Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 19.djvu/323

 General Thomas J Jackson. 317

A MAJOR-GENERAL.

In October, 1861, Jackson was commissioned a major-general and sent to command the Valley district. In the course of the winter he drove the Federal troops from the district and went into winter quar- ters at Winchester, and early in the following March was there when Banks was sent against him. He fell back before Banks some forty miles, but then suddenly turned on him with only thirty-five hun- dred men and attacked him so fiercely that he retreated with all his troops.

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1862.

In April, 1862, Jackson entered upon a new campaign in the Val- ley. How he in detail and with Napoleonic celerity whipped Mil- roy, Banks, Shields and Fremont in this campaign, and then sud- denly swooped down upon McClellan at Games' Mill, when the United States authorities thought he was still in the Valley, consti- tutes one of the most brilliant chapters in all modern warfare.

BACK IN THE VALLEY.

He took part in the operations against McClellan, and in July he was again detached and sent to Gordonsville to look after his old enemies in the Valley, who were gathering under Pope. He was now a. lieutenant-general commanding the Second Corps. On Au- gust 9th he crossed the Rapidan and struck Banks another crushing blow at Cedar Run. On August 25th he passed around Pope's right flank, forced Pope to let go his hold upon the Rappahannock, and by stubborn fighting kept him on the ground until Longstreet could get up, and routed Pope at the second battle of Manassas, August 30, 1862.

THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN.

Two weeks later, in the beginning of the Maryland campaign, Jackson invested and captured Harper's Ferry with eleven thousand prisoners, many stands of arms, and seventy-two guns, and by a ter- rible night march reached Sharpsburg on September i6th, and on the next morning commanded the left wing of the Confederate army, repulsing with his thin line the corps of Hooker, Mansfield, and Sumner, which were in succession hurled against him. Later in the day A. P. Hill's division of his corps, which had been left at Har- per's Ferry, reached the field and defeated Burnside on the right.