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Had Kenly retreated on Strasburg he would have found Ashby on his flank. Had reinforcements been despatched from Strasburg they would have had to deal with Ashby before they could reach Kenly. Had the Federals attempted to escape by Manassas Gap they would have found Munford across their path.
Not one of the four was destined for some days to learn what Jackson intended. His highest officers even were kept in the same ignorance. While the bulk of the army did little, the cavalry under Munford, who had succeeded Ashby, were exceedingly active.
Beckham's battery, screaming upon the heels of the rout, was magnified a hundred-fold; there was no doubt that battalions of artillery were hurling unknown and deadly missiles, blocking the way to the Potomac! Jeb Stuart was following on the Sudley Road, and another cavalry fiend Munford on the turnpike. Four hundred troopers between them? No!
Munford and his men pushed out of the rain of iron, through the wood for some distance down the stream, and there recrossed, not without difficulty. The thirty-one guns shelled the wood which had last spoken, and drove out the skirmishers with whom it was filled. These took refuge in another deep and leafy belt still commanding the stream and the ruined causeway.
No movement of the Army of Northern Virginia could escape him, and no lone messenger could ever be safe from him. Lee returned to his camp on Clarke's Mountain, and, a great revival meeting being in progress, he joined it, sitting with a group of officers. Fitzhugh Lee, W. H. F. Lee, Jones, Rosser, Wickham, Munford, Young, Wade Hampton and a dozen others were there.
"Forward, 58th, and clear that wood!" He rode on to Munford at the head of the squadrons. "I am going to dislodge them from that cover. The moment they leave it sound the charge!" The 58th advanced steadily over the open. When it was almost upon the coppice it fired, then fixed bayonets. The discharge had been aimed at the wood merely.
General Johnston, at breakfast with his staff, hearing the fire of the encounter, turned to Colonel Preston and to Captain Munford, and directed them to note the hour in their blank books. It was just fourteen minutes after five o'clock. Order was given to advance. To communicate the order along the line required time. General Beauregard says the advance began at half-past five.
The general commanding the Army of the Valley congratulates his men upon the part they have played in the operations before our capital. At seven in the morning the chaplains of the respective regiments will hold divine services." Flournoy and Munford, transferred to Ashby's command, kept with him in the Confederate rear.
Stuart held the woods below Crampton's Gap, six miles south, with Robertson's brigade, now commanded by the gallant Munford; and on the heights above McLaws had posted three brigades, for against this important pass, the shortest route by which the Federals could interpose between Lee and Jackson, McClellan's left wing, consisting of 20,000 men under General Franklin, was steadily advancing.
Colonel Munford, of the 2nd Virginia, finding the enemy advancing, formed line and charged, the impetuosity of the attack carrying his regiment through the enemy's first line, with whom his men were thoroughly intermingled in hand-to-hand conflict.
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