After defeating Milroy, Jackson had rushed through the valley to Winchester, where he fell upon General Banks so fiercely and suddenly that the latter was driven in the wildest confusion clear across the Potomac. The dashing Confederate leader then retreated up the valley by the great turnpike, hotly pursued by Frémont, who could not, however, succeed in bringing him to bay. Shields, meanwhile, had moved up the south-eastern bank of the Shenandoah, and, by co-operation with him, Frémont thought at last to crush the daring rebel. But by a master-stroke Jackson burned the bridge at the mouth of Elk Run Valley, over which Shields would have led his troops—for owing to heavy rains the Shenandoah was not fordable—and took up his position at Port Republic, a little village situated on the south fork of the river. Shields, therefore, advanced to Lewiston, the farm of a General Lewis, and there awaited instructions from Frémont, who was but a few miles off at Harrisonburg. But he might as well have been a thousand miles away, for between the two generals rolled the impassable Shenandoah, and the building of bridges in face of an enemy so vigilant and daring as Stonewall Jackson was a proposition that could not be seriously considered. Nevertheless, communication had been somehow effected, and it so happened that, on the very night that Ephraim and Lucius left Staunton in the balloon, the Federal generals had arranged a combined attack upon the restless Jackson for the next day. Frémont was to advance from Harrisonburg to Cross Keys and engage the Confederate left under Ewell, while at the same moment Shields, by a successful dash across the bridge at Port Republic, was to carry the little town and crumple up the rebel right. But Jackson’s cool head and war-trained mind had foreseen this combination, and his own plans had been formed to keep Shields just where he was on the south-eastern bank of the river until Frémont had been disposed of. When therefore the boys took refuge in the loft, and the Federal officers turned their attention to their desecrated breakfast, Frémont and Ewell were already confronting one another at Cross Keys, while Shields’s cavalry were on their way to rush the bridge at Port Republic and clear the road for the passage of the infantry and artillery. For some time the officers devoted themselves exclusively to their breakfast, but at last General Shields broke the silence by observing, ‘I think we shall fix Jackson this bout.’ ‘If the bridge at Port Republic can be carried,’ agreed the brigadier cautiously. ‘If!’ repeated Shields with some irritation. ‘There is no _if_ about it, sir. It must be carried. It cannot fail to be. The whole attention of the enemy will be by this time centred on their left to repulse Frémont’s demonstration at Cross Keys. By ten o’clock my headquarters will be at Port Republic.’