Stonewall Jackson's Little Sorrel

by Sharon B. Smith

Whether or not Smith really spoke so impertinently to the general, the story illustrates a fact that everyone in Jackson’s command knew. The beautiful stallion was fine for show, but the plain little gelding was what Jackson needed when the stakes were high. Still, Jackson enjoyed showing to the world that he had and could handle a magnificent horse.

  At about the time Superior arrived, Jackson loaned or, more probably gave, Big Sorrel to Beverly Tucker Lacy, recently appointed by Jackson to be chaplain of the Second Corps. The two had met in Lexington before the war, but it was during the quiet time at Moss Neck that Jackson realized that Lacy’s religious beliefs mirrored his own.

  Jim Lewis had often been permitted to ride the big sorrel and he soon discovered that the arrangement was to continue with Superior. The care of a stallion meant harder work, but Lewis, like Jackson, enjoyed being admired astride a good-looking mount.

  The winter months of 1863 proved to be exceptionally snowy with no grazing at all available to the horses of the Second Corps around Moss Neck. During some winters, the lack of snow cover meant that the dry survivors of the summer’s blades of green grass helped to fill equine bellies with volume if not nutrition. This particular winter there was almost nothing, and it was a terrible season for all the horses of the Army of Northern Virginia.

  As the favorite mount of a commanding general, Little Sorrel fared better than thousands of the army’s surviving horses. Most received far too little feed to rebuild their strength after the long, exhausting, but mostly successful campaign of 1862. The concentration of the army in response to the Union’s Fredericksburg offensive had devastated the supply of both feed and horses in central Virginia. The railroads ran erratically, often unable to carry hay from the agricultural regions within reach—the Shenandoah Valley and North Carolina. The quartermasters made an effort to carry hay by wagon, but the only horses big enough to haul heavily loaded wagons were the very ones that had been badly weakened by lack of feed.

  Robert E. Lee hoped there would be no new Federal offensive during the winter. Joseph Hooker replaced Ambrose Burnside as the commander of the Army of the Potomac and word came across the Rappahannock that he was busy reorganizing his army. Lee was so concerned about the condition of his horses that he took a great risk and decided to scatter elements of the army. Part of the cavalry was sent off to the Shenandoah Valley where they could find hay and grain and perhaps a little midwinter grazing.

  Artillery horses were sent east and west where some feed and forage was available. These were bigger animals, though less active than cavalry horses, and they needed a great deal of feed to have the strength to pull cannons. Some horses had to stay and suffer. Transportation horses, needed to haul horse feed and human food as well as military and medical supplies, remained and worked. Horses used by couriers for communication and officers’ mounts remained and also had to be fed.

  There was insufficient food for the soldiers too, so Lee took the most drastic step of all and sent half of James Longstreet’s First Corps, along with Longstreet himself, to southeastern Virginia with a double purpose. Longstreet was to find food for humans and forage for horses. His absence would also lessen the demand on the stores of edibles remaining in central Virginia. Nearly twenty thousand men and perhaps a thousand horses, Lee hoped, could live off the land by confiscating what they needed.

  The horses owned by Jackson, his other generals, and their staffs almost certainly received less feed than they wanted but more than the other horses of the corps enjoyed. All horses lose weight when they don’t get enough to eat, except, apparently, Little Sorrel. Henry Kyd Douglas was again impressed with the fact that Little Sorrel retained condition even with short rations. His endurance, Douglas reported, was wonderful. It was not the first time in the war that Little Sorrel had been hungry and amazed his human family with his ability to carry on regardless.

  Jim Lewis had already become famous among Jackson’s staff for finding and cooking food for them, no matter how short the supply appeared to be. Most likely, he managed to obtain forage for Little Sorrel and his other equine charges as well during this long winter.

  By mid-March, with a spring campaign in sight, the time required to travel between Moss Neck and Lee’s headquarters south of Fredericksburg became burdensome. Jackson decided to move his own headquarters closer. He chose land owned by the prominent Yerby family just southwest of Lee’s headquarters tents. Thomas Yerby’s mansion, known as Belvoir, stood just a mile and a half from Lee’s headquarters. Jackson, now that the weather was better, chose to pitch his tents even closer and settled less than a mile from Lee.

