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Updated: May 6, 2025
But unavoidably detained by almost impassable mountain roads and streams enormously swollen by recent rains, Fremont reached Strasburg just in time to see Jackson's last stragglers retreating through the town. His pursuit was very rapid, though no engagement was brought about until the fifth of June, at Harrisonburg.
Permission was given him, and he used it to the full, even to the extent of occupying important towns in defiance of the edicts of their Spanish governors. Monroe's Cabinet was divided in regard to the defensibility of Jackson's acts, but these acts probably helped to persuade Spain to sell while she could still get a price.
What a pity such a leader should be on the wrong side! Perhaps we'll have his equal in time." "Is Jackson's army just sitting still?" asked Dick. "So far as scouts can gather, an' I've been one of them," replied Sergeant Whitley, "it seems to be just campin'. But I wish I knew which way it was goin' to jump. I don't trust Jackson when he seems to be nappin'."
Here, and about the marshy creek and on the vast dim field beyond, beneath the still hanging battle cloud, lay, of the grey and the blue, fourteen thousand dead and wounded. The sound of their suffering rose like a monotonous wind of the night. The Stonewall Brigade, a unit in Jackson's advance, halted on the plateau near the McGehee house. All was dark, all was confused.
Jackson's men in three days had marched sixty miles, and had fought a battle at Harper's Ferry within that time, also, taking more than thirteen thousand prisoners. Never before had the foot cavalry marched so hard. The men in gray, ragged and many of them barefooted, slept in the woods about Sharpsburg all through the hot hours of the day.
Whatever may be thought of the construction placed upon Jackson's words by his opponent, this thrust should have made him look to his footing; but arrogance and temper carried the day, and laid him open to the fatal return which he received.
While we were together, another Federal officer named Junkin rode up. He was the brother or cousin of Jackson's first wife, and I had known him before the war. After some conversation, Junkin asked me to give his regards to General Jackson, and to deliver a message from the Reverend Dr. Junkin, the father of his first wife. I replied, "I will do so with pleasure when I meet General Jackson."
Jackson's relations with the rank and file have already been referred to, and although he was now commander of an army corps, and universally acknowledged as one of the foremost generals of the Confederacy, his rise in rank and reputation had brought no increase of dignity. He still treated the humblest privates with the same courtesy that he treated the Commander-in-Chief.
Jackson's benign discovery, so a man who looks at Paris, at Naples, or at London, says, "If I should be driven from my own home, here, at least, my thoughts can be consoled by the most prodigal amusement and occupation which the human race in ages could contrive and accumulate."
So, when the tidings came of Jackson's victory at Harper's Ferry, both armies braced themselves for the coming battle, the Confederates in the hope that it would be decisive of the war, the Federals that it would save the capital.
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