nd upon the road by
which Shields must emerge from the Luray Valley. The signal officer,
looking through his glass, saw also a road that ran from Port Republic
by Brown's Gap over the Blue Ridge into Albemarle, and along this road
moved a cortege--soldiers with the body of Ashby. The dead general's
mother was in Winchester. They would have taken him there, but could
not, for Fremont's army was between. So, as seemed next most fit, they
carried him across the mountains into Albemarle, to the University of
Virginia. Up on Massanutton the signal officer's hand shook. He lowered
his glass and cleared his throat: "War's a short word to say all it
says--"

Fremont rested at Harrisonburg after yesterday's repulse. On the other
side of Massanutton was Shields, moving south from Luray under the
remarkable impression that Jackson was at Rude's Hill and Fremont
effectively dealing with the "demoralized rebels." On the sixth he began
to concentrate his troops near where had been Columbia Bridge. On the
seventh he issued instructions to his advance guard.

_"The enemy passed New Market on the 5th. Benker's Division in pursuit.
The enemy has flung away everything, and their stragglers fill the
mountains. They need only a movement on the flank to panic-strike them,
and break them into fragments. No man has had such a chance since the
war commenced. You are within thirty miles of a broken, retreating
enemy, who still hangs together. Ten thousand Germans are on his rear,
who hang on like bull dogs. You have only to throw yourself down on
Waynesborough before him, and your cavalry will capture thousands, seize
his train and abundant supplies."_

In chase of this so beautiful a chance Shields set forth down the
eastern side of Massanutton, with intent to round the mountain at Port
Republic, turn north again, and somewhere on the Valley pike make that
will-o'-the-wisp junction with Fremont and stamp out rebellion. But of
late it had rained much, and the roads were muddy and the streams
swollen. His army was split into sections; here a brigade and there a
brigade, the advance south of Conrad's Store, the rear yet at Luray. He
had, however, the advantage of moving through leagues of forest, heavy,
shaggy, dense. It was not easy to observe the details of his operations.

Sunday morning dawned. A pearly mist wrapped the North Fork and the
South Fork of the Shenandoah, and clung to the shingle roofs and bowery
trees of the village between.