hat Federal reserves
might be awaiting us in the woods, I thought it advisable not to move
on. General Lawton concurred with me. I had no artillery to shell the
woods in front, as mine had not got through the swamp. Winder," he
adds, "was right; even a show of pressure must have been attended
with great result."* (* Battles and Leaders volume 2 page 357.) Had
Jackson been at hand the pressure would in all probability have been
applied. The contagion of defeat soon spreads; and whatever reserves
a flying enemy may possess, if they are vigorously attacked whilst
the fugitives are still passing through their ranks, history tells
us, however bold their front, that, unless they are intrenched, their
resistance is seldom long protracted. More than all, when night has
fallen on the field, and prevents all estimate of the strength of the
attack, a resolute advance has peculiar chances of success. But when
his advanced line halted Jackson was not yet up; and before he
arrived the impetus of victory had died away; the Federal reserves
were deployed in a strong position, and the opportunity had already
passed.

It is no time, when the tide of victory bears him forward, for a
general "to take counsel of his fears." It is no time to count
numbers, or to conjure up the phantoms of possible reserves; the sea
itself is not more irresistible than an army which has stormed a
strong position, and which has attained, in so doing, the
exhilarating consciousness of superior courage. Had Stuart, with his
2000 horsemen, followed up the pursuit towards the bridges, the
Federal reserves might have been swept away in panic. But Stuart, in
common with Lee and Jackson, expected that the enemy would endeavour
to reach the White House, and when he saw that their lines were
breaking he had dashed down a lane which led to the river road, about
three miles distant. When he reached that point, darkness had already
fallen, and finding no traces of the enemy, he had returned to Old
Cold Harbour.

On the night of the battle the Confederates remained where the issue
of the fight had found them. Across the Grapevine road the pickets of
the hostile forces were in close proximity, and men of both sides, in
search of water, or carrying messages, strayed within the enemy's
lines. Jackson himself, it is said, came near capture. Riding forward
in the darkness, attended by only a few staff officers, he suddenly
found himself in presence of a Federal picket. Judgi