iamstown
and Frederick drew the greater part of their supplies from the West;
and so serious an interruption in the line of communication would
compel them to give up all thought of offensive enterprises in the
Valley. But the sufferings that his green soldiers had undergone had
sapped their discipline. Loring's division, nearly two-thirds of the
command, was so discontented as to be untrustworthy. It was useless
with such troops to dream of further movements among the inhospitable
hills. Many had deserted during the march from Unger's Store; many
had succumbed to the exposure of the bivouacs; and, more than all,
the commander had been disloyal to his superior. Although a regular
officer of long service, he had permitted himself a license of speech
which was absolutely unjustifiable, and throughout the operations had
shown his unfitness for his position. Placed under the command of an
officer who had been his junior in the Army of the United States, his
sense of discipline was overborne by the slight to his vanity; and
not for the first time nor the last the resentment of a petty mind
ruined an enterprise which would have profited a nation. Compelled to
abandon his projected march against the enemy, Jackson determined to
leave a strong garrison in Romney and the surrounding district, while
the remainder of the force withdrew to Winchester. The two towns were
connected by a good high-road, and by establishing telegraphic
communication between them, he believed that despite the Federal
numbers he could maintain his hold on these important posts. Many
precautions were taken to secure Romney from surprise. Three militia
regiments, recruited in the country, and thus not only familiar with
every road, but able to procure ample information, were posted in the
neighbourhood of the town; and with the militia were left three
companies of cavalry, one of which had already been employed in this
region.

In detailing Loring's division as the garrison of Romney Jackson
seems to have made a grave mistake. He had much reason to be
dissatisfied with the commander, and the men were already
demoralised. Troops unfit to march against the enemy were not the men
to be trusted with the security of an important outpost, within
thirty miles of the Federal camps at Cumberland, far from their
supports, and surrounded by bleak and lonely mountains. A man of
wider sympathy with human weakness, and with less rigid ideas of
discipline, might possib