Last Cavaliers Trilogy

by Gilbert, Morris

  It took all day for Jackson’s corps to flank the six-mile front of the Union army. Yancy received reports that in spite of the fact that Jackson moved his ten-mile-long train on a track unknown to either side until the previous night, Stonewall was still spotted at least three times, and his moves were reported to Hooker.

  Hooker had received the reports, including an assault General Sickles had made on the Confederate rear. From the number of ambulances and wagons in the train, Hooker jumped to the conclusion that the entire Confederate Army was retreating. His staff officers believed it, too, and they relaxed at their headquarters at Wilderness Tavern, sitting on the porch drinking toddies, ignoring all further reports of Jackson’s movement.

  Jackson got his troops into position on Hooker’s unguarded right in the late afternoon. The Federals who were in plain sight of Jackson’s column were cooking supper. Jackson looked at his watch, and automatically Yancy checked his. It was 5:15 p.m. Major Eugene Blackford rode up, coming from the front.

  “The lines are ready, sir,” he reported.

  Jackson turned to General Rodes, whom he had selected to lead the attack. “Are you ready, General Rodes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jackson’s voice was low and slow. “You can go forward then.”

  Bugles sounded, men started running, regimental flags flew, and the savage Rebel yell on the air was like a series of explosions.

  The enemy, obviously terrified by the sudden onslaught, turned and ran. Hooker’s right flank rolled like a tidal wave before them. Jackson’s troops had smashed the first line and held the high ground. The army was as panicked as they were at First Manassas. Like wild animals they fled. Plunging, panting, pushing, trampling, they ran into the deep thickets of the wilderness.

  The victorious Confederates ruthlessly pursued them. But darkness came, and in the vast entangled forest, Jackson’s attack lost its momentum. Battle lines came apart, officers were lost, men got scattered, communications broke down. The Confederates had no choice but to stop and regroup.

  Jackson was impatient. As always he wanted to press forward, to pursue his prey and destroy them. He halted on the Plank Road, where he had observed the main body of the enemy retreating. “Lieutenant Tremayne,” he called in a low voice.

  Yancy hurried to him.

  “Go to General Hill; I don’t have time to write out orders. You tell him to move forward, relieve General Rodes’s men, and prepare for a night attack. Bring me back his answer with all speed.”

  “Yes, sir.” Yancy turned and galloped back toward the edge of the wilderness to General Hill’s command.

  He found him, having anticipated Jackson’s orders, already forming his men up to march. He was wearing his red flannel battle shirt, which always brought strong memories of Gaines’