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[226] of the enemy's infantry commanded by General Jackson, who was subsequently to acquire such great celebrity, and the cavalry of Stuart, a friend of the latter, doomed to perish like him, while leaving a reputation almost equal to his own. The first feats of arms of these two illustrious officers in behalf of the cause they had just espoused were not fortunate. Cut up by the Federal artillery, which was better served than their own, they were obliged, on the arrival of Abercrombie's brigade, to beat a speedy retreat, only stopping at Bunker's Hill, between Martinsburg and Winchester, where they found reinforcements forwarded in haste by Johnston. Patterson, on his part, was satisfied with this advantage, and believing that his troops were not in a condition to continue the campaign, stopped at Martinsburg, in order to secure his means of transportation and reorganize the 18,000 men he had then under his command. He thus left the Confederates in possession of Winchester, although they were scarcely 8000 strong, and so entirely untrammelled in their movements, that we shall see them presently leave the valley of Virginia very quietly, and without his knowledge, to go and join Beauregard on the battle-field of Bull Run. The combats we have hitherto described were evidently the mere preludes to those more serious conflicts which public opinion at the North was impatient to see commence. It had been exasperated at first by the check experienced at Big Bethel; then McClellan's campaign supervened to inspire it with overweening confidence; it believed that a single victory would suffice to bring back the repentant South into the bosom of the Union. This delusion regarding the possible duration of the war was shared, moreover, by the Confederates themselves, and the volunteers who were rushing from every quarter of the South to rally around the standard of Beauregard entertained no doubt but that one great effort would suffice to open to them the gates of Washington and secure the recognition of their new republic; they little foresaw the harassing campaigns that were in store for them, or the defeats that brought ruin to their cause, and which very few among them lived to witness. The small armies of Butler, McClellan, and Patterson having already fought the enemy, the North could not understand the
Philadelphia, Jos. H. Coates and co., 1876.
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