  Belvoir had already served as a field hospital during the battle of Fredericksburg, and Jackson had visited the house himself on December 14 to see the dying Maxcy Gregg. Two weeks after Jackson moved to the Yerby property, Lee became ill with the first signs of the heart disease that he would live with for the rest of his life and spent several days in the Yerby mansion.

  Jackson moved into Belvoir himself for nine days in late April. His wife Anna and infant daughter, Julia, arrived for a visit on April 20, and the three, plus a nursemaid, stayed at Belvoir. Presumably, Jim Lewis was given lodging nearby as well. Each day Jackson rode the short distance to his headquarters to work, usually on Little Sorrel.

  One morning he rode back to Belvoir from his headquarters, leaving Little Sorrel and returning on Superior with the intention of impressing his wife. She was indeed impressed.

  “After bringing him up to the steps of the house and showing him off,” she wrote later, “he remounted him and galloped away at such a John Gilpin speed that his cap was soon borne off by the velocity.” John Gilpin was a popular comic figure in a ballad about a man carried at breakneck speed through the English countryside by a runaway horse. In the end, however, Anna Jackson, like everyone else, was more impressed by the intelligence and good nature of Little Sorrel than the beauty and speed of Superior.

  The nine-day visit would have presented Anna with the opportunity to ride Little Sorrel, but she never mentions doing it. It was now obvious to Anna that her husband would never give up Little Sorrel until the war was over, and possibly not even then. She must have thought that Jackson may never have intended to give her Little Sorrel but somehow didn’t want to admit that an ordinary-looking little horse appealed to him so much.

  The idyll for both soldiers and horses ended on April 29. Well before dawn, Jackson was awakened at Belvoir by Major Samuel Hale of General Jubal Early’s staff. Early’s division was stationed along the Rappahannock River in Fredericksburg and Hale told him that Union forces had begun crossing the river.

  Chapter 11

  Triumph and Tragedy

  Stonewall Jackson had enjoyed the approval that came to him whenever he rode the magnificent Superior in public during the quiet winter months. Although two years of war had accustomed him to receiving respect for his talent for war, admiration of his appearance was something new and welcome. But the renewal of war had now moved from prospect to reality, and the horse he called for on the morning of April 29 was Little Sorrel.

  Even so, Jackson dressed in his handsome new gray coat, the gift he received seven months earlier from the always well-dressed J. E. B. Stuart. Little Sorrel also benefited from the equipment given to Jackson over the winter season, dashing off to the opening of the 1863 campaign in a new bridle with a yellow noseband that nearly matched the gold armbands on Stuart’s gift coat.

  Horse and rider traveled first to Jackson’s headquarters near the railroad depot at Hamilton’s Crossing, a trip of less than five minutes from Belvoir. Most likely Jackson urged Little Sorrel into his impressively fast pace, not significantly slower than a gallop yet much safer to horse and rider in the foggy predawn light. At his headquarters Jackson issued orders to his staff, who had been awakened earlier by Samuel Hale.

  Jackson dispatched his aide-de-camp James Power Smith to inform General Lee of the Federal cr
ossing, and he alerted couriers to the possible need to inform his division commanders that Union troops were coming. Jackson, still astride Little Sorrel, moved forward to see for himself what had happened.

  He and Lee had expected an attempted river crossing from Union forces, though they had no idea where along the thirty-mile front it would occur. The Rappahannock River itself had formed a useful defensive line for months, but the Confederate troops were thinly stretched over that distance and their commanders knew the line was vulnerable. At a dozen or more points the river could be forded on foot or crossed with pontoon bridges, awkward but highly portable with the seemingly endless supply of new horses that the Union quartermasters enjoyed.

  At first light that misty morning, Jubal Early deployed his troops to face the advancing Union forces, but he commanded only four brigades. The question he, Jackson, and Lee would have to answer was whether this was Joseph Hooker’s main assault or a feint, a mere ruse to disguise the primary crossing of the Rappahannock miles to the north and west. If it was the principal assault, the bulk of the Army of Northern Virginia would have to be moved in. If not, deploying too many soldiers here could lead to disaster upriver.

