thoroughly examined,
both by staff officers and scouts, the information as to their
numbers was somewhat vague. Banks had actually about 8000 effectives
at Strasburg; but so far as the Confederates knew it was quite
possible that he had from 12,000 to 15,000. There is nothing more
difficult in war than to get an accurate estimate of the enemy's
numbers, especially when civilians, ignorant of military affairs, are
the chief sources of information. The agents on whom Jackson depended
for intelligence from within the enemy's lines were not always
selected because of their military knowledge. "On the march to Front
Royal," says General Taylor, "we reached a wood extending from the
mountain to the river, when a mounted officer from the rear called
Jackson's attention, who rode back with him. A moment later there
rushed out of the wood a young, rather well-looking woman, afterwards
widely known as Belle Boyd. Breathless with speed and agitation, some
time elapsed before she found her voice. Then, with much volubility,
she said we were near Front Royal; that the town was filled with
Federals, whose camp was on the west side of the river, where they
had guns in position to cover the bridge; that they believed Jackson
to be west of the Massanuttons, near Harrisonburg; that General Banks
was at Winchester, where he was concentrating his widely scattered
forces to meet Jackson's advance, which was expected some days later.
All this she told with the precision of a staff officer making a
report, and it was true to the letter. Jackson was possessed of this
information before he left New Market, and based his movements on it;
but it was news to me."

In the second place, Banks had still the means of escape. He could
hardly prevent the Confederates from seizing Winchester, but he might
at least save his army from annihilation. Jackson's men were
exhausted and the horses jaded. Since the morning of the 19th the
whole army had marched over eighty, and Ewell's division over ninety
miles. And this average of seventeen miles a day had been maintained
on rough and muddy roads, crossed by many unbridged streams, and over
a high mountain. The day which had just passed had been especially
severe. Ewell, who was in bivouac at Cedarville, five miles north of
Front Royal on the Winchester turnpike, had marched more than twenty
miles; and Jackson's own division, which had made four-and-twenty,
was on foot from five in the morning till nine at ni