soners and
captured stores, had reached Strasburg before either of his
adversaries, and had passed safely between their armies, while he
held Fremont at bay by a show of force, and blinded and bewildered
Shields by the rapidity of his movements."

From the morning of May 19 to the night of June 1, a period of
fourteen days, the Army of the Valley had marched one hundred and
seventy miles, had routed a force of 12,500 men, had threatened the
North with invasion, had drawn off McDowell from Fredericksburg, had
seized the hospitals and supply depots at Front Royal, Winchester,*
(* Quartermaster's stores, to the value of 25,000 pounds, were
captured at Winchester alone, and 9,354 small arms, besides two guns,
were carried back to Staunton.) and Martinsburg, and finally,
although surrounded on three sides by 60,000 men, had brought off a
huge convoy without losing a single waggon.

This remarkable achievement, moreover, had been comparatively
bloodless. The loss of 618 officers and men was a small price to pay
for such results.* (* 68 killed; 386 wounded; 3 missing; 156
captured.)

That Jackson's lucky star was in the ascendant there can be little
doubt. But fortune had far less to do with his success than skill and
insight; and in two instances--the misconduct of his cavalry, and the
surprise of the 12th Georgia--the blind goddess played him false. Not
that he trusted to her favours. "Every movement throughout the whole
period," says one of his staff officers, "was the result of profound
calculation. He knew what his men could do, and to whom he could
entrust the execution of important orders."* (* Letter from Major
Hotchkiss.) Nor was his danger of capture, on his retreat from
Harper's Ferry, so great as it appeared.

May 31 was the crisis of his operations. On that morning, when the
prisoners and the convoy marched out of Winchester, Shields was at
Front Royal. But Shields was unsupported; Ord's division was fifteen
miles in rear, and Bayard's cavalry still further east. Even had he
moved boldly on Strasburg he could hardly have seized the town. The
ground was in Jackson's favour. The only road available for the
Federals was that which runs south of the North Fork and the bridges
had been destroyed. At that point, three miles east of Strasburg, a
small flank-guard might have blocked the way until the main body of
the Confederates had got up. And had Fremont, instead of halting that
evening at Cedar Creek, swept Ashb