Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1894-06-09
[coNTINUED.]
CHAPTER XIV.

threads OF our story, anu Ne IuuSl De
driven away to introduce new charac-
tiers. Shields had scarcely ceased pur-
suit when a Federal army under Banks
was sent into the valley. No one sup
posed jackson had recovered from his
defeat when he suddenly moved an army
of ~, 600 men down to New Market,
crossed the Shenandoah river and the
mountain range to the east and was in
the Luray valley before IN alarm was
raised. There was a Federal force sta
tnned at Front Royal, and he was NOV
ing to attack it.
An army in the march is a monster
serpent on the move. Far in advance
are cavalry scouts. Then follows a body
of troopers. After that comes the adj
vance guard Of infantry. Then artil-
lery, more infantry, more artillery, and
finally the wagon train. The highway
is packed with a living, moving mass
for miles and miles. Infantry and cav
airy overflow into the adjacent fields on
the right and left. Where there is a
bend in the road they cut across it.
Horses fall lame or sick and are aban-
doned. Wagons break down and are
unloaded and set on fire. Guns and
caissons get mixed or upset in the
bitches, and a hundred men lend their
aid. Sore footed men stagger and limp
and finally throw themselves down and
declare they al go no farther. Here
and there a musket is accidentally dis
charged. followed by a shrek and a
fall, and half an hour later the victim
fills a grave by the roadside. The mass
advances a quarter of a mile and halts.
Another quarter cf a mile and another
halt. Only in the case of a single regi-
ment is there freedom to step out and
march at the rate of three or four miles
an hour.
The trail of a marching army, even
in a country of friends, is a trail of ruin
and desolation. Every soldier is an en-
CINE of destruction. He has a feeling
that he must desolate and destroy,
Trees are felled and fences pulled down
to repair the roads, gardens are de-
spoiled, crops are trampled under foot,
fruit trees denuded of their branches,
stacks and barns fired by accident or
design. 1t is as if q fierce cyclone had
passed over the country, followed by a
plague.
So Jackson's army swept forward to
Front Royal. His command outnum-
nered the Federal force four to one, and
his presence was not suspected until his
artillery began to thunder. The Fed
eral commander soon discovered the sit
u~ation, but he did not retreat without
a fight. He gathered his handful of
men, posted them to cover the town,
and for an hour they held jackson at
bay. 1t was only when they were al
most surrounded that they gave way
and sought shelter in the passes of the
mountain. Jackson paused only long
enough to burn such Federal stores as
he could not handily carry away and
then swept down the Luray, bent to The
left, and next Gay was before Winches-
ter. He attacked and recaptured the
town and drove every Federal to the
Potomac and across it before he halted
again.
Then the Federal government grasped
the situation, and three different armies
were dispatched to close in on Jackson
and destroy him. The battles of Cross
Keys and Port Republic followed, and
Jackson fell back to join Lee and take
part in the battle which was TO sweep
Mcclellan from the peninsula. The
Shenandoah and the Luray were now in
possession of the Federals, to be held
till the close of the war, but only with
desperate fighting at intervals.
And now the gallant Custer, with his
command, reached the Shenandoah with
the'army of occupation-a young man,
fresh from West Point, on whom the
volunteer officers looked with distrust,
but only waiting to prove his worth.
Custer belonged to Michigan. His first
command was the First, Fifth, Sixth
and Seventh cavalry regiments of that
state, known as the Michigan cavalry
brigade. While his fame was national,
while his sad death years after the war
in that terrible massacre touched the
heart of every American, it is in Michi-
gan more than anywhere else that his
memory is re%verenced. 1t will live
there until every soldier and soldiers
son and grandson sleeps beneath the
sod. The plains of northern Virginia
were given up to fierce battles between
infantry, the valleys to desperate charges
and bloody conflicts between the oppos-
ing cavalry forces.
jackson had looked his last upon the
Shenandoah. He was to become Lees
right arm and fight elsewhere until his
fall III the darkness on the bush lined
highway at Charlottesville. Another
took his place, and the dead Ashby was
replaced by Stuart to lead the cavalry.
Let us so back to Royal Kenton. We
left him just as Reube Parker had been
made prisoner by a Federal scouting
party. Reube basely sought to betray
him, but he failed of his purpose. The
Federal captain beat up the neighbor-
hood as thoroughly as possible, but Ken
ton slipped through his fingers and re-
turned to Jackson to make his report.
1t was his information, seconded no
doubt by that of others, which decided
J~ackson's move to Front Royal. While
the general seemed pleased at Kenton's
success, the latter could not fail to per-
ceive that something was yet amiss. In
his own mind he felt sure that be was
mistrusted. ana it was easy to conclude
why. Not that he had failed in any one
particular to do his duty, but that the
officers and men of his own company,
for reasons already given, were seeking
his downfall. When he had finished
his report, he was ordered to his COM
pany, and again he found only II man
to give him greeting. Steve Brayton
chuckled with satisfaction as he extend
ed his hand and asked for particulars.
The others only gave him looks of dis
trust. When Kenton was asked regard
ing Reube Parker and had made his ex-
plantations, Steve grew thoughtful aud
serious aud finally replied:
Its a good joke on the captain. but
I'm troubled as to how it will end up.
| Jest reckon they ar mean huff to
charge yc' with KILN Reube. They
can't prove it, but it will get the GIN
eral down on ye' and make things wuss.
bod blast the fules anyway Why can't
they give yo' a far show even if yo' be
a Yank?"
The crisis came next day. Reuhe
Parker had been carried into the Fed
eral camps as a prisoner, but owing to
the confusion and excitement was not
strictly guarded and managed to make
his escape and arrive at Confederate
/ aodcuarfar looo thop 81 haurs oftor