Robert Lewis Dabney, Life and Commands of Lieutenand- General Thomas J. Jackson

[340] river; and the General, after hard debate with himself, and with sore reluctance, gave the order to march again, surrendering the day of holy rest, which he would have so much enjoyed, to military necessity. General Johnston reported himself closely pressed by the enemy west of Staunton; and the crisis forbade the expenditure of a precious day. When General Jackson had left the Great Valley Turnpike at Harrisonburg, to turn aside to Swift Run Gap, the people of Staunton, in their panic, supposed that he was gone to reinforce the army near Richmond, leaving them to their fate; and unauthorized messages from officers near Headquarters confirmed this erroneous construction of his movement. The consequence was a fit of alarm, in which public military stores were hastily removed or destroyed, and the most exciting news of the certain occupation of Staunton by the enemy was sent to the force on the Shenandoah Mountain. General Johnson was detained from his command at the time; but the officer next in rank concluded that the juncture required immediate action, to rescue the army from capture. He therefore evacuated his strong position on the mountain, and retired to West View, only six miles west of Staunton, prepared to evade the approach of Banks, on that place, and retire to the Blue Ridge. Thus the advanced forces of Milroy were brought within ten miles of Staunton, and he was about to establish his communications with the Federalists at Harrisonburg. General Jackson therefore pressed forward from Whitehall to Staunton, reaching the latter place at evening on the Sabbath; to the unspeakable delight of the inhabitants, who had only heard that the army had disappeared again into Eastern Virginia, no one knew whither. By Monday evening, the whole army came up, and the junction with General Johnson was virtually effected.

Meantime, General Banks no sooner learned that General