midnight
Harry and Dalton and all the other members of the staff were riding forth presently in the dusk with the orders for the different brigades and regiments to concentrate at Brown 's Gap in the mountains , from which point Jackson could march to the attack of McClellan before Richmond , or return to deal blows at his opponents in the valley , as he pleased . But whichever he chose , McDowell and sixty thousand men would not be present at the fight for Richmond . Jackson with his little army had hurled back the Union right , and the two Union armies could not be united in time . The whole Southern army was gathered at midnight in Brown 's Gap , and the men who had eaten but little and slept but little in forty-eight hours and who had fought two fierce and victorious battles in that time , throwing themselves upon the ground slept like dead men . While they slept consternation was spreading in the North . Lincoln , ever hopeful and never yielding , had believed that Jackson was in disorderly flight up the valley , and so had his Secretary of War , Stanton . The fact that this fleeing force had turned suddenly and beaten both Fremont and Shields , each of whom had superior forces , was unbelievable , but it was true .