The King's army won the engagement at Tallow Creek, and the winning did not feel like winning.
The barbarian column that had bypassed the Snowe dominion was moving south through the agricultural belt in the loose formation that highland march doctrine produced, the column's discipline relaxed by three days of uncontested movement through countryside whose garrison towns had surrendered without fighting after the thundermakers' first volley demonstrated that the towns' stone walls could not withstand the bombardment.
The king's scouts reported the barbarian column's position at dawn. Fairfax identified the opportunity: the column was strung out along three miles of provincial road, its rearguard separated from its main body by the distance that the supply wagons' slower pace created, the separation producing the gap that a striking force could exploit.
