George H. Gordon, From Brook Farm to Cedar Mountain

The evidence we have given is conclusive, that although Jackson shrank from an encounter with Pope when the two armies were evenly matched, his historians, clamorous in their falsehoods of the numbers overpowered, demanded that Cedar Mountain should be emblazoned on Jackson's shield. But the mills of Time at last grind out the truth; and before Dabney had exhausted even his endless vocabulary in coining loud-sounding words of praise, he felt obliged to defend Jackson, not only for retreating, but even for fighting where he did.

The reinforcements which caused Jackson to retreat were not present with Pope's army on the 10th, when the former refused to renew the fight; and when they came up on the 11th they gave us, as we have shown (King's division only), a force no larger than Jackson's. Yet this made him retreat. Of the fight at Cedar Mountain, Dabney says: “Jackson meant to have fought at Culpeper Court House on the 8th. Had he done so, his victory would have been so much more complete as to silence every charge of fruitlessness; for we have seen that the supports which saved Pope from destruction only arrived at nightfall on the 9th.”

To silence such criticism, to show what would have happened had something not interposed of which we are not informed, it is sufficient to refer to what we have said of Pope's dispositions on the 8th. Had Jackson marched to Culpeper Court House on that day, he would not only have saved Pope much time in concentration, but he would have met, in addition to Banks's corps, the whole of Ricketts' division; and we may believe Siegel would have found a road upon which he could have arrived in time.

Jackson's battle of Cedar Mountain cannot be defended. It accomplished no purpose, it established no desirable end. In three days from the time the last gun