Abercrombie and Colonel Thomas."]

It is about 1 o'clock on the morning of Thursday, July 18th,--that same
day which witnesses the preliminary Battle of Blackburn's Ford--that
Johnston, being at Winchester, and knowing of Patterson's peculiarly
inoffensive and timid movement to his own left and rear, on Charlestown,
receives from the Rebel Government at Richmond, a telegraphic dispatch,
of July 17th, in these words: "General Beauregard is attacked. To
strike the Enemy a decisive blow, a junction of all your effective force
will be needed. If practicable, make the movement. * * * In all the
arrangements exercise your discretion."

Johnston loses no time in deciding that it is his duty to prevent, if
possible, disaster to Beauregard's Army; that to do this he must effect
a junction with him; and that this necessitates either an immediate
fight with, and defeat of, Patterson,--which may occasion a fatal
delay--or else, that Union general must be eluded. Johnston determines
on the latter course.

Leaving his sick, with some militia to make a pretense of defending the
town in case of attack, Johnston secretly and rapidly marches his Army,
of 9,000 effective men, Southeasterly from Winchester, at noon of
Thursday, the 18th; across by a short cut, wading the Shenandoah River,
and then on through Asby's Gap, in the Blue Ridge, that same night;
still on, in the same direction, to a station on the Manassas Gap
railroad, known as Piedmont, which is reached by the next (Friday)
morning,--the erratic movements of Stuart's Cavalry entirely concealing
the manoeuvre from the knowledge of Patterson.

From Piedmont, the Artillery and Cavalry proceed to march the remaining