nsports could carry. For a week the
movement of troops went on successfully; while the Confederates
could not make out what was happening along the coast. Everything
also seemed quite safe, from the Federal point of view, in the
Shenandoah Valley, where General Banks commanded. And both there
and along the Potomac the Federals were in apparently overwhelming
strength; even though the detectives doing duty as staff officers
still kept on doubling the numbers of all the Confederates under
arms.

Suddenly, on the twenty-third, a fight at Kernstown in the Shenandoah
Valley gave a serious shock to the victorious Federals, not only
there but all over the semicircle of invasion, from West Virginia
round by the Potomac and down to Fortress Monroe. The fighting on
both sides was magnificent. Yet Kernstown itself was a very small
affair. Little more than ten thousand men had been in action: seven
thousand Federals under Shields against half as many Confederates
under Stonewall Jackson. The point is that Jackson's attack, though
unsuccessful, was very disconcerting elsewhere. From Kernstown the
area of disturbance spread like wildfire till the tactical victory
of seven thousand Federals had spoilt the strategy of thirty times
as many. Shields reported: "I set to work during the night to bring
together all the troops within my reach. I sent an express after
Williams's division, requesting the rear brigade, about twenty miles
distant, to march all night and join me in the morning. I swept the
posts in rear of almost all their guards, hurrying them forward
by forced marches, to be with me at daylight." Banks, now on his
way to Washington, halted in alarm at Harper's Ferry. McClellan,
perceiving that Jackson's little force was more than a mere corps of
observation, approved Banks and added: "As soon as you are strong
enough push Jackson hard and drive him well beyond Strasburg,"
that is, west of the Massanuttons, where Fremont could close in
and finish him. Lincoln had already been thinking of transferring
nine thousand men from McClellan to Fremont. Kernstown decided
it; so off they went to West Virginia. Still fearing an attack
on Washington, Lincoln halted McDowell's army corps, thirty-seven
thousand strong, on the march overland to join McClellan on the
Peninsula, and kept them stuck fast round Centreville, near Bull
Run. And so McClellan's Peninsular force was suddenly reduced by
forty-six thousand men.

April was a month of