ll more outraged when they heard that
every officer above the rank of captain was to lose his higher
rank, and that all new reappointments were to be made on military
merit and direct from Richmond. Companies accustomed to elect their
officers according to the whim of the moment eagerly joined the
higher officers in passing adverse resolutions. But authorities who
were unanimous for Lee were not to be shaken by such absurdities
in face of a serious war. And when the froth had been blown off
the top, and the dregs drained out of the bottom, the solid mass
between, who really were sound patriots, settled down to work.

There was seven hours' drill every day except Sunday; no light task
for a mere armed mob groping its ignorant way, however zealously,
towards the organized efficiency of a real army. The companies had
to be formed into workable battalions, the battalions into brigades.
There was a deplorable lack of cavalry, artillery, engineers,
commissariat, transport, medical services, and, above all, staff.
Armament was bad; other munitions were worse. There would have been
no chance whatever of holding Harper's Ferry unless the Northern
conglomeration had been even less like a fighting army than the
Southern was.

Harper's Ferry was not only important in itself but still more
important for what it covered: the wonderfully fruitful Shenandoah
Valley, running southwest a hundred and forty miles to the neighborhood
of Lexington, with an average width of only twenty-four. Bounded
on the west by the Alleghanies and on the east by the long Blue
Ridge this valley was a regular covered way by which the Northern
invaders might approach, cut Virginia in two (for West Virginia
was then a part of the State) and, after devastating the valley
itself (thus destroying half the food-base of Virginia) attack
eastern Virginia through whichever gaps might serve the purpose
best. More than this, the only direct line from Richmond to the
Mississippi ran just below the southwest end of the valley, while
a network of roads radiated from Winchester near the northeast
end, thirty miles southwest of Harper's Ferry.

Throughout the month of May Jackson went on working his men into
shape and watching the enemy, three thousand strong, at Chambersburg,
forty-five miles north of Harper's Ferry, and twelve thousand strong
farther north still. One day he made a magnificent capture of rolling
stock on the twenty-seven miles of double track that cent