en of the enemy, peering through the mist to see
what the Yankees had been doing within the last twenty-four hours. It
was hard to believe that we were in the 'sunny South.'"

All this, however, was hardly an excuse for absolute inaction. The
Confederate position on the open ridge called Rude's Hill, two and a
half miles south of Mount Jackson, was certainly strong. It was
defended in front by Mill Creek, swollen by the snows to a turbulent
and unfordable river; and by the North Fork of the Shenandoah. But
with all its natural strength Rude's Hill was but weakly held, and
Banks knew it. Moreover, it was most unlikely that Jackson would be
reinforced, for Johnston's army, with the exception of a detachment
under General Ewell, had left Orange Court House for Richmond on
April 5. "The enemy," Banks wrote to McClellan on April 6, "is
reduced to about 6000 men (sic), much demoralised by defeat,
desertion, and the general depression of spirits resting on the
Southern army. He is not in a condition to attack, neither to make a
strong resistance, and I do not believe he will make a determined
stand there. I do not believe Johnston will reinforce him." If Banks
had supplies enough to enable him to remain at Woodstock, there seems
to have been no valid reason why he should not have been able to
drive away a demoralised enemy, and to hold a position twelve miles
further south.

But the Federal commander, despite his brave words, had not yet got
rid of his misgivings. Jackson had lured him into a most
uncomfortable situation. Between the two branches of the Shenandoah,
in the very centre of the Valley, rises a gigantic mass of mountain
ridges, parallel throughout their length of fifty miles to the Blue
Ridge and the Alleghanies. These are the famous Massanuttons, the
glory of the Valley. The peaks which form their northern faces sink
as abruptly to the level near Strasburg as does the single hill which
looks down on Harrisonburg. Dense forests of oak and pine cover ridge
and ravine, and 2500 feet below, on either hand, parted by the mighty
barrier, are the dales watered by the Forks of the Shenandoah. That
to the east is the narrower and less open; the Blue Ridge is nowhere
more than ten miles distant from the Massanuttons, and the space
between them, the Luray or the South Fork Valley, through which a
single road leads northward, is clothed by continuous forest. West of
the great mountain, a broad expanse of green pasture and r