ictory. The achievement of Jackson equaled
anything of which he had ever heard. While the army of Fremont was held
fast on the other side of the river, the second army under Shields,
beaten in its turn, was retreating at a headlong rate down the valley.
The veterans of Kernstown had fought magnificently, but they had been
outgeneralled, and, like all others, had gone down in defeat before
Jackson.

Jackson, merciless alike in battle and pursuit, pushed hard after the
men in blue for nine or ten miles down the river, capturing cannon and
prisoners. The Ohio and West Virginia men began at last to reform again,
and night coming on, Jackson stopped the pursuit. He still could not
afford to go too far down the valley, lest the remains of Fremont's army
appear in his rear.

As they went back in the night, Harry and Dalton talked together in low
tones. Jackson was just ahead of them, riding Little Sorrel, silent, his
shoulders stooped a little, his mind apparently having passed on from
the problems of the day, which were solved, to those of the morrow,
which were to be solved. He replied only with a smile to the members of
his staff who congratulated him now upon his extraordinary achievement,
surpassing everything that he had done hitherto in the valley. For
Harry and Dalton, young hero-worshippers, he had assumed a stature yet
greater. In their boyish eyes he was the man who did the impossible over
and over again.

The great martial brain was still at work. Having won two fresh
victories in two days and having paralyzed the operations of his
enemies, Jackson was preparing for other bewildering movements. Harry
and Dalton and all the other members of the staff were riding forth
presently in the dusk with the orders for the different brigades and
regiments to concentrate at Brown's Gap in the mountains, from which
point Jackson could march to the attack of McClellan before Richmond, or
return to deal blows at his opponents in the valley, as he pleased. But
whichever he chose, McDowell and sixty thousand men would not be present
at the fight for Richmond. Jackson with his little army had hurled back
the Union right, and the two Union armies could not be united in time.

The whole Southern army was gathered at midnight in Brown's Gap, and the
men who had eaten but little and slept but little in forty-eight hours
and who had fought two fierce and victorious battles in that time,
throwing themselves upon the ground slept like