  When Jackson arrived at the front, the soldiers of the Georgia and Louisiana brigades arrayed there immediately noticed two things, one unexpected and one familiar. The unexpected was the commander’s appearance, at least in dress.

  “He was clad in a new uniform,” marveled Captain William J. Seymour of General Harry Hays’s Louisiana brigade, presenting, Seymour said, “an unusually spruce appearance.” But Seymour’s more important observation was that Jackson and his horse stood for many minutes inspecting the Federal deployment. “As musket balls whizzed about him,” Seymour said, “Stonewall calmly studied the position of the enemy through his binoculars.” Beneath him, Little Sorrel stood just as calmly, ignoring as usual the clamor of returned fire and the smell of gunpowder.

  A thorough examination told Jackson that the Federal troops were firing and returning fire, but they were not advancing much beyond their river crossing. Jackson turned his horse. Urging Little Sorrel into his fastest gait, Jackson quickly traveled the short distance to Lee’s headquarters. If it had been his choice, the always-aggressive Jackson might have decided to meet the advance with attack. But the decision belonged to Lee.

  Lee agreed with Jackson’s idea to consolidate the rest of his corps in front of the Federal crossing but still thought the real attack would likely come elsewhere. A few days earlier, Stuart had reported that some Union troops were headed north and west, but not across the Rappahannock. The cavalry chief thought they might be moving to the Shenandoah Valley. Perhaps crossing south of Fredericksburg was a diversion to keep Lee from pursuing those troops.

  Jackson spent the rest of the day supervising the recall of his corps from as far as eighteen miles away. He did make a brief and rainy visit to the front to confirm that the Union troops remained stationary, but most of his work was done at his tent headquarters.

  Little Sorrel had an easy day, nibbling on what new grass was left around Second Corps headquarters, where horses had been kept since December. He had already put on weight during the previous nine days at Belvoir, where the cool, wet spring had led to flourishing pastures. At no time during the next few weeks was Little Sorrel referred to as “raw-boned.” It was inaccurate during the thinnest of times and entirely untrue now.

  As Jackson watched and planned, Lee finally received several pieces of information that gave him a better idea of what lay ahead for the Army of Northern Virginia. Separate reports from Stuart and Richard Anderson, commander of the troops on his far left wing, told him that Union forces had indeed crossed the Rappahannock and its tributary the Rapidan at several points. He now knew that Hooker intended to get around the left flank of the Confederate troops. The goal may have been to cut communications and supply routes from Richmond, or it may have been more sinister. Preparations became more urgent.

  After two years of war, Little Sorrel was quite familiar with what happened during the hours or days after battle became inevitable: prepare and then wait. Jim Lewis had Little Sorrel and Jackson’s other horses as ready as they could be. Lewis would have checked their feet and made sure that their shoes were well set. A horse’s hooves couldn’t survive a battle without the protection of well-fitting and well-secured horseshoes. A lost shoe could lead to lameness at a critical time.

  The red horse’s tough Narragansett Pacer feet stayed sound throughout the war, but just like every other horse, he often wore out or lost shoes. Most divisions included professional farriers, both to fit premade wrought iron shoes and fashion custom ones. But the farriers’ portable forges were often in use to repair iron on wagons and artillery pieces, so many cavalry troopers and officers carried enough equipment themselves to reset loose shoes and do minor repairs. Jackson, as a corps commander, wouldn’t have been expected to do this. Jim Lewis was, and did.

  Lewis would have checked other equipment because a broken girth or stirrup leather could also have deadly consequences. Lewis would have struggled to keep hooves and leather as dry as possible, difficult work in the rainy conditions of the night of April 29. The rain continued through the night, finally stopping by the morning of April 30. But the new day was foggy and damp.

  It was to be a day of decision, and Jackson and Little Sorrel left early for Lee’s headquarters. After a few minutes inside Lee’s tent, the two generals emerged and mounted their horses—Jackson on Little Sorrel and Lee perhaps not on his famous gray Traveller. After the war, Lee remembered that he had been on Traveller on the final day of the battle, suggesting that he may have used different horses on other days.

