, could impart.

His progress was masked by Stuart, who interposed his cavalry between
Jackson and the Union lines, and constantly felt of our skirmishers and
pickets as he slowly kept abreast with the marching column.

At the Furnace comes in another road, which, a short distance above,
forks so as to lead to Dowdall's Tavern on the left, and to touch the
Union lines by several other branches on the right. It was this road
down which Wright and Stuart had advanced the evening before in their
attack on our lines.

Here, in passing Lewis's Creek (Scott's Run) and some elevated ground
near by, the column of Jackson had to file in full view of the Union
troops, barely a mile and a half away. The movement was thus fully
observed by us, hundreds of field-glasses pointing steadily at his
columns.

It seems somewhat strange that Jackson should have made this march,
intended to be quite disguised, across the Furnace-clearing. For there
was another equally short route, making a bend southward through the
woods, and, though possibly not so good as the one pursued, subsequently
found available for the passage of Jackson's trains, when driven from
the Furnace by Sickles. It is probably explained, however, by the fact
that this route, selected during the night, was unfamiliar to Jackson,
and that his aides and guides had not thought of the point where the
troops were thus put en evidence. And Jackson may not have been with the
head of the column.

So early as eight o'clock Birney of the Third Corps, whose division had
been thrust in between Howard and Slocum, reported to Sickles that a
movement in considerable force was being made in our front. Sickles
conveyed the information to Hooker, who instructed him to investigate
the matter in person. Sickles pushed out Clark's rifled battery, with
a sufficient support, to shell the passing column. This, says Sickles,
obliged it to abandon the road. It was observed that the column was
a large one, and had a heavy train. Sickles considered it either a
movement for attack on our right, or else one in retreat. If the former,
he surmised at the time that he had arrested it; if the latter, that the
column had taken a more available route.

It was while Rodes was filing past the Furnace that the first attack by
Clark's battery was made; and Col. Best, with the Twenty-third Georgia
Regiment, was sent out beyond the Furnace to hold the road. Best
subsequently took position in and about the Fu