Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 2.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

The situation of the small band of Union troops had been desperate from the beginning of the fight. Overwhelmed by numbers, it tried to escape from the enemy by placing the two branches of the Shenandoah between them; but it had not time to destroy the bridges. Pursued through the open country, the Federals dispersed in groups, which were successively surrounded, with the exception of fifteen fugitives only. The remainder were either killed, wounded or captured; but the defence of this handful of men had been highly creditable, and their chief, Colonel Kenly, fully atoned by his courage for his want of vigilance in allowing himself to be surprised. He was only captured after being seriously wounded.

The fickle fortune of war decreed that on the same day a body of troops detached from Jackson's army should experience nearly as bloody a check in the mountains of West Virginia. On leaving these mountains, Edward Johnson had entrusted to General Heth the task of watching with three regiments the brigade of Colonel Crook, which occupied the beautiful valley of the Greenbrier, with its station at Lewisburg. Carried away by his zeal, Heth crossed the river to attack his adversary in that position. He was repulsed after a bloody struggle, in which he had more than one hundred men disabled, and left four hundred prisoners in the hands of the Federals. The remainder of his brigade, reduced by nearly one-half, was indebted for its safety solely to the Greenbrier River, the bridges of which it succeeded in destroying in its rear. But this advantage was of no benefit whatever to the Federals; for Crook was not sufficiently strong to venture among the difficult mountain passes which separated him from Jackson's base of operations, and which it would have been necessary to traverse in order to menace the latter.

Meanwhile, Jackson had not lost a moment's time, after the combat of Front Royal, in following up his success; the very evening after the battle found him already on the left bank of the Shenandoah, above the point of confluence of the two branches. He thus menaced the line of retreat of Banks, who