Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/360

334 Reno, but Jackson's well-directed blows forced them both back until darkness ended the contest, when they followed Pope's line of retreat to within the fortifications of the Federal city, where his brief career, of less than two months' duration, as commander of the army of Virginia, came to an inglorious end, and McClellan again took charge to reorganize the army of the Potomac from the broken Federal forces there gathered.

Longstreet followed Jackson to Chantilly, but did not reach there in time to take part in the battle. Lee paused in his onward march, at this noble "Chantilly" mansion of one of his relatives, to give his men much needed rest and bring forward the supply trains which his rapid marches had left far in the rear. In four short months the army of Northern Virginia had, under his leadership, with its 80,000 men, met and driven Banks, Fremont, McDowell, McClellan and Pope, with their 200,000 veteran troops, from far within the bounds of Virginia, in disastrous retreat, to beyond its borders, with the exception of a small body that still held the line of the Baltimore & Ohio, in the lower Valley, and the remnant that had found refuge within the fortifications of Washington, on the Virginia side of the Potomac.