George H. Gordon, From Brook Farm to Cedar Mountain

[156] Winchester, and at Strasburg, we had heard extravagant stories of the great resistance we were to meet. It was always at some point farther on. At New Market we heard that Jackson had left the valley. What this signified we found out afterwards; but of what had transpired one may well imagine our feelings in reading that “Jackson then crept along in the days succeeding Kernstown, like a wounded wolf, but turning every moment to snap at his pursuers, and offer battle if they pressed on him.” ¹

Though the valley from Strasburg had at every step developed new beauties, the scene at New Market was one of the most lovely I had seen. Such rich slopes and green fields, magnificent vales and grand mountains, ever in sight as we followed the North Fork of the Shenandoah,--they were not only entirely beyond my descriptive powers, but were enough to transport me with ecstasy.

At New Market we found peach-trees that had been in bloom since the tenth of April, and fields green with a magnificent growth of wheat. Just south of the village, on the banks of Smith's Creek, at the foot of the Massanutten range of mountains, and near where a road crosses through a gap to the valley that holds the South Fork of the Shenandoah, I encamped my brigade in the middle of an immense wheat-field, perhaps one third of a mile back from the road. On the road, and in front of my encampment, was a brick house, somewhat pretentious in size and finish. It surprised me that access to the house was effected only through an extensive cattle-yard; but upon further investigation I found the front door at the back side of the house. The back was formerly the front side, I was told; but many years ago the road was relocated, so that it runs now through the cow-yard; and although the owner had