Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/220

200 Johnson had won at his camp on Alleghany mountain on December 13th, 1861. Jackson promptly advised that Edward Johnson's force should either reinforce him or advance down the South Branch valley toward Moorefield, so as to co-operate with him in an attack he proposed to make on Romney, where he supposed the force of the enemy was about 10,000, but being constantly reinforced. He wrote to both Gen. J. E. Johnston and Adjutant-General Cooper. He was not listened to, and later in the winter Johnson was forced to fall back to the Shenandoah mountain in consequence of a movement threatening his flank from the direction of Romney.

Loring and the last two of his brigades joined Jackson on Christmas day of 1861. It was agreed that Loring should retain command of his own troops, the three infantry brigades under Col. William B. Taliaferro, Col. William Gilham and Brig.-Gen. S. R. Anderson, and Marye's and Shumaker's batteries, in all nearly 6,000 men, which increased Jackson's entire force, counting 2,000 or 3,000 militia, to about 11,000. Loring was recognized as second in command.

Having secured all the troops that the Confederate authorities would intrust him with, Jackson, feeling that the force in hand was inadequate to the undertaking, but burning with a desire to recover western Virginia, determined to move on the enemy, notwithstanding the lateness of the season and the difficulties that would have to be encountered in a winter campaign in a mountainous region. He desired to first clear out the foe from his own district, which extended well toward the line of the Staunton and Parkersburg turnpike to the district which was recently commanded by Loring, and still held by Gen. Edward Johnson, damaging the Baltimore & Ohio railroad along the Potomac as much as possible, and then be guided by circumstances in reference to a campaign farther to the northwest. Preparations were energetically pushed, and by the last day of the year the army was ready to move.

Rosecrans, satisfied that there would be no further westward movement of the Confederates until spring, had determined, under cover of his 5,000 troops at Romney, to collect the whole force of his department, some 22,000 men, along the line of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, with the hope of securing permission from