fficers and men alike had
made many an ingenious endeavour to learn the plans they thought they
ought to know. They set quaint traps, they made innocent-seeming
remarks, they guided right, they guided left, they blazed beautiful
trails straight, they thought, to the moment of revelation. It never
came. He walked past and around and over their traps. Inquisitive
officers found themselves not only without a straw of information, but
under displeasure. Brilliant leading remarks shone a moment by their own
brilliancy, then went out. The troops conjectured one road--they went by
another; natives described the beauties of the village before which they
were sure to break ranks--at eve they experienced the hospitalities of
quite another town. Generals in the ranks demonstrated that they were
going to turn on Shields, or that they were going east by the old
Manassas Gap and whip Geary, or northeast and whip Abercrombie. They did
none of the three. They marched on up the valley to Rude's Hill near
Mount Jackson. About this time, or a little later, men and officers gave
it up, began to admire, and to follow blindly. A sergeant, one evening,
put it to his mess. "If we don't know, then Banks and Shields and
Fremont and Milroy and McClellan and Lincoln and Stanton don't know,
either!" The mess grew thoughtful; presently it took the pipe from its
mouth to answer, "Dog-gone it, Martin, that's true! Never saw it just
that way before."

Rude's Hill formed a strong natural position. There was water, there
were woods, there was an excellent space for a drill-ground. Jackson's
directions as to drill-grounds were always characteristically explicit.
"_Major: You will see that a camp is chosen where there are wood, water,
and a drill-ground--_" emphasis on the drill-ground. At Rude's Hill they
drilled and drilled and drilled. Every morning rang out adjutant's call,
every morning there were infantry evolutions, artillery evolutions. The
artillery had some respite, for, turn by turn, the sections went forward
ten miles to do picket duty for Ashby, Chew's Horse Artillery being
continually engaged with the Federal outposts. But the infantry drilled
on, drilled and wondered at Banks. One week--two weeks!--and the general
in blue with nineteen thousand men still on the farther side of Tom's
Brook!

Despite the drilling the Army of the Valley had a good time at Rude's
Hill. Below brawled the Shenandoah, just to the east sprang the
Massanuttens. The