June 14.

On June 14, Johnston destroyed the railway bridge over the Potomac, removed the machinery that had been rescued from the arsenal, burned the public buildings, and the next day retired on Winchester.  His immediate opponent, General Patterson, had crossed the Pennsylvania border, and, moving through Maryland, had occupied Williamsport with 14,000 men.  A detachment of Confederate militia had been driven from Romney, thirty-five miles north-west of Winchester, and the general forward movement of the enemy had become pronounced.

June 20.

On June 20 Jackson’s brigade was ordered to destroy the workshops of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway at Martinsburg, together with the whole of the rolling stock that might there be found, and to support the cavalry.  The first of these tasks, although Martinsburg is no more than ten miles distant from Williamsport, was easily accomplished.  Four locomotives were sent back to Winchester, drawn by teams of horses; and several more, together with many waggons, were given to the flames.  The second task demanded no unusual exertions.  The Federals, as yet, manifested no intention of marching upon Winchester, nor was the Confederate cavalry in need of immediate assistance.  The force numbered 300 sabres.  The men were untrained; but they were first-rate horsemen, they knew every inch of the country, and they were exceedingly well commanded.  Lieutenant-Colonel J.E.B.  Stuart, who had been a captain of dragoons in the United States army, had already given token of those remarkable qualities which were afterwards to make him famous.  Of an old Virginia family, he was the very type of the Cavalier, fearless and untiring, “boisterous as March, yet fresh as May.”

Educated at West Point, and trained in Indian fighting in the prairies, he brought to the great struggle upon which he had now entered a thorough knowledge of arms, a bold and fertile conception, and a constitution of body which enabled him to bear up against fatigues which would have prostrated the strength of other men.  Those who saw him at this time are eloquent in their description of the energy and the habits of the man.  They tell how he remained almost constantly in the saddle; how he never failed to instruct personally every squad which went out on picket; how he was everywhere present, at all hours of the day and night, along the line which he guarded; and how, by infusing into the raw cavalry his own activity and watchfulness, he was enabled, in spite of the small force which he commanded, to observe the whole part of the Potomac from Point of Rocks to beyond Williamsport.  His animal spirits were unconquerable, his gaiety and humour unfailing; he had a ready jest for all, and made the forests ring with his songs as he marched at the head of his column.  So great was his activity that General Johnston compared him to that species of hornet called “a yellow jacket,” and said that “he was no sooner brushed off than he lit back again.”  When the general was subsequently transferred to the West he wrote to Stuart:  “How can I eat, sleep, or rest in peace without you upon the outpost?"* (* Cooke page 47.)