On the 15th Lee met his generals in council.  The map drawn by Captain Hotchkiss was produced, and the manoeuvre which had suggested itself to Jackson was definitely ordered by the Commander-in-Chief.  The Valley army, at dawn on the 18th, was to cross the Rapidan at Somerville Ford.  Longstreet, preceded by Stuart, who was to cut the Federal communications in rear of Culpeper Court House, was to make the passage at Raccoon Ford.  Jackson’s cavalry was to cover the left and front, and Anderson’s division was to form a general reserve.  The movement was intended to be speedy.  Only ambulances and ammunition waggons were to follow the troops.  Baggage and supply trains were to be parked on the south side of the Rapidan, and the men were to carry three days’ cooked rations in their haversacks.

On Clark’s Mountain, a high hill near Pisgah Church, Jackson had established a signal station.  The view from the summit embraced an extensive landscape.  The ravages of war had not yet effaced its tranquil beauty, nor had the names of its bright rivers and thriving villages become household words.  It was still unknown to history, a peaceful and pastoral district, remote from the beaten tracks of trade and travel, and inhabited by a quiet and industrious people.  To-day there are few regions which boast sterner or more heroic memories.  To the right, rolling away in light and shadow for a score of miles, is the great forest of Spotsylvania, within whose gloomy depths lie the fields of Chancellorsville; where the breastworks of the Wilderness can still be traced; and on the eastern verge of which stand the grass-grown batteries of Fredericksburg.  Northward, beyond the woods which hide the Rapidan, the eye ranges over the wide and fertile plains of Culpeper, with the green crest of Slaughter Mountain overlooking Cedar Run, and the dim levels of Brandy Station, the scene of the great cavalry battle,* (* June 9, 1863.) just visible beyond.  Far away to the north-east the faint outline of a range of hills marks the source of Bull Run and the Manassas plateau, and to the west, the long rampart of the Blue Ridge, softened by distance, stands high above the Virginia plains.

August 17.

On the afternoon of August 17, Pope’s forces seemed doomed to inevitable destruction.  The Confederate army, ready to advance the next morning, was concentrated behind Clark’s Mountain, and Lee and Jackson, looking toward Culpeper, saw the promise of victory in the careless attitude of the enemy.  The day was hot and still.  Round the base of Slaughter Mountain, fifteen miles northward, clustered many thousands of tents, and the blue smoke of the camp-fires rose straight and thin in the sultry air.  Regiments of infantry, just discernible through the glare, were marching and countermarching in various directions, and long waggon-trains were creeping slowly along the dusty roads.  Near at hand, rising above the tree-tops, the Union colours showed that the outposts still held the river, and