Turning suddenly to the east he surprised and captured the Federal pickets without a shot. In five minutes he confronted a squadron of Union cavalry. With piercing rebel yell his troopers charged and scattered their foes. Sweeping on with swift, untiring dash they struck the York River Railroad, which supplied McClellan's army, surprised and captured the company of infantry which guarded Tunstall's Station, cut the wires and attacked a train passing with troops. Riding without pause through the moonlit night they reached the Chickahominy at daybreak. The stream was out of its banks and could not be forded. They built a bridge, crossed over at dawn, and the following day leaped from their saddles before Lee's headquarters and reported. A thrill of admiration and dismay swept the ranks of the Northern army and started in Washington a wave of bitter criticism against McClellan. No word of reply reached the world from the little Napoleon. He was busy digging trenches, felling trees and pushing his big guns steadily forward and always behind impregnable works. He was a born engineer and his soul was set on training his great siege guns on the Confederate Capital. On the 25th of June his advance guard had pressed within five miles of the apparently doomed city. His breastworks bristled from every point of advantage. His army was still divided by the Chickahominy River, but he had so thoroughly bridged its treacherous waters he apparently had no fear of coming results. On June the 27th Stonewall Jackson had slipped from the Shenandoah Valley, baffling two armies converging on him from different directions, and with a single tiger leap had landed his indomitable little army by Lee's side. Anticipating his arrival, the Confederate general had hurled Hill's corps against the Union right wing under Porter. Throughout the day of the 26th and until nine o'clock at night the battle raged with unabated fury. The losses on both sides were frightful and neither had gained a victory. But at nine o'clock the Federal Commander ordered his right wing to retreat five miles to Gaines Mill and cover his withdrawal of heavy guns and supplies. They were ordered at all hazards to hold Jackson's fresh troops at bay until this undertaking was well under way. It was a job that called for all his skill in case of defeat. It involved the retreat of an army of one hundred thousand men with their artillery and enormous trains of supplies across the mud-scarred marshy Peninsula. Five thousand wagons loaded to their utmost capacity, their wheels sinking in the springy earth, had to be guarded and transported. His siege guns, so heavy it was impossible to hitch enough horses to move them over roads in which they sank to the hubs, had to be saved. Three thousand cattle were there, to be guarded and driven, and it was more than seventeen miles to the shelter of his gunboats on the James.