not yet been reconnoitred until his rear division had closed up, and the hostile artillery had lost its sting.

5 P.M.

About five o’clock, however, General Banks, although his whole force, including Bayard’s cavalry, did not exceed 9000 officers and men,* (* 3500 of Banks’ army corps had been left at Winchester, and his sick were numerous.) and Ricketts’ division, in support, was four miles distant, gave orders for a general attack.* (* Banks had received an order from Pope which might certainly be understood to mean that he should take the offensive if the enemy approached.—­Report of Committee of Congress volume 3 page 45.) Two brigades, crossing the rise which formed the Federal position, bore down on the Confederate centre, and strove to cross the stream.  Early was hard pressed, but, Taliaferro’s brigade advancing on his left, he held his own; and on the highroad, raked by a Confederate gun, the enemy was unable to push forward.  But within the wood to the left, at the very point where Jackson had advised precaution, the line of defence was broken through.  On the edge of the timber commanding the wheatfield only two Confederate regiments were posted, some 500 men all told, and the 1st Virginia, on the extreme left, was completely isolated.  The Stonewall Brigade, which should have been placed in second line behind them, had not yet received its orders; it was more than a half-mile distant, in rear of Winder’s artillery, and hidden from the first line by the trees and undergrowth.  Beyond the wheat-field 1500 Federals, covered by a line of skirmishers, had formed up in the wood.  Emerging from the covert with fixed bayonets and colours flying, their