The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-12-21
COPYRIGHT. 1912. BY G. ?. pUTNAm's SONS

e1, to say nothing of forced military movements. Men and horses fell on the icy roads, their guns going off all along the line, the knees and muZZles of the animals lacerated, the men limp ing along, leaving trails of blood on the frozen snow. The march was compar- able to Napoleon's passage of the Alps and not alone in it's hardshfps, but like wise in it's results for before the 1st of February General Kelly had evacuated Romney, and for the moment there was no Federal force left in the entire low CT valley.
 With the opening of spring four Fed eral arrafies under Fremont, Banks, Mo Dowell and Mcclellan respectively were ready to close in upon Richmond. Fremont and Banks in the north and west expected to unite their forces and drive Jackson up the valley, cutting the Confederate communications and then sweeping down upon Richmond from the mountains, while Mcclellan marched up the peninsula between the James and York rivers, and McDoWell advanced from Fredericksburg.
 Early in March "StoneWan'' Jackson was back in Winchester with Banks and an augmented Federal force at his heels on the north, and Shields with another army reported at Strasburg to the southward.
 Here Bob El1ingham first made the acquaintance of Colonel Ashby, com manding Jackson's cava1ry-a won drous cavalier from Fauquier county, mounted on a milk white blooded horse, the most dashing rider in the whole state of Virginia, and as a lead CT of partisans destined soon to rank among the foremost of his contempo- raries. Ashby looked like Moor and had the chivalrous soul of a Saladin.
 They struck Shields near Woodstock, some forty miles up the pike, and on March 23 attacked him, at Kernstown, and were -epulsed. This was one of the few setba cks Jackson encountered in his campaign, and the furious inn pulse of his rebound that followed i'm mediate1y after made it a costly vic tory for his opponent. A frenzy seized 'OId StonewaIl'' and his men and made them invincible, irresistible. The limitless resources of the now thor oughly aroused Washington govern ment were brought to bear in earnest up9n this bold secessionist.
 The whole valley was alive with marching and countermarching, ad- Nd1ClIS 3It IOtIOdLIhS dEu14cS- sons desperate game was to present a menacing front in several directions at once, while awaiting re-enforcements sorely needed. General Banks came over from Manassas, bent upon his de structior. At the same time B1enker, on his way with 1d,6oO men to join Fremont, was instructed to report to him as he followed Jackson up the valley. Jackson stood at bay at Swift Run gap in the Blue Ridge mountains, with the Shenandoah river in his front and his Hanks protected by the foot hills. EweIl, with handy Confederate force, was not far away, but on the other side of the mountains in Jack sons rear, at Gordonsville
 In this tight place Jackson called upon General Lee at Richmond to re- enforce him with 5000 men. Lee could not spare any from the defense of Richmond, but suggested that a union might be effected with General Ed ward Johnson and his $500 troops at Staunton. EweI was expected to move eastward against McDowell's Federal army at Fredericksburg. Meanwhile Banks, with his large force, was watching General Edward John son at Harrisonburg. The Federal Generals Milroy and Schenck had