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‘ [176] take Washington.’ Jackson could see the way; the two commanding Generals and the President—who deferred to them, as he said—could not. Johnston said: (repeating it to me and others, after the war) ‘We cannot cross a river a mile wide and 18 feet deep.’ Jackson and Stuart would have found Seneca ford, on the Potomac, 12 miles above Washington, easily fordable. The day after the battle, we had, with reinforcements, 3,000 cavalry on the field. Jackson would have interposed between Washington and the Federal forces in the lower Valley under Maj. Genl. Patterson. The dread of ‘rebel cavalry’ and ‘masked batteries’ would have intensified Jackson's advance and the Washington Government would have fled the city, or capitulated. The First Maryland did their work in this (their first) battle in Stonewall Jackson's way, fourteen months before the famous war lyric, ‘Stonewall Jackson's Way,’ was penned—under the inspiration of the guns at Sharpsburg, by Dr. John Williamson Palmer, of Baltimore. To find the enemy, go at him, quickly, rush upon him and keep it up; “trust in God and keep your powder dry;” was Stonewall Jackson's way.
Richmond, VA. 1906.
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