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Updated: June 6, 2025
The enemy, lined up in the neighboring field, and yelling shrilly, were opening up a rear-guard action with artillery. "The contact-box is upside down," cried the farmer. "I can't see how it ever worked at all. Yank me out a screw-driver quick!" The contact-box was on the exposed side.
No doubt remained as to their overwhelming numbers, and few generals but would have been glad enough to escape without tempting fortune further. It seemed almost too late to think of even organising a rear-guard. But Jackson, so far from preparing for retreat, had not yet ceased to think of victory.
As Alva returned, with the rear-guard of his army, the whole sky was red with a constant conflagration; the very earth seemed changed to ashes. Every peasant's hovel, every farm-house, every village upon the road had been burned to the ground.
At last, on the 10th of August, about five o'clock in the afternoon, the last squadron of the rear-guard cantered over the hills west of Morteyn, and the last straggling Uhlan followed after, twirling his long lance.
The infantry, drenched, starving, plastered with mud to the waists, toiled doggedly on through the darkness; batteries in deplorable condition struggled from mud hole to mud hole; the reserve cavalry division, cut out and forced east, limped wearily ahead, its rear-guard firing at every step.
"That man," said Griffith, in confusion, and hesitating to utter even the equivocal truth that suggested itself, "that man does not belong to our ship's company." "And yet he has been seen in your company," returned the incredulous Borroughcliffe; "he was the spokesman in last night's examination, Colonel Howard, and, doubtless, commands the rear-guard of the rebels."
Again, when King's single division, the rear-guard of Pope's army, appeared upon the turnpike, Jackson attacked it with the idea that it was the flank-guard of a much larger force. Nor was this want of accurate intelligence due to lack of vigilance or to the dense woods.
This movement was successful. Johnston, finding his retreat likely to be cut off, fell back to his fortified position at Resaca, where he was attacked on the afternoon of May 15th. A heavy battle ensued. During the night the enemy retreated south. Late on the 17th, his rear-guard was overtaken near Adairsville, and heavy skirmishing followed. The next morning, however, he had again disappeared.
It was in absolute truth the meeting of the modern vidette of civilization with one of the rear-guard of retreating barbarism. Each man was a type; each was wrong, and each was right. The Indian as true and noble from the barbaric point of view as the white man. He was a warrior and hunter made so by circumstances over which he had no control.
Eighteen miles west of Staunton a Federal picket was overrun, and in the pass leading to the Shenandoah Mountain Johnson captured a camp that had just been abandoned. The Federal rear-guard fired a few shells, and the Confederates went into bivouac. Johnson had marched fourteen and Jackson twenty miles.
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