For that march and junction Lee had fully prepared. He secretly sent instructions to Jackson to march at once to Ashland, a dozen miles from Richmond, and thence sweep down between the Pamunkey and Chickahominy rivers, in aid of Lee's own movement against McClellan. Then he ordered two divisions ostentatiously detached from the army before Richmond, to go to Jackson's reinforcement in the Valley, and directed Jackson to do all he could to impress the enemy with the belief that he was planning, with a strongly reinforced army, to sweep down the Valley again and press on into Maryland, threatening Washington and Baltimore. Pains were taken to impress the fact of Jackson's strong reinforcement upon Federal officers who, as prisoners, were about to be paroled and sent north and they carried the news, as it was meant that they should do. The deception was so complete that even while Jackson was actively assailing McClellan's rear on the Chickahominy a few days later, General Banks was sending from the Valley dispatches warning the Washington authorities that Stonewall Jackson was preparing immediately to sweep down the Valley at the head of a reinforced and now quite irresistible army. The result was that Jackson and the divisions sent ostensibly to reinforce him, joined Lee in front of Richmond in time to aid in the Seven Days' battles for McClellan's dislodgment. CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEVEN DAYS' BATTLES It was explained in the last chapter that Lee's first object when he took personal charge of the army defending Richmond was to raise McClellan's siege of the Confederate capital, drive him away, and transfer the scene of active operations to some more distant field. To that end, first of all, he had strengthened the army at Richmond by calling to it every man that could be spared from coast defense and from the regions farther south. Next he had set Jackson at work in the Valley, to occupy the forces there and in West Virginia, and by threatening Washington to divert from McClellan's reinforcement an additional army of 40,000 men which had been intended to strengthen him into irresistibility. When Jackson, beset by four armies, had escaped from two of them and had defeated the other two, Lee sent strong reinforcements to him in a conspicuous way, so that he might seem about to advance down the Valley, cross the Potomac and in strong force occupy the region north of the Potomac and threaten the capture of Washington itself.