Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[618] tamely submit to his unbending severity. He had accordingly acquired a prodigious influence over his soldiers, and from the first day he led them into battle, the old professor of chemistry in the military college of Virginia displayed that quickness of perception, that decision, that energy in the execution of his plans, which constitute the true man of war.

Since the battles of which West Virginia had been the theatre at the close of 1861, the Confederates, weakened and discouraged, had made no attempt to recover the ground they had lost in that part of the country. All their forces were concentrated in the Alleghanies; and Lee, having been summoned to Richmond, had been succeeded, in December, in the Shenandoah valley, by Jackson, who was appointed to the command of the so-called army of the Monongahela. Soon after, General Garnett came to join this army with Jackson's old brigade, from which the latter had separated with great reluctance, thus increasing the number of his forces to about ten thousand men. The Confederate general determined to assume the offensive at once. He left Winchester on the 1st of January with Garnett's troops and two brigades commanded by General Loring. The weather was beautiful and mild, and Jackson's soldiers crossed the gorges of the Alleghanies with a firm step, in the hope of surprising the Federal garrison of Bath, a small town situated near the Potomac, on the line of the Ohio Railway. But the next day they were overtaken by a snow-storm; winter, after having long held back, had at last arrived in all its rigor, and surprised them in the midst of a difficult march. They suffered terribly, and only reached Bath to see the Federals, who had received timely warning of their approach, stationed on the other side of the river. Jackson, inflexible of purpose, would not yield to the cold. After destroying the railroad-track, he led his soldiers to Romney, which General Kelly evacuated without waiting for him; and leaving a portion of Loring's troops in this town, he returned to Winchester with the remainder of his army. The soldiers he brought back were exhausted, discouraged, and discontented. The effects of the severe cold had reduced his effective force one-half. The volunteers whose term of service was about to expire no longer obeyed their commanders; those who re-enlisted claimed the right to