The Photographic History of The Civil War: in ten volumes, Thousands of Scenes Photographed 1861-65, with Text by many Special Authorities, Volume 9: Poetry and Eloquence.
Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ed.

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where Jackson played with Federal armies the Massannutten mountains, in the center of the Shenandoah Valley, 1884 Stonewall Jackson's way came to be known amid this fertile Valley and noble range. The English military authority, Colonel Henderson, writes that ‘the Valley campaign saved Richmond. In a few short months the quiet gentleman of Lexington became, in the estimation of friend and foe, a very thunderbolt of war; and his name, which a year previous had hardly been known beyond the Valley, was already famous.’ Jackson had been in command of the Southern forces in the Valley since the beginning of 1862. for the Confederate Government the Shenandoah region was of the greatest importance; it afforded an easy avenue of advance into Maryland and the rear of Washington, and was the granary for all the Virginia armies. When McClellan with his hundred thousand men was advancing upon Richmond, which seemed certain to fall before superior numbers, Jackson prevented the junction of the Union armies by a series of startling achievements. On May 8th, by a forced march, he took the Federal force at McDowell by surprise, and despite a four hours resistance drove it back in defeat. He followed up the retreating troops. In the early morning of May 23d, at Fort royal, the clear notes of the bugle, followed by the crash of musketry, startled the Union camp. The hastily formed line was sturdily repelling the charge when the appearance of cavalry in its rear caused it to fall back. But Jackson was soon following the dust of the retreating column down the road to Winchester. There banks, who was ‘fond of shell,’ was attacked with artillery on the morning of May 25th, after which ten thousand bayonets rushed forward to the ringing ‘Rebel yell’ in a charge that drove everything before them. Jackson, rising in his stirrups, shouted to his officers, ‘press forward to the Potomac!’ the troops that had marched thirty miles in thirty hours pressed forward; but, the cavalry not assisting, banks made good his escape across the broad river. During the month of June, Jackson kept three armies busy in the Shenandoah; then, vanishing as by magic, he joined Lee in driving McClellan from within five miles of Richmond to his gunboats on the James. Henderson exclaims, ‘75,000 men absolutely paralyzed by 16,000! only Napoleon's campaign of 1814 affords a parallel to this extraordinary spectacle.’ Jackson's death was like the loss of an army.