General Jackson, energetic and prompt, successfully carried out the task which had been assigned to him. Indeed, he was as prompt in his actions as was his great commander. On the first day of his advance he marched fourteen miles and that same night decided to cross the Potomac River. The following day he was only four miles west of Martinsburg, and in the morning when he moved upon the little place, to his surprise he found that the garrison already had abandoned the post. The general quickly resumed his march and on the following day, after his troops had covered more than sixty miles in the four days, he came within sight of the Federal forces. There was a slight delay now, but on the 13th of September General McLaws reached the hills known as Maryland Heights and at the same time General Walker, who was meeting with no resistance at all, occupied Loudon Heights above Harper's Ferry. All that night General Jackson was awake, receiving frequent reports from both of his subordinates, and before the morning came he had made all his plans for a combined attack upon Harper's Ferry by all the divisions under his command. Right at the angle formed by the junction of the Potomac and the Shenandoah Rivers lies Harper's Ferry. To the south were heights which were strongly held by the Union troops. It was in the afternoon of September 14, when at the command of General Jackson the Confederate batteries began to pour a heavy artillery fire upon the Union troops on the heights, and when night fell he had worked his army into such a position that it really commanded both flanks of the Bolivar Heights where these Union soldiers were stationed. The following morning there was a brief interval of quiet and then General Jackson prepared to assault the heights. But before the attempt was made the Union garrison capitulated. Not only were more than twelve thousand prisoners secured (for the garrisons which had been stationed at Winchester and at Martinsburg had retired previously to Harper's Ferry), but there also were seventy-three great guns and something like thirteen thousand small arms that became the prizes of the victors. "Whist!" whispered Dennis, speaking for the first time since the boys had been consigned to the guard-tent. "'Tis a black day for us, I'm thinkin'. 'Tis a foine way, too, to treat the boys that niver thought of desartin'." "We'll get out of this all right," said Noel, speaking with a confidence he was far from feeling. "They'll have to find out first whether or not we're really deserters before they punish us." "If I had that little spalpeen, Levi, here, I'd get some satisfaction, anyway! What for do you suppose he told the captain that we were desarters?" "There's fifty dollars reward offered to any one who will help in the return of a deserter; at least, that's what I have been told," said Noel.