There was no danger of his forgetting that his was merely a detached
force, or of his overlooking, in the interests of his own projected
operations, the more important interests of the main army; and if his
judgment of the situation differed from that of his superior, it was
because he had been indefatigable in his search for information.
He had agents everywhere.* (* "I have taken special pains," he writes
on January 17, "to obtain information respecting General Banks, but I
have not been informed of his having gone east. I will see what can
be effected through the Catholic priests at Martinsburg." O.R. volume
5 page 1036.) His intelligence was more ample than that supplied by
the Confederate spies in Washington itself. No reinforcements could
reach the Federals on the Potomac without his knowledge. He was
always accurately informed of the strength and movements of their
detachments. Nor had he failed to take the precautions which minimise
the evils arising from dissemination. He had constructed a line of
telegraph from Charlestown, within seven miles of Harper's Ferry, to
Winchester, and another line was to have been constructed to Romney.
He had established relays of couriers through his district.
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