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Updated: June 1, 2025
It runs in a southeasterly course, so that its mouth is four miles or more south of a line drawn due east from the point where it deserts the foot-hills on the west side of the valley. The valley, itself, is shut in between the Blue mountains, on one side, and the Massanutten, a spur of the Great North mountain, on the other.
There was not a dry thread about my person, and my boots would have furnished a respectable bath. Notwithstanding the flood, Tom soon had a fire, and was off to hunt forage for man and beast. Here we were less than ten miles from Newmarket, between which and this point the army was camped. Jackson was easy about Massanutten Gap.
At the point where Early's troops were in position, between the Massanutten range and Little North Mountain, the valley is only about three and a half miles wide.
Within the past day or two I had received information that a column of the enemy was moving up from Culpeper Court House and approaching Front Royal through Chester Gap, and although the intelligence was unconfirmed, it caused me much solicitude; for there was strong probability that such a movement would be made, and any considerable force advancing through Front Royal toward Winchester could fall upon my rear and destroy my communication with Harper's Ferry, or, moving along the base of Massanutten Mountain, could attack my flank in conjunction with the force at Fisher's Hill without a possibility of my preventing it.
Between these mountains you will see a narrow and very picturesque valley known as Powell's Fort Valley. Passage creek, a most delightful little stream, winds through it and joins the Shenandoah below. West of Kells may be seen a parallel sub-range containing Peaked Ridge, Three Top and Little Massanutten, which is crossed by a road that connects New Market and Luray.
By afternoon they were far down the east valley of the Shenandoah, between the Blue Ridge and the Massanutten range, in a country broken, picturesque, fertile, so attractive that they wondered there were so few villages on the route, and only now and then a cheap shanty in sight; and crossing the divide to the waters of the James, at sundown, in the midst of a splendid effect of mountains and clouds in a thunderstorm, they came to Natural Bridge station, where a coach awaited them.
The Massanutten ranges, with their spurs and hills, divide the Shenandoah Valley into two valleys, the one next the Blue Ridge being called the Luray, while that next the North Mountain retains the name of Shenandoah.
On the 22nd, Torbert was sent to Milford in the Luray Valley, taking Wilson's and Merritt's divisions. His orders were to break through one of the passes in the Massanutten mountains and come out in rear of Early's army when Crook's flanking movement on the other side would have driven the confederates out of the strong position at Fisher's Hill.
Rising in the southwest, the twin forks of the Shenandoah, wedged apart by the long and narrow range, or rather ranges, known as the Massanutten, unite near Front Royal, where the valley begins to widen to a plain, and pour their waters into the Potomac at Harper's Ferry.
Jackson sat some time at my camp fire that night, and was more communicative than I remember him before or after. He said Fremont, with a large force, was three miles west of our present camp, and must be defeated in the morning. Shields was moving up Luray Valley, and might cross Massanutten to Newmarket, or continue south until he turned the mountain to fall on our trains near Harrisonburg.
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