It was in the same circumstances that Ney’s courage invariably gave way that Jackson’s courage shone with the brightest lustre.  It might appear that he had little cause for fear in the campaign of the Second Manassas, that he had only to follow his instructions, and that if he had failed his failure would have been visited upon Lee.  The instructions which he received, however, were not positive, but contingent on events.  If possible, he was to cut the railway, in order to delay the reinforcements which Pope was expecting from Alexandria; and then, should the enemy permit, he was to hold fast east of the Bull Run Mountains until Lee came up.  But he was to be guided in everything by his own discretion.  He was free to accept battle or refuse it, to attack or to defend, to select his own line of retreat, to move to any quarter of the compass that he pleased.  For three days, from the morning of August 26 to the morning of August 29, he had complete control of the strategic situation; on his movements were dependent the movements of the main army; the bringing the enemy to bay and the choice of the field of battle were both in his hands.  And during those three days he was cut off from Lee and Longstreet.  The mountains, with their narrow passes, lay between; and, surrounded by three times his number, he was abandoned entirely to his own resources.

Throughout the operations he had been in unusually high spirits.  The peril and responsibility seemed to act as an elixir, and he threw off much of his constraint.  But as the day broke on August 29 he looked long and earnestly in the direction of Thoroughfare Gap, and when a messenger from Stuart brought the intelligence that Longstreet was through the pass, he drew a long breath and uttered a sigh of relief.* (* Letter from Dr. Hunter McGuire.) The period of suspense was over, but even on that unyielding heart the weight of anxiety had pressed with fearful force.  For three days he had only received news of the main army at long and uncertain intervals.  For two of these days his information of the enemy’s movements was very small.  While he was marching to Bristoe Station, Pope, for all he knew, might have been marching against Longstreet with his whole force.  When he attacked King on the 28th the Federals, in what strength he knew not, still held Thoroughfare Gap; when he formed for action on the 29th he was still ignorant of what had happened to the main body, and it was on the bare chance that Longstreet would force the passage that he accepted battle with far superior numbers.

It is not difficult to imagine how a general like Ney, placed in Jackson’s situation, would have trimmed and hesitated:  how in his march to Manassas, when he had crossed the mountains and left the Gap behind him, he would have sent out reconnaissances in all directions, halting his troops until he learned the coast was clear; how he would have dashed at the Junction by the shortest route; how he would have