At the battle of Winchester Jackson captured all the Federal surgeons in charge of the field hospitals there, but instead of sending them to Belle Isle or Andersonville or Libby Prison, he acted upon the suggestion of his medical director, Dr. Hunter McGuire, and released the doctors unconditionally upon the rational and humane ground that surgeons do not make war, and ought not to be subjected to war's pains and penalties, and upon the still more rational and humane ground that it is needful for the care of the wounded on both sides that surgeons shall be permitted to remain at their posts until surgeons on the other side can replace them, regardless of army movements and without fear of being sent to a loathsome prison as a punishment for their faithfulness to their merciful duty. This step forward in the amelioration of war's horrors was not generally followed up until two years later when, during the tremendous struggle of 1864, General Lee and General Grant, acting upon their own humane impulses and with no authority except the confidence of each that his acts would be approved, agreed that surgeons in charge of wounded men should not be made prisoners of war, but should be subject only to such temporary detention as might be necessary to prevent them from carrying tidings of strategic importance across the lines. It was Dr. Hunter McGuire who first offered this suggestion in behalf of humanity, and it was Stonewall Jackson who first took the responsibility of acting upon it. To their memory history should accord honor for it. Jackson's Valley campaign had completely accomplished its chief purpose. It had thrown the War Department at Washington into a panic which is reflected in the dispatches of President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton sent about that time. Neither McClellan nor McDowell regarded the situation in any such serious light as that in which it was viewed by Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stanton. McClellan and McDowell were trained and educated soldiers, Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stanton were civilians. The two soldiers perfectly understood that while Jackson had driven Fremont back into the West Virginia mountains and had chased Banks to and across the Potomac, he could not with his meager force--now reduced to less than 15,000 men--sanely cross into Maryland or without madness undertake a serious campaign against Washington. They knew Jackson to be a perfectly sane man, and hence they did not expect him to undertake either of those crazy operations. They were agreed in thinking that the proper course was for McDowell to push on to Richmond and join McClellan there before Jackson could add his force to Lee's. If they had been permitted to do this, McClellan's force before the Confederate capital would have been sufficient, within three or four days, to overpower all conceivable opposition and to capture Richmond.