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[625] announce to Jackson that the turnpike will soon be cut off from him. It is near six o'clock; night comes on, and the Confederates have lost the battle. Jackson lingers among the last combatants, but cannot prevent his soldiers from giving way in every direction before the efforts of the Federals. They fall back while still preserving their ranks, and often facing about to fire, then soon disappear in the darkness, leaving the battle-field covered with their wounded. The bloody battle of Kernstown, which did honor to the two small armies, cost both parties dear. The Federals had one hundred and three men killed and four hundred and forty-one wounded; the Confederates lost four hundred and seventy-five men in all. Jackson bivouacked not far from the field of battle. His courage had raised him still higher in the estimation of his troops; but he was inconsolable on account of his reverse and the error that had caused it. He was not, however, in a condition to resume the fight, and on the following day he reached once more the borders of Cedar Creek. On the same day Banks returned to Winchester with a portion of Williams's division, but had no idea of pursuing Jackson. The vigor displayed by the Confederates led him to believe that he had about ten thousand men in front of him. He could not believe that his adversary would have ventured so far without some reinforcement within his reach; and after following him for a few kilometres, he brought back his troops to Winchester, beyond which his instructions did not permit him to go. Notwithstanding this reverse, Jackson's movement was not without results. It compelled Banks to concentrate once more his two divisions in the valley of the Shenandoah, and to leave the care of defending Manassas to other troops. The Confederate general was thus preluding the operations in which a few months after, and on the same ground, he was to distinguish himself. It was, in fact, by a series of bold moves in the valley of Virginia that Jackson first, and others after him, menaced the Federals and filled the government of Washington with alarms that invariably betrayed it into the adoption of unfortunate measures. These alarms, as we have observed before, were exhibited at
Philadelphia, Jos. H. Coates and co., 1876.
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