Harry found Ashby far away on the right, and with but fifty men. The rest had been scattered. He galloped back to his general and reported. He saw Jackson bite his lip in annoyance, but he said nothing. Harry remained by his side and the chase went on through the fields. Winchester was left out of sight behind, but the crashing of the rifles and the shouts of the troopers did not cease.
The Northern army had not yet dissolved. Although many commands were shattered and others destroyed, the core of it remained, and, as it retreated, it never ceased to strike back. Harry saw why Jackson was so anxious to bring up his cavalry. A strong charge by them and the fighting half of the Northern force would be split asunder. Then nothing would be left but to sweep up the fragments.
But Jackson’s men had reached the limit of human endurance. They were not made of steel as their leader was, and the tremendous exultation of spirit that had kept them up through battle and pursuit began to die. Their strength, once its departure started, ebbed fast. Their knees crumpled under them and the weakest fell unwounded in the fields. The gaps between them and the Northern rear-guard widened, and gradually the flying army of Banks disappeared among the hills and woods.
Banks, deeming himself lucky to have saved a part of his troops, did not stop until he reached Martinsburg, twenty-two miles north of Winchester. There he rested a while and resumed his flight, other flying detachments joining him as he went. He reached the Potomac at midnight with less than half of his army, and boats carried the wearied troops over the broad river behind which they found refuge.
Most of the victors meanwhile lay asleep in the fields north of Winchester, but others had gone back to the town and were making an equitable division of the Northern stores among the different regiments. Harry and Dalton were sent with those who went to the town. On their way Harry saw St. Clair and Langdon lying under an apple tree, still and white. He thought at first they were dead, but stopping a moment he saw their chests rising and falling with regular motion, and he knew that they were only sleeping. The whiteness of their faces was due to exhaustion.
Feeling great relief he rode on and entered the exultant town. He marked many of the places that he had known before, the manse where the good minister lived, the churches and the colonnaded houses, in more than one of which he had passed a pleasant hour.
Here Harry saw people that he knew. They could not do enough for him. They wanted to overwhelm him with food, with clothes, with anything he wanted. They wanted him to tell over and over again of that wonderful march of theirs, how they had issued suddenly from the mountains in the wake of the flying Milroy, how they had marched down the valley winning battle after battle, marching and fighting without ceasing, both by day and by night.
He was compelled to decline all offers of hospitality save food, which he held in his hands and ate as he went about his work. When he finished he went back to his general, and being told that he was wanted no more for the night, wrapped himself in his cloak and lay down under an apple tree.
He felt then that mother-earth was truly receiving him into her kindly lap. He had not closed his eyes for nearly two days-it seemed a month-and looking back at all through which he had passed it seemed incredible. Human beings could not endure so much. They marched through fire, where Stonewall Jackson led, and they never ceased to march. He saw just beyond the apple tree a dusky figure walking up and down. It was Jackson. Would he never rest? Was he not something rather more than normal after all? Harry was very young and he rode with his hero, seeing him do his mighty deeds.
But nature had given all that it had to yield, and soon he slept, lying motionless and white like St. Clair and Langdon. But all through the night the news of Jackson’s great blow was traveling over the wires. He had struck other fierce blows, but this was the most terrible of them all. Alarm spread through the whole North. Lincoln and his Cabinet saw a great army of rebels marching on Washington. A New York newspaper which had appeared in the morning with the headline, “Fall of Richmond,” appeared at night with the headline “Defeat of General Banks.” McDowell’s army, which, marching by land, was to co-operate with McClellan in the taking of Richmond, was recalled to meet Jackson. The governors of the loyal states issued urgent appeals for more troops.