Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-04-13
CHAPTER KY.

We follow Jackson up and down the valley because his movements are threads of our story, and he must be driven away to introduce new charac- ters. Shields had scarcely ceased pur- suit when 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 12, 900 men down to New Market, crossed the Shenandoah river and the mountain range to the east and was in the Luray valley before an alarm was raised. There was a Federal force sta toned at Front Royal, and he was nov ing to attack 1t.
 An army in the march is monster serpent on the move. Far in advance are cavalry scouts. Then follows a body of troopers. After that comes the ad 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 bend in the road they cut across it. Horses fall lame or sick and are aban- duned. Wagons break down and are unloaded and set on fire. Guns and caissons get mixed or upset in the ditches, and hundred men lend their aid. Sore footed men stagger and limp and finally throw themselves down and declare they can go no farther. Here and there a musket is accidentally dis charged. followed by a shriek and fall, and half an hour later the victim fills grave by the roadside. The mass advances a quarter of a mile and halts. Another quarter of a mile and another halt. Only in the case of 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 country of friends. is trall of ruin and desolation. Every soldier is an en. zine of destruction. He has feeling that be 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. It is as if a fierce cyclone had passed over the country, followed by a plague.
 So Jackson's army swept forward to Front Royal. His command outnum- Dered the Federal force four to one, and his presence was not suspected until his artillery began to thunder. The Fed eral comm ander soon discovered the sit uatiOn, but he did not retreat without fight. He gathered his handful of men, posted them to cover the town, and for an hour they held Jackson at bay. It 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 day 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 Fort 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 aational, while his sad death years after the war