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Chapter 14: the Peninsular campaign begun; Yorktown
In order to leave
McClellan's army free to act
General Banks was to come from
West Virginia and command a fifth corps with which to cover
Washington.
He was to give up
Sedgwick's fine division to complete
Sumner's corps.
While matters were being planned and were not yet half executed,
Stonewall Jackson, always our marplot, struck one of
Banks's divisions near
Winchester.
Fortunately,
General Shields, the division commander, with his arm shattered in the beginning of the battle, succeeded in holding
Jackson at bay, and after a terrific conflict forced him up the Shenandoah Valley.
But the battle itself served to call back to
West Virginia General A. S. Williams's division, which belonged to
Banks and was already
en route to
Manassas with orders to relieve our troops, that we might go back to
Alexandria and follow our comrades via the
Chesapeake to the
Virginia Peninsula.
Banks himself with his Fifth Corps never did succeed in making that contemplated
Centreville and
Manassas march to cover
Washington.
But provisional troops from
Washington were at last sent out to replace ours, watch against Confederate raids in that quarter, and secure the
Manassas field as a shield to the capital.
