body of troops against more than twice their number. Taylor next attacked, but the repulse of Winder enabled the Federal commander to concentrate his forces against Taylor, and drive him from the battery he had taken. It was then that Jackson renewed the attack with the combined forces of three brigades, and speedily forced the enemy from the field. The Confederate trains had been moved in the course of the day across South river towards Brown's gap, and during the afternoon and night the Confederates returned from the battlefield and pursuit to camp at the foot of this mountain pass. It was midnight before some of them lay down in the rain to rest.

This double victory ended the pursuit of Jackson. Fremont on the next morning began to retreat, and retired sixty miles to Strasburg. Shields, so soon as his broken brigades rejoined him, retreated to Front Royal, and was thence transferred to Manassas.

The battles of Cross Keys and Port Republic closed this celebrated campaign. Just three months had passed since Jackson, with about forty-six hundred troops, badly armed and equipped, had fallen back from Winchester before the advance of Banks with over thirty thousand men. So feeble seemed his force, and so powerless for offence, that when it had been pushed forty miles to the rear, Banks began to send his force towards Manassas, to execute his part of "covering the Federal capital" in McClellan's great campaign. While a large part of the Federal troops is on the march out of the Valley, and their commander is himself en route from Winchester to Washington, Jackson, hastening from his resting place by a forced march, appears most unexpectedly at Kernstown, and hurls his little army with incredible force and fury against the part of Banks' army which is yet behind. He is mistaken as to the numbers of the enemy. Three thousand men, worn by a forced march, are not able to defeat the seven thousand of Shields'. After a fierce struggle, he suffers a severe repulse, but he makes such an impression as to cause the recall of a strong force from McClellan to protect Washington. The Federal Administration cannot believe that he has attacked Shields with a handful of men.

Falling back before his pursuers, he leaves the main road at Harrisonburg, and crossing over to Swift Run gap he takes a position in which he cannot be readily attacked, and which yet enables him so to threaten the flank of his oponent, as to effectually check his further progress. Here he gains ten days' time for the reorganization of his regiments (the time of service of most of which. expired in April), and here, too, the return of furloughed men and the accession of volunteers nearly doubled his numbers.

Finding that no more troops could be obtained beside those of Ewell and Edward Johnson, he leaves the former to hold Banks in check, while he makes a rapid and circuitous march to General Edward Johnson's position, near Staunton.

Uniting Johnson's force with his own, he appears suddenly in front of Milroy, at McDowell, only eight days after having left Swift Run gap. He has marched one hundred miles and crossed the Blue Ridge twice in this time, and now repulses Milroy and Schenck, and follows them up to Franklin. Then finding Fremont within supporting distance, he begins on May 13 to retrace his steps, marching through Harrisonburg, New Market, Luray— Ewell joining him on the road and swelling his force to sixteen thousand men and on May 23 suddenly appears at Front Royal (distant, by his route, nearly one hundred and twenty miles from Franklin), and surprises and completely overwhelms the force Banks has stationed there. Next day he strikes with damaging effect at Banks' retreating column, between Strasburg and Winchester, and follows him up all night. At dawn he attacks him on the heights of Winchester, forces him from his position and drives him in confusion and dismay to the Potomac, with the loss of immense stores and a large number of prisoners. Resting but two days, he marches to Harper's Ferry, threatens an invasion of Maryland and spreads such alarm as to paralyze the movements of McDowell's forty thousand men at Fredericksburg, and to cause the concentration of three-fourths of this force, together with Fremont's command, on his rear. The militia of the adjoining States is called out; troops are hurried to Harper's Ferry in his front; more than fifty-five thousand troops are hastening under the most urgent telegrams to close in around him. Keeping up his demonstrations until the last moment-until, indeed, the head of McDowell's column was but twelve or fourteen miles from his line of retreat, at a point nearly fifty miles in his rear-he, by a forced march of a day and a half, traverses this distance of fifty miles and places himself at Strasburg. Here he keeps Fremont at bay until his long line of prisoners and captured stores has passed through in safety and his rear guard closed up. Then he falls back before Fremont, while, by burning successively the bridges over the main fork of the Shenandoah, he destroys all co-operation between his pursuers. Having retreated as far as necessary, he turns off from Harrisonburg to Port Republic, seizes the only bridge left south of Front Royal over the Shenandoah, and takes a position which enables him to fight his adversaries in succession, while they cannot succor each other. Fremont first attacks and is severely repulsed, and next morning Jackson, withdrawing suddenly from his front and destroying the

bridge to prevent his following, attacks the advance brigades of Shields and completely defeats them, driving them eight or ten miles from the battlefield.

A week of rest, and Jackson, having disposed of his various enemies, and effected the permanent withdrawal of McDowell's corps from the forces opperating against Richmond, is again on the march, and while Banks, Fremont and McDowell are disposing their broken or baffled forces to cover Washington, is hastening to aid in the great series of battles which during the last days of June and the early ones of July resulted in the defeat of McClellan's army and the relief of the Confederate capital.

