rarely seen. The Army of the Valley generally bivouacked in the
woods, the men sleeping in pairs, rolled in their blankets and rubber
sheets. The cooking arrangements were primitive. A few frying-pans
and skillets formed the culinary apparatus of a company, with a
bucket or two in addition, and the frying-pans were generally carried
with their handles stuck in the rifle-barrels! The tooth-brush was a
button-hole ornament, and if, as was sometimes the case, three days'
rations were served out at a single issue, the men usually cooked and
ate them at once, so as to avoid the labour of carrying them.

Such was Jackson's infantry, a sorry contrast indeed to the soldierly
array of the Federals, with their complete appointments and trim blue
uniforms. But fine feathers, though they may have their use, are
hardly essential to efficiency in the field; and whilst it is
absolutely true that no soldiers ever marched with less to encumber
them than the Confederates, it is no empty boast that none ever
marched faster or held out longer.

If the artillery, with a most inferior equipment, was less efficient
than the infantry, the cavalry was an invaluable auxiliary. Ashby was
the beau-ideal of a captain of light-horse. His reckless daring, both
across-country and under fire, made him the idol of the army. Nor was
his reputation confined to the Confederate ranks. "I think even our
men," says a Federal officer, "had a kind of admiration for him, as
he sat unmoved upon his horse, and let them pepper away at him as if
he enjoyed it." His one shortcoming was his ignorance of drill and
discipline. But in the spring of 1862 these deficiencies were in a
fair way of being rectified. He had already learned something of
tactics. In command of a few hundred mounted riflemen and a section
of horse-artillery he was unsurpassed; and if his men were apt to get
out of hand in battle, his personal activity ensured their strict
attention on the outposts. He thought little of riding seventy or
eighty miles within the day along his picket line, and it is said
that he first recommended himself to Jackson by visiting the Federal
camps disguised as a horse doctor. Jackson placed much dependence on
his mounted troops. Immediately he arrived in the Valley he
established his cavalry outposts far to the front. While the infantry
were reposing in their camps near Winchester, the south bank of the
Potomac, forty miles northward, was closely and incessantly
patr