(Ord, Front Royal.
(King, Haymarket.
(Bayard, Buckton.
Saxton, Harper's Ferry.
Banks, Williamsport.
Fremont, Cedar Creek.
Geary, Snicker's and Ashby's Gaps.

CONFEDERATES

Army of Valley, Woodstock.
Ashby, Tom's Brook.

Total strength Federal 62,000
Confederate 16,000

CHAPTER 1.11. CROSS KEYS AND PORT REPUBLIC.

By the ignorant and the envious success in war is easily explained
away. The dead military lion, and, for that matter, even the living,
is a fair mark for the heels of a baser animal. The greatest captains
have not escaped the critics. The genius of Napoleon has been
belittled on the ground that each one of his opponents, except
Wellington, was only second-rate. French historians have attributed
Wellington's victories to the mutual jealousy of the French marshals;
and it has been asserted that Moltke triumphed only because his
adversaries blundered. Judged by this rule few reputations would
survive. In war, however, it is as impossible to avoid error as it is
to avoid loss of life; but it is by no means simple either to detect
or to take advantage of mistakes. Before both Napoleon and Wellington
an unsound manoeuvre was dangerous in the extreme. None were so quick
to see the slip, none more prompt to profit by it. Herein, to a very
great extent, lay the secret of their success, and herein lies the
true measure of military genius. A general is not necessarily
incapable because he makes a false move; both Napoleon and
Wellington, in the long course of their campaigns, gave many openings
to a resolute foe, and both missed opportunities. Under ordinary
circumstances mistakes may easily escape notice altogether, or at all
events pass unpunished, and the reputation of the leader who commits
them will remain untarnished. But if he is pitted against a master of
war a single false step may lead to irretrievable ruin; and he will
be classed as beneath contempt for a fault which his successful
antagonist may have committed with impunity a hundred times over.

So Jackson's escape from Winchester was not due simply to the
inefficiency of the Federal generals, or to the ignorance of the
Federal President. Lincoln was wrong in dispatching McDowell to Front
Royal in order to cut off Jackson. When Shields, in execution of this
order, left Fredericksburg, the Confederates were only five miles
north of Winchester, and had they at once retreated McDowell must
have mis