I have thus tried to give you, fellow soldiers of the Army of Northern Vitginia, an outline of one of the most brilliant pages of our history. Time has not permitted me to dwell on the great deeds which crowded these few months, nor to characterize in fitting terms of panegyric the mighty actors in them. I have attempted nothing beyond a simple and carefully accurate statement of facts. This may help to clear away from one campaign the dust and mould which already gather over the memories of our great struggle. It may do more. It may, by touching the electric chord of association, transport us for the time into the presence of the majestic dead; and of the mighty drama, the acting of which was like another and a higher life, and the contemplation of which should tend to strengthen, elevate, ennoble. It is wise in our day-it is wise always-to recur to a time when patriotism was a passion; when devotion to great principles dwarfed all considerations other than those of truth and right; when DUTY was felt to be the sublimest word in our language; when sacrifice outweighed selfishness; when "human virtue was equal to human calamity." Among the heroes of that time Jackson holds a splendid place-an illustrious member of a worthy band-aye, a band than which no land in any age can point to a worthier!

At the conclusion of the address, General J. A. Early made a few remarks warmly commending it and endorsing its historical value; and on his motion, the Association unanimously requested Colonel Allan to furnish a copy for publication.

On motion of General B. T. Johnson, seconded by General W. B. Taliaferro, and warmly endorsed by others, the Association unanimously requested Dr. J. William Jones to compile a volume containing the addresses delivered at its organization and at its reunions, together with a roster of the Army of Northern Virginia.

On motion of Colonel C. S. Venable, seconded by General J.

A. Early, the officers of last year were re-elected unanimously and by acclimation.

The Treasurer's report showed that the Virginia Division had recently contributed to the relief of their comrades of the Louisiana Division, Army of Northern Virginia, who were suffering from the yellow fever scourge in New Orleans the sum of $4,817.91.

THE BANQUET

at the Saint Claire Hotel, which followed the public meeting, was one of the most elegant affairs of the kind ever gotten up. The room and the tables were beautifully decorated-the bill of fare, admirably served, embraced all of the substantials and delicacies of the season, and formed a contrast to the "rations" we used to "draw" both amusing and refreshing to contemplate. General Lee presided with his accustomed dignity, ease and ready wit, and while all went "merry as a marriage bell" there was not a single case of intoxication and no disorder of any kind to mar the pleasure of the occasion. Indeed, these banquets have all been marked by sobriety and good order.

In response to toasts, admirable speeches were made by Captain E. A. Goggin, Judge William I. Clopton, Hon. A. M. Keiley, General Marcus J. Wright, Governor F. W. M. Holliday, Private R. B. Berkley, Colonel James Lingan, Doctor Carrington, Colonel F. R. Farrar, General Fitzhugh Lee, Rev. H. Melville Jackson, Major R. W. Hunter and General J. A. Early.

We regret that we are not able to publish many of the speeches made at these annual banquets, for they are well worthy of preservation; but our readers will thank us for giving Mr. Keiley's masterly sketch of the Model Infantryman.

SPEECH OF HON. A. M. KEILEY.

After a facetious hit at the cavalry, and bringing down the house by saying that he had never been able to determine exactly which was the more pleasant duty, to charge the artillery of the enemy, or support your own, and that he had rather support a wife and twelve children than to do either, Mr. Keiley said:

But I do not propose to make response to this sentiment by any attempt to contrast the achievements of this branch of the Army of Northern Virginia with those of the cavalry or artillery. That immortal army won fame enough for all. Let me rather acknowledge the compliment by drawing a picture-most inadequate as it must be-of a great comrade, who, whatever may

have been the arm in which he was trained, won the laurels, forever unfading, by which his name will be handed down the ages, in a career which entitles me to claim him as the Model Infantryman of the Confederacy.

It was on the morning of Friday, May 1st, 1863, that I saw him last in life: a rugged face, stained and seamed like some buried bronze, marked by the corroding sweep of centuries—a face with none of the advertisements of genius about it, as though nature had scorned to mar its crag-like grandeur with one factitious grace—a gnarled face, rough as mountain oaks must look to puling willows-silent, as the pulsing sea is silent, not with the rest of feebleness, but with the God-like balance of powers, infinite and resistless-thoughtful, with that concentrated thought in whose consuming heat things vain and frivolous shrivel and evaporate like autumn leaves in forest fires-ambitious, with an ambition passing vulgar thirsts, as pride passes vanity; as love, friendliness; an ambition which even some friends have denied him, because it was a sort for which the measure and standard were to them all unknown-brave, with that superb courage which dares without knowing that it dares-wise, with a wisdom that defied surprise, and never encountered the unexpected-fertile, inventive, exhaustless; of resource prodigious, and patient endurance more prodigious-of such faculty and such achievement that in a public life scantily reaching two and twenty months in all, the dull earth was bursting with his fame, borne by the winds, the ships of the air, which no blockade could chain.

A shadow darkened his grave face that bright May morn-not of doubt or disappointment, for by some strange power of soul he laid upon heaven in absolute content all the issues of his life. Perchance it was the shade of the wing of the death angel between him and the sun-that sun before whose second return he was to be smitten; smitten to the death by those who would have rather thrust their hands, like Caius Mucius, into fiercest flames than willingly have wounded a button on his faded coat.

It was our immortal infantryman-who emulated with his foot soldiers the swift surprises of the trooper; who deployed artillery like skirmishers.

When next I saw him, not many days thereafter, our hero lay in yonder capitol, cold, coffined and dead. About his bier bronzed and maimed men, who had faced a hundred deaths without a quickening pulse, stood weeping-weeping with passionate tempest of grief, as women weep over their first born, when the sweet eyes, brighter to them than evening stars, are glazing, and the loved prattle to which the songs of the Seraphs were in their ears discord, is only a faint, fading, far-off echo.