y found Ashby far away on the right, and with but fifty men. The
rest had been scattered. He galloped back to his general and reported.
He saw Jackson bite his lip in annoyance, but he said nothing.
Harry remained by his side and the chase went on through the fields.
Winchester was left out of sight behind, but the crashing of the rifles
and the shouts of the troopers did not cease.

The Northern army had not yet dissolved. Although many commands were
shattered and others destroyed, the core of it remained, and, as it
retreated, it never ceased to strike back. Harry saw why Jackson was
so anxious to bring up his cavalry. A strong charge by them and the
fighting half of the Northern force would be split asunder. Then nothing
would be left but to sweep up the fragments.

But Jackson's men had reached the limit of human endurance. They were
not made of steel as their leader was, and the tremendous exultation of
spirit that had kept them up through battle and pursuit began to die.
Their strength, once its departure started, ebbed fast. Their knees
crumpled under them and the weakest fell unwounded in the fields. The
gaps between them and the Northern rear-guard widened, and gradually the
flying army of Banks disappeared among the hills and woods.

Banks, deeming himself lucky to have saved a part of his troops, did not
stop until he reached Martinsburg, twenty-two miles north of Winchester.
There he rested a while and resumed his flight, other flying detachments
joining him as he went. He reached the Potomac at midnight with less
than half of his army, and boats carried the wearied troops over the
broad river behind which they found refuge.

Most of the victors meanwhile lay asleep in the fields north of
Winchester, but others had gone back to the town and were making an
equitable division of the Northern stores among the different regiments.
Harry and Dalton were sent with those who went to the town. On their
way Harry saw St. Clair and Langdon lying under an apple tree, still and
white. He thought at first they were dead, but stopping a moment he saw
their chests rising and falling with regular motion, and he knew
that they were only sleeping. The whiteness of their faces was due to
exhaustion.

Feeling great relief he rode on and entered the exultant town. He marked
many of the places that he had known before, the manse where the good
minister lived, the churches and the colonnaded houses, in more than one
of which