the centre, directing the counterstroke, and
leading the pursuit. And he was well supported. His subordinate
generals carried out their orders to the letter. But every order
which bore upon the issue of the battle came from the lips of one man.

If Northern writers have overlooked the skill with which Jackson
controlled the fight, they have at the same time misunderstood his
action two days later. His retreat to Gordonsville has been
represented as a flight. He is said to have abandoned many wounded
and stragglers, and to have barely saved his baggage. In all this
there is not one word of truth. We have, indeed, the report of the
Federal officer who conducted the pursuit. "The flight of the enemy
after Saturday's fight was most precipitate and in great confusion.
His old camp was strewn with dead men, horses, and arms...A good many
(Federal) prisoners, wounded in Saturday's fight, were found almost
abandoned. Major Andrews, chief of artillery to General Jackson, was
found, badly wounded, at Crooked Run, in charge of an assistant
surgeon." It is hardly necessary to say that General Buford, the
officer thus reporting, had not been present at the battle. He had
been out off with his four regiments by the advance of the
Confederate cavalry, and had retired on Sperryville. He may
accordingly be excused for imagining that a retreat which had been
postponed for two days was precipitate. But dead men, dead horses,
and old arms which the Confederates had probably exchanged for those
which were captured, several wounded Federals, who had been prisoners
in the enemy's hands, and one wounded Confederate, a major of
horse-artillery and not a staff officer at all, are hardly evidences
of undue haste or great confusion. Moreover, in the list of
Confederate casualties only thirty-one men were put down as missing.

It is true that Jackson need not have retreated so far as
Gordonsville. He might have halted behind the Rapidan, where the
bluffs on the south bank overlook the level country to the north. But
Jackson's manoeuvres, whether in advance or retreat, were invariably
actuated by some definite purpose, and what that purpose was he
explains in his dispatches.* (* O.R. volume 12 part 2 page 185.) "I
remained in position until the night of the 11th, when I returned to
the vicinity of Gordonsville, in order to avoid being attacked by the
vastly superior force in front of me, and with the hope that by thus
falling back, General Pope wo