The plan was an improvement upon Rosecrans's in arranging for a
progressive concentration of his forces into one column led by
himself; but it would probably have failed, first, from the
impossibility of supplying the army on the route, and second,
because the railroads east of the mountains ran on routes specially
well adapted to enable the enemy quickly to concentrate any needed
force at Staunton, at Lynchburg, at Christiansburg, or at
Wytheville, to overpower the column. The Union army would be
committed to a whole season of marching in the mountains, while the
Confederates could concentrate the needed force and quickly return
it to Richmond when its work was done, making but a brief episode in
a larger campaign. But the plan was not destined to be thoroughly
tried. Stonewall Jackson, after his defeat by Kimball at Kernstown,
March 23d, had retired to the Upper Shenandoah valley with his
division, numbering about 10,000 men; Ewell, with his division, was
waiting to co-operate with him at the gaps of the Blue Ridge on the
east, and Edward Johnson was near Staunton with a similar force
facing Milroy. In April General N. P. Banks, commanding the National
forces in the Shenandoah valley, had ascended it as far as
Harrisonburg, and Jackson observed him from Swift-Run Gap in the
Blue Ridge, on the road from Harrisonburg to Gordonsville.
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