  Little Sorrel’s companion that day may have been the small chestnut mare Lucy Long—like Jackson’s coat, a gift of J. E. B. Stuart. She was in Lee’s retinue during that period, and the commander enjoyed her quiet nature and common sense. Traveller was a magnificent horse in battle but possessed a rough trot and an inability to stand still during quiet periods. “He fretted a good deal,” remembered Robert E. Lee Jr. after the war. If the other horse was indeed Lucy Long, Little Sorrel would have been pleased. Traveller was known to be hard on other horses, sometimes kicking and nipping if they got too close. Traveller’s famous good looks would not have impressed Little Sorrel as they did his human observers.

  From the high ridge overlooking the Rappahannock near the Fredericksburg crossing, Lee and Jackson studied the Union regiments on each side of the river. They both realized that the Union forces here weren’t as strong as they first thought, weaker in fact than Jackson’s corps. Jackson urged attack, but Lee was more convinced than ever that the main attack would come above Fredericksburg.

  Then, Jackson said, an assault here might force Hooker to send help. At the very least, it would upset the Union commander’s plans for his upriver attack. Lee agreed that Jackson might attack if he believed it would work. In the end, after he and Little Sorrel rode the front line again for further examination, Jackson decided it was not a good idea to attack in Fredericksburg. He and Lee spent the rest of the daylight hours in Lee’s headquarters tent.

  “Smiling and elated,” according to chaplain Beverly Tucker Lacy, Jackson returned to his own headquarters in the evening. The prospect of battle always made him feel that way. Little Sorrel, sensitive to his owner as all good horses are, undoubtedly felt some of the euphoria. Staff members called to the headquarters tent also noticed the “high spirits” and “good humor,” as Henry Kyd Douglas described Jackson’s mood.

  Lee’s orders were for Jackson to move the bulk of his troops west, leaving at daybreak the next day, May 1, to reinforce the weak left wing near the place where Hooker appeared to be converging his forces. It was an otherwise insignificant crossroads known as Chancellorsville, which Jackson now knew, was where his next major battle would be fought.

  Oddly, Jackson chose to ride another mile to Belvoi
r that night to visit the Yerby family, where he had spent nine days with Anna and his baby. It was late, though. Anna had already left for Richmond, and the family was no longer awake. Jackson returned to headquarters. Little Sorrel was now finished for the day, left to the care of Jim Lewis for unsaddling and grooming, while Jackson worked through the night. He sent couriers to his four division commanders. Jubal Early was told to remain at the site of the Federal crossing, making his division look bigger than it was, while the other three were told that they would begin their march to battle at three o’clock in the morning, several hours earlier than the daybreak departure that Lee had ordered.

  Hooker, Jackson thought, might strike early, and he wanted to make sure that he was at the front line of the Confederate left wing in time to attack rather than defend. Always attack; defend only if you must.

  Another white fog lay over the road to Chancellorsville as the first units of the column marched. That, and the silence demanded by Jackson, masked the massive movement of troops that should have been visible under a nearly full moon. Union forces lay just a few miles away, so Jackson marched the column to the south at first, as a diversion in case spies were watching, then turned them west toward Chancellorsville.

  At nine o’clock in the morning, General Hooker received a report that a large column of Confederate infantry was moving upriver, but the report was vague and, he thought, indicated only that Lee was reinforcing existing positions. Hooker had no idea of the grave threat he faced.

  Jackson and Little Sorrel traveled at the head of the column, so far ahead that they reached the front well in advance of the marching divisions. No memoir or other eyewitness account of the Chancellorsville campaign mentions Jackson aboard any horse other than Little Sorrel during the four days of preparation and battle. It would have made no sense for him to choose the handsome Superior, a horse that was untried in battle and had already shown himself to be afraid to cross water. Jackson may still have owned Big Sorrel at this point, but that horse was less comfortable to ride during a march and less trustworthy under fire. Little Sorrel was never aggressive, but in almost every other way he perfectly mirrored his rider. The choice was obvious.