Harry with the retreating division wondered at these movements and admired their skill. Jackson’s army, encumbered as it was with prisoners and stores, was passing directly between the armies of Fremont and Shields, covering its flanks with clouds of skirmishers and cavalry that beat off every attack of the hostile vanguards, and that kept the two Northern armies from getting into touch.
Jackson had not stopped at Winchester. He had left that town once more to the enemy and was still drawing back toward the wider division of the valley west of the Massanuttons. The great mind was working very fast now. The men themselves saw that warlike genius incarnate rode on the back of Little Sorrel. Jackson was slipping through the ring, carrying with him every prisoner and captured wagon.
His lightning strokes to right and to left kept Shields and Fremont dazed and bewildered, and McDowell neither knew what was passing nor could he get his forces together. Harry saw once more and with amazement the dark bulk of the Massanuttons rising on his left and he knew that these great isolated mountains would again divide the Union force, while Jackson passed on in the larger valley.
He felt a thrill, powerful and indescribable. Jackson in very truth had slashed across with his sword that great ring of steel and was passing through the break, leaving behind not a single prisoner, nor a single wagon. Sixty-two thousand men had not only failed to hold sixteen thousand, but their scattered forces had suffered numerous severe defeats from the far smaller army. It was not that the Northern men were inferior to the Southern in courage and tenacity, but the Southern army was led by a genius of the first rank, unmatched as a military leader in modern times, save by Napoleon and Lee.
It was the last day of May and the twilight was at hand. The dark masses of Little North Mountain to the west and of the Massanuttons to the east were growing dim. Harry rode by the side of Dalton a few paces in the rear of Jackson, and he watched the somber, silent man, riding silently on Little Sorrel. There was nothing bright or spectacular about him. The battered gray uniform was more battered than ever. In place of the worn cap an old slouched hat now shaded his forehead and eyes. But Harry knew that their extraordinary achievements had not been due to luck or chance, but were the result of the mighty calculations that had been made in the head under the old slouched hat.
Harry heard behind him the long roll and murmur of the marching army, the wheels of cannon and wagons grating on the turnpike, the occasional neigh of a horse, the rattle of arms and the voices of men talking low. Most of these men had been a year and a half ago citizens untrained for war. They were not mere creatures of drill, but they were intelligent, and they thought for themselves. They knew as well as the officers what Jackson had done and henceforth they looked upon him as something almost superhuman. Confident in his genius they were ready to follow wherever Jackson led, no matter what the odds.
These were exactly the feelings of both Harry and Dalton. They would never question or doubt again. Both of them, with the hero worship of youth felt a mighty swell of pride, that they should ride with so great a leader, and be so near to him.
The army marched on in the darkening hours, leaving behind it sixty thousand men who closed up the ring only to find their game gone.
Harry heard from the older staff officers that they would go on up the valley until they came to the Gaps of the Blue Ridge. There in an impregnable position they could turn and fight pursuit or take the railway to Richmond and join in the defense against McClellan. It all depended on what Jackson thought, and his thoughts were uniformly disclosed by action.
Meanwhile the news was spreading through the North that Jackson had escaped, carrying with him his prisoners and captured stores. Odds had counted for nothing. All the great efforts directed from Washington had been unavailing. All the courage and energy of brave men had been in vain. But the North did not cease her exertions for an instant. Lincoln, a man of much the same character as Jackson, but continually thwarted by mediocre generals, urged the attack anew. Dispatches were sent to all the commanders ordering them to push the pursuit of Jackson and to bring him to battle.