Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

[264] his left, Johnston fell back across the Rapidan, and increased the strength of the right against all flanking maneuvers. Large fleets of transports were gathered at the month of the Rappahannock, but few knew their object or destination. Johnston however divined it. He promptly took the idea that the Federals, while making a show of force along the Lower Rappahannock, would not attack; their object being to transport their force with great celerity to the Peninsula, thinking to surprise Magruder at Yorktown, and seize Richmond before any troops could be marched to oppose them.

He was right. On March 13, a council of war was assembled at Fairfax Court-House, by McClellan. It agreed on the following resolution: “That the enemy, having retreated from Manassas to Gordonsville, behind the Rappahannock and the Rapidan, it is the opinion of Generals commanding army corps that the operations to be carried on will be best undertaken from Old Point Comfort between the York and James Rivers: provided, 1st, That the enemy's vessel Merrimac can be neutralized; 2d, That the means of transportation sufficient for an immediate transfer of the force to its new base can be ready at Washington and Alexandria to move down the Potomac; and, 3d, That a naval auxiliary force can be had to silence, or aid in silencing, the enemy's batteries on the York River; 4th, That the force to be left to cover Washington shall be such as to give an entire feeling of security for its safety from menace.”

While the scene of the most important contest in Virginia was thus being shifted, and Gen. Banks was transferring a heavy force from the Shenandoah Valley to take position at Centreville, in pursuance of McClellan's plan for the protection of Washington, a battle unimportant but bloody took place near Winchester.

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Battle of Kernstown.

Gen. Shields had been left at Winchester by Banks with a division and some cavalry, and commanded, as he states in his official report, seven thousand men of all arms. Ascertaining that “Stonewall” Jackson was at New Market, he made a feint, pretended to retreat on the 20th of March, and at night placed his force in a secluded position, two miles from Winchester on the Martinsburg road. This movement, and the masked position of the enemy made an impression upon the inhabitants of Winchester that Shields' army had left, and that nothing remained but a few regiments to garrison the place. On the 22nd Ashby's cavalry drove in the enemy's pickets, and discovered only a brigade. The next day Jackson had moved his line near Kernstown, prepared to give battle and expecting