Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 07.djvu/26

18 of quartermaster, commissary, medical and ordnance stores had fallen into the hands of the victor. "Some twenty-three hundred prisoners" were taken to the rear when Jackson fell back, besides seven hundred and fifty wounded and sick paroled and left in the hospitals at Winchester and Strasburg, making a total of about 3,050.

A day is given, according to Jackson's custom, to religious services and thanksgiving, and another to rest, and on the third he is again moving towards Harper's Ferry, in order, by the most energetic diversion possible, to draw away troops from Richmond. How well he effected this, a glance at the Federal movements will show.

As above stated, the quiet that succeeded Kernstown, the advance of Banks far into the Valley and the movement of Jackson to West Virginia, had calmed the apprehensions of the Federal Administration for the time in regard to Washington, and the urgent requests of McClellan and McDowell, that the latter's corps should be sent forward from Fredericksburg towards Richmond, were listened to. Shields was detached from Banks and sent to McDowell, and on May 17th the latter was ordered to prepare to move down the Fredericksburg railroad to unite with McClellan before Richmond. On Friday, May 23d, the very day of Jackson's attack at Front Royal, President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton went to Fredericksburg to confer with General McDowell, found that Shields had already reached that point, and determined, after consultation, that the advance should begin on the following Monday (May 26th). McClellan was informed of the contemplated movement and instructed to assume command of McDowell's corps when it joined him. This fine body of troops moving from the North against the Confederate capital, would have seized all the roads entering the city from that direction and would have increased McClellan's available force by from forty to fifty per cent. There was strong reason to expect that this combined movement would effect the downfall of Richmond.

The Federal President returned to Washington on the night of the 23d to await the result. He there received the first news of Jackson's operations at Front Royal the preceding afternoon. The first dispatches indicated only an unimportant raid, and McDowell was directed by telegraph to leave his "least effective" brigade at