His progress was masked by Stuart, who interposed his cavalry between Jackson and the Union lines, and constantly felt of our skirmishers and pickets as he slowly kept abreast with the marching column.

At the Furnace comes in another road, which, a short distance above, forks so as to lead to Dowdall’s Tavern on the left, and to touch the Union lines by several other branches on the right.  It was this road down which Wright and Stuart had advanced the evening before in their attack on our lines.

Here, in passing Lewis’s Creek (Scott’s Run) and some elevated ground near by, the column of Jackson had to file in full view of the Union troops, barely a mile and a half away.  The movement was thus fully observed by us, hundreds of field-glasses pointing steadily at his columns.

It seems somewhat strange that Jackson should have made this march, intended to be quite disguised, across the Furnace-clearing.  For there was another equally short route, making a bend southward through the woods, and, though possibly not so good as the one pursued, subsequently found available for the passage of Jackson’s trains, when driven from the Furnace by Sickles.  It is probably explained, however, by the fact that this route, selected during the night, was unfamiliar to Jackson, and that his aides and guides had not thought of the point where the troops were thus put en evidence.  And Jackson may not have been with the head of the column.

So early as eight o’clock Birney of the Third Corps, whose division had been thrust in between Howard and Slocum, reported to Sickles that a movement in considerable force was being made in our front.  Sickles conveyed the information to Hooker, who instructed him to investigate the matter in person.  Sickles pushed out Clark’s rifled battery, with a sufficient support, to shell the passing column.  This, says Sickles, obliged it to abandon the road.  It was observed that the column was a large one, and had a heavy train.  Sickles considered it either a movement for attack on our right, or else one in retreat.  If the former, he surmised at the time that he had arrested it; if the latter, that the column had taken a more available route.

It was while Rodes was filing past the Furnace that the first attack by Clark’s battery was made; and Col.  Best, with the Twenty-third Georgia Regiment, was sent out beyond the Furnace to hold the road.  Best subsequently took position in and about the Furnace buildings, and placed some troops in the railroad cutting south.

Sickles, meanwhile, had again reported to Hooker, and been instructed to strengthen his reconnoissance.  But it was noon before this order was given, and he was then advised to push out with great caution.  He asked for the whole of Birney’s division, and another one in support.  With these he thought to get possession of the road on which the enemy was moving, and, if it was a retreat, cut him off; if a