In his official report, Major General JEB Stuart would describe the flanking maneuver undertaken by Jackson's Corps as "an arduous and necessarily circuitous march." As you walk along the trail taken by Lt. General Stonewall Jackson's men during their march, you notice a small National Park Service marker just before a trickling peaceful spring. Its words guide us back to the events that transpired here some 145 years past while miles of men in gray trudge along. It reads:

"May 2, 1863. Hour by hour, the long gray columns of Jackson's Corps splashed through the shallow ford here, which was not stone paved then, stirring the crossing into a mud hole. Before the waters of this branch of Poplar Run ran clear again, in its course towards the distant York, "Stonewall" Jackson and hundreds of his marchers were to fall dead or wounded. Many would never cross another earthly stream."

As the southern soldiers trod through this little muddied spring marking the halfway point of Jackson's famous march, his men would yet have about 6 miles or more to cover before descending upon the Union's unaware and unprepared Federals of the 11th Corps.