and
lion-hearted, quick, bold, determined, and inspiring, yet always
full of knowledge and precaution too; indefatigable at all times,
and so persistent in carrying out a plan that the enemy could no
more shake him off than they could escape their shadows.

On the second of July the first brush took place at Falling Waters,
five miles south of the Potomac, where Jackson came into touch
with Patterson's advanced guard. As Jackson withdrew his handful
of Virginian infantry the Federal cavalry came clattering down
the turnpike and were met by a single shot from a Confederate gun
that smashed the head of their column and sent the others flying.
Meanwhile Stuart, who had been reconnoitering, came upon a company
of Federal infantry resting in a field. Galloping among them suddenly
he shouted, "Throw down your arms or you are all dead men!" Whereupon
they all threw down their arms; and his troopers led them off.
Patterson, badly served by his very raw staff, reported Jackson's
little vanguard as being precisely ten times stronger than it was.
He pushed out cautiously to right and left; and when he tried to
engage again he found that Jackson had withdrawn. Falling Waters was
microscopically small as a fight. But it served to raise Confederate
morale and depress the Federals correspondingly.

Patterson occupied Martinsburg, while Johnston, drawn up in line
of battle, awaited his further advance four days before retiring.
Then, with his fourteen thousand, Patterson advanced again, stood
irresolute under distracting orders from the Government in Washington,
and finally went to Charlestown on the seventeenth of July--almost
back to Harper's Ferry. Johnston, with his eleven thousand, now
stood fast at Winchester, fifteen miles southwest, while Stuart,
like a living screen, moved to and fro between them.

Meanwhile McDowell's thirty-six thousand had marched past the President
with bands playing and colors flying amid a scene of great enthusiasm.
The press campaign was at its height; so was the speechifying;
and ninety-nine people out of every hundred thought Beauregard's
twenty-two thousand at Bull Run would be defeated in a way that
would be sure to make the South give in. McDowell had between two
and three thousand regulars: viz., seven troops of cavalry, nine
batteries of artillery, eight companies of infantry, and a little
battalion of marines. Then there was the immense paper army voted
on the Glorious Fourth. And here, for