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seemed to be menaced both from the North and the South; but in reality,
the Grand Army was re-embarking at Harrison's Bar, and sailing up the
Chesapeake in detachments, to effect a junction with Pope on the plains
of Piedmont. So important a movement could not be concealed from the
Confederates, and they had resolved to annihilate Pope before
McClellan's reinforcements could arrive. It was the work of two weeks to
transport eighty or a hundred thousand men three hundred miles, and
finding that Burnside's corps had already landed upon the Potomac,
Stonewall Jackson determined to cross the Rapidan and cripple the
fragment of Pope's forces stationed at Culpepper.

Stonewall Jackson is one of the many men whose extraordinary military
genius has been developed by the civil war. But unlike the mass who have
become famous in a day, and lost their laurels in a week, Jackson's
glory has steadily increased. He was first brought into notice at
Winchester, where he fought a fierce battle with Banks, and derived the
_sobriquet_ which he has retained to the present time. Soon afterward,
he chased Banks's army down the Shenandoah Valley, and across the
Potomac. Afterward, he bore a conspicuous part in the engagement below
Richmond, and was now to become prominent in the most daring episodes of
the whole war. His excellence was _activity_. He scrupled at no fatigue,
marched his troops over steep and circuitous roads, was everywhere when
unexpected, and nowhere when sought, and his boldness was equal to his
energy. He did not fear to attack overpowering numbers, if the situation
demanded it. All that General Lee might plan, General Jackson would dare
to execute; and he has been, above all others, the Soult of the Southern
war, while Stuart was its Murat, and Lee its Napoleon.

We first had intimation of the advance of Jackson on the afternoon of
the 7th of August. Two regiments of cavalry, picketed upon the Rapidan,
rode pell-mell into Culpepper, reporting a large Southern force at the
fords, and rapidly advancing. Pope at once ordered the whole of one of
these regiments under arrest, and it was the opinion of the army that
the approach was a feint, or, at most, a reconnoissance in force.
Subsequent information satisfied the incredulous, however, that a
considerable body of troops were marching northward, and their outriding
scouts had been seen at Cedar Mountain, only six miles from Culpepper.
The latter is one of the many woody kno