Men frequently staggered from the ranks overcome by the heat, and many, footsore and weary, were left behind. The second night, about 9 P. M., after a very severe march, we encamped at Front Royal—the leading regiment having "gobbled up," as the soldiers called it, one of Banks' outlying regiments stationed at that point about twelve miles from his left-rear.
Thus far the movement had been entirely masked by the cavalry. Early the next morning the march was directed again towards the Valley turnpike, and the troops, sore and limping, were yet pressed forward with vigor, in the hope of cutting Banks off from his line of retreat and crushing his army demoralized by such a calamity. By some means he got information about this time which induced him to retreat towards Winchester, but not early enough to prevent the advance of Jackson's army from cutting his rear in two at Middletown and capturing and dispersing it. Then commenced that hot pursuit of the main body of the flying enemy—seeking by two roads a refuge behind his entrenchments at Winchester. Jackson's immortal fame had then only begun to bud, and he was habitually severely criticised both by officers and men. Thus far the brigade to which my own regiment (the Twenty-first Virginia) belonged had not "pulled a trigger." The well known Company "F," of Richmond, was on the right of the regiment. As the men limped along with weary limbs and feet throbbing with pain, on what seemed to them an aimless march, I heard them denouncing Jackson in unmeasured terms for "marching them to death to no good end." It was my duty no doubt to have rebuked these manifestations of insubordination, but, feeling that their sufferings in some measure condoned their offence, I took no notice of the breach of discipline. Presently there appeared at every point where county-roads, bridle-roads or foot-paths entered the great Valley road, as if they had sprung from the earth, the venerable fathers and mothers, and wives, and little boys and girls of that heroic Valley—all the able-bodied men were in the army—wild with the joy of a delivered people, their hair dishevelled, their features convulsed, their voices hoarse with exultant shouts, their arms loaded with pies and biscuits, and buttered bread and buttermilk, and their lips and eyes raining down blessings and tears commingled with the gifts gleaned from their scanty stores and heaped upon those brave, hungry boys as they rushed by. For a while my murmurers were dumb with mingled emotions, and then I heard them say, with broken voices and streaming eyes, lit with the light of battle, while they raised their heads and with quickened steps stamped beneath them the pain of their weary limbs and aching feet, "Ah! boys, we can go anywhere with him now, we can follow him into the 'mouth of hell!'" I could not help it—unbidden tears burst from my eyes in response to the diamond drops that fell from those gallant cheeks.
All that night that entire army—pain and weariness forgotten—pressed on, with a zeal renewed and inflamed by those touching sights, through burning wagons and pontoons and through repeated
