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he found that Jackson had withdrawn.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,