Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/83

Rh of material at the military institute fitted him admirably for such work. Jackson regulated the trains on the Baltimore & Ohio, seeing that they were not used to the detriment of Virginia, as Governor Letcher ordered, and when supplies from Baltimore for Virginia were detained by Butler at the Relay house, May 9th, he retaliated by seizing five carloads of beeves and one of horses from the West, intended for Federal use, and appropriated them to the use of his own army; buying from the quartermaster one of the captured horses, to which he took a fancy, that became famous as his favorite war-horse, "Little Sorrel."

As soon as he took command at Harper's Ferry there was an immediate change in the condition of the camp. Orders for instruction in military duties and for regular drills were at once issued, and strict military discipline enforced. He also began the construction of defenses on the surrounding heights, both in Virginia and in Maryland, to put his position in a state of defense against any attack that might be made by the Federal forces that were being pushed forward from Washington up the north bank of the Potomac, down the Cumberland valley from Chambersburg toward Hagerstown, and from the northwest by McClellan along the line of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad. His outposts were extended along the Baltimore & Ohio to Point of Rocks, 12 miles below Harper's Ferry, whence a wagon bridge crossed the Potomac into Virginia and where the railroad from Baltimore reached that river, thus guarding his position against the approach of Federal troops under General Butler from toward Baltimore, and of those under Colonel Stone up the Potomac from Washington. The staff departments of his command were promptly organized, with Maj. John A. Harman, as quartermaster, Maj. Wells J. Hawks, commissary, and Dr. Hunter McGuire, medical director. These gentlemen and Lieutenant Pendleton (afterward lieutenant-colonel), and others appointed later, continued as the efficient heads of departments during his subsequent famous military career.

About this time Lieut.-Col. J. E. B. Stuart reported to Jackson for duty, and the latter ordered the consolidation of all his cavalry companies into a battalion, to be commanded by Stuart, thus relieving Capt. Turner Ashby, the idol of all the troopers, from chief command of the