Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/87

Rh, Johnston decided that he would hold Harper's Ferry only until his command was needed elsewhere in consequence of movements of the enemy, and continued to urge the change of location of his command. He also conferred with Beauregard (who took command at Manassas Junction, opposing McDowell's advance, a week after Johnston took command at Harper's Ferry), and he, because of their mutual dependence for aid, concurred in Johnston's views.

During this period Stuart and Ashby with their cavalry held Johnston's front along the Potomac from the Point of Rocks entirely across the Shenandoah valley to within the North mountains, as they had done for Jackson. Johnston had cartridge boxes, belts and cartridges manufactured in the neighboring towns and villages, and smuggled in percussion caps, in small quantities, from Baltimore. At Captain Pendleton's suggestion, caissons were constructed by fixing roughly-made ammunition chests on the running gear of farm wagons. Horses and harness were collected for the artillery, and horses and wagons for field transportation, from the surrounding country; and the removal of machinery from the armory to Richmond was continued. The two heavy guns that Jackson had placed in battery west of the village, Johnston mounted on Furnace ridge, the extension of Bolivar heights to the Potomac, to command the approach by railway from the west. During the first week in June the Seventh and Eighth Georgia and the Second Tennessee regiments reached Harper's Ferry.

On June 10th. Col. Lew Wallace, with the Eleventh Indiana, occupied Cumberland, Md., and on the 15th Patterson advanced his troops to Hagerstown from Chambersburg, Pa., where he had been collecting, organizing and instructing them for some days. From the information he could gather, Johnston concluded that Patterson had about 18,000 men, in twenty-four regiments of infantry, and several companies of artillery and cavalry. Johnston had at that time at Harper's Ferry about 7,000 men of all arms. At sunrise, June 13th, Johnston was advised, from Winchester, that 2,000 Federal troops, supposed to be the advance guard of McClellan's army, had marched into Romney, 43 miles west of Winchester by turnpike. As this information came from most reliable sources, Johnston at once sent Col. A. P. Hill, with