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.

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[304] an.l attack the enemy's left flank; but Pope taking the alarm, nastily retreated beyond the Rappahannock. While Gen. Lee was making demonstrations at various points of the river, Jackson's forces, some twenty-five thousand strong, left the main body on the 25th August, and proceeded towards the head-waters of the Rappahannock. He was encumbered with no baggage, and moved with great rapidity. Crossing the river about Tour miles above Waterloo, he pushed rapidly towards Salem, and, turning the head of his column, proceeded eastward parallel with the Manassas Gap Railroad, until he reached the village of Gainesville. The design of this rapid and adventurous movement of Jackson was, to move around the enemy's right, so as to strike the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Longstreet, in the mean time, was to divert his attention by threatening him in front, and follow Jackson as soon as the latter should be sufficiently advanced.

On the 26th August, Gen. Jackson was between the large army of Pope and the Federal capital. It was a situation of extreme peril. He was in the rear of an enemy much more powerful than himself, far from all supports, liable to be attacked by superiour numbers from Washington, on the one hand, and in danger of annihilation if Pope should face about and co-operate with a force moving in that direction. The enemy was being heavily reinforced. The corps of Heintzelman and Porter, probably twenty thousand strong, joined Pope on the 26th and 27th of August, at Warrenton Junction. Another portion of McClellan's army, transported from Westover, consisting of the corps of Franklin and Sumner, were at Alexandria, intending to reinforce Pope's lines; making altogether an array of force and a situation in which the Federal Government had reason to expect a certain and splendid victory. It seemed indeed that Jackson had marched into the jaws of destruction, and had thrust into Pope's hands the opportunity of an easy and brilliant conquest.

But Jackson's designs upon Pope's stores at Bristoe and Manassas Station as well as upon his communications with Washington, were an important part of his expedition, were effectively carried out, and were accomplished before Pope could realize that such a force was in his rear, and that the demonstration upon his depots of supplies was not a mere guerilla foray. The amount of stores captured by Jackson was large. At Manassas, eight pieces of artillery were taken, and more than three hundred prisoners. Here there was a vast accumulation of supplies: fifty thousand pounds of bacon, one thousand barrels of corn-beef, two thousand barrels of salt pork, two thousand barrels of flour, quartermasters' ordnance, and sutlers' stores, deposited in buildings, and filling two trains of cars. Having appropriated all that his army could use, Gen. Jackson ordered the remainder of these stores to be destroyed, to avoid recapture by the enemy.