Governor:--This morning I received an order from the Secretary of War to order General Loring and his command to fall back from Romney to this place immediately. The order was promptly complied with; but as the order was given without consulting me and is abandoning to the enemy what has cost much preparation, expense and exposure to secure, and is in direct conflict with my military plans, and implies a want of confidence in my capacity to judge when General Loring's troops should fall back, and _is an attempt to control military operations in detail from the Secretary's desk at a distance_,[5] I have, for the reasons set forth in the accompanying paper, requested to be ordered back to the Institute and if this is denied me, then to have my resignation accepted. I ask as a special favor that you will have me ordered back to the Institute. As a single order like that of the Secretary may destroy the entire fruits of a campaign I cannot reasonably expect if my operations are thus to be interfered with to be of much service in the field.... If I have ever acquired by the blessing of Providence any influence over troops this undoing of my work by the Secretary may greatly diminish that influence. * * * * * I desire to say nothing against the Secretary of War. I take it for granted that he has done what he believed to be best, but I regard such a policy as ruinous. Very truly your friend, T. J. JACKSON [5] The italics are inserted by the author of this history. They are intended to direct attention to the marrow of the matter. Let the reader imagine if he can, a lawyer utterly unskilled in military affairs and completely unacquainted with even the topography of the valley, sitting in Richmond, and undertaking not only to direct the movements of troops in that region but to cancel and reverse the orders of Stonewall Jackson without so much as asking his opinion of a situation which that Napoleonic commander had painfully wrought out with inadequate means and in face of difficulties that might well have appalled even his resolute spirit. Such imagining will help to a comprehension of the peculiar difficulties at that time needlessly thrown in the way of the men to whom was assigned the task of conducting the war to a successful conclusion. The like thing was a familiar story on both sides at that period of the war, and it cost both sides many thousands of human lives and many millions of treasure. These are not pleasant facts for the historian to record, but they must be set down if the story of the war is to be told with truth and in a fashion to be understood.