The next day, May 8, Jackson defeated the vanguard of Frémont’s army, Brig. Gen. Robert Milroy’s brigade, at the Battle of McDowell and forced it to retreat west to Franklin, Frémont’s headquarters. Content with Frémont’s subsequent inaction, Jackson informed Ewell on May 10 that he intended to march back into the Shenandoah Valley and go after Banks in accordance with Johnston’s wishes.

On the 18th, Jackson and Ewell met at Mount Solon, about 12 miles southwest of Harrisonburg, to formulate a course of action. They decided to hit Banks’ outpost at Front Royal, on the eastern side of Massanutten, between the South Fork and the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Manassas Gap Railroad ran through the area, and it was this line that Banks was using to shift his army, most recently Shields’ division, to McDowell, who had now taken Fredericksburg in his supporting drive to capture Richmond. If Jackson captured Front Royal, Banks would not only be cut off from McDowell, but his fortified position at Strasburg would also be turned.

With the general strategy worked out, Jackson cut the orders to unify his army. His own division would march down the macadamized Valley Pike through Harrisonburg and along the western side of Massanutten to New Market. Ewell’s division, on the eastern side of the river, would march to Luray. To help deceive the enemy into thinking that Jackson actually intended to attack Strasburg, on the western side of Massanutten Mountain, Brig. Gen. Richard Taylor’s brigade was detached from Ewell and ordered to march west, over Massanutten through Keezletown, and on to Harrisonburg. From there it headed north down the graveled pike, and after marching 26 miles it pulled into New Market, linking up with Jackson on the evening of May 20.

When the Louisianians marched into the encampment, the men of Jackson’s division, though worn out by their recent campaign, stood beside the road to catch a glimpse of the famed Tigers, with their distinctive blue-and-white-striped cotton pantaloons, grayish-brown Zouave jackets with red trim, red flannel skull caps and accurate Mississippi rifles. They were quite a sight one man remembered,’stepping jauntingly as if on parade…not a straggler, but every man in his place, though it had marched twenty miles and more, in open column with arms at right shoulder shift.’ Artilleryman George Neese of Chew’s Horse Artillery recalled: ‘I for the first time saw some of the much talked about Tigers….They looked courageous and daringly fearless.’

Once the Tigers and others had marched past Jackson’s division, Taylor ordered them to halt, stack arms and break ranks to establish a bivouac. As they did so, he sought out Jackson for further instructions. Finding his new commanding general perched atop a rail fence overlooking the field that the Louisianians were in the process of occupying, Taylor walked up to Jackson, crisply saluted and declared his name and rank. Jackson slowly looked up, peering from beneath his trademark visored cap, and asked Taylor how far his brigade had marched that day.

‘Keezletown Road, six and twenty miles,’ Taylor proudly replied.

‘You seem to have no stragglers,’ Jackson noted.

‘Never allow straggling,’ Taylor said.

‘You must teach my people; they straggle badly,’ Jackson concluded with a pained grimace.

Just then, the brigade band started to play, and some Creoles from the 8th Louisiana began playing a waltz. Watching from his fence post, Jackson murmured disapprovingly to Taylor, ‘Thoughtless fellows for such serious work.’ Taylor assured the no-nonsense Presbyterian that his bayou-bred Louisianians were well up to the task at hand. He then politely excused himself to rejoin his brigade, quickly putting a damper on the festivities.

The next day, May 21, Jackson placed the Louisiana Brigade on the point of his army to link up with Ewell’s division, which was already on the other side of Massanutten Mountain. With Wheat’s Tigers in the van setting the pace as skirmishers, the Army of the Valley marched northeast toward Luray, the designated assembly point. Jackson adopted Taylor’s technique of marching for 50 minutes and resting for 10. Private Neese remembered, ‘The troops are all in light marching order, having left all their surplus baggage, even their knapsacks, at New Market, and as the Romans of old used to say of the gladiators, they are stripped for fight.’ By evening, Jackson had united with Ewell near Luray, creating a force of 16,000 men to take on Banks’ 7,500.

On May 22, the newly constituted army continued its journey down the valley toward Front Royal, with the Tigers and the rest of the Louisiana Brigade again leading the march. The men trudged for hours through a soaking rain and ankle-deep mud, and their exhaustion increased. ‘Almost tired to death,’ one soldier remembered. Jackson camped that evening within 10 miles of Front Royal, the army’s first objective. Before the men were allowed to sleep, however, they were ordered to polish their rust-encrusted weapons, which was a sure sign of an upcoming battle.

During the next day’s march, Jackson learned that a large portion of the Federal garrison at Front Royal consisted of Colonel John Reese Kenly’s 1st Maryland Regiment (U.S.). He therefore placed his own Marylanders–Colonel Bradley Johnson’s battalion of expatriates from Elzey’s Brigade, the 1st Maryland Volunteers–in the front of Wheat’s battalion, to let them have a crack at the Maryland Yankees first. Jackson planned to use the men to take Front Royal from the south, up the east side of the South Fork of the Shenandoah, while his cavalry rode up the west side to cut the Federals’ communication lines to Strasburg. When the infantry drove the Federals out of Front Royal, the cavalry would then circle around from the north and west to slam the trap shut.

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