Confederate District of the Valley commander Thomas J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson began preparations for a withdrawal from his forward position at Winchester, Virginia, early in March when he sent his wife and infant daughter back to their home in Lexington. On March 7th, when his cavalry commander Turner Ashby informed him that advance units from the Union Army had penetrated to within four miles of Winchester, Jackson began to move his supply wagons and artillery back south on the Valley Turnpike. Four days later, Jackson gave the order to evacuate Winchester, and later that afternoon, dressed “in his boots, spurs, military cloak, and dress sword,” he went to the home of Reverend James Graham (where he and his wife had stayed) for dinner and family prayers. By the evening of March 11th, most of Jackson’s men were “either on the road or camped four miles south, near the hamlet of Kernstown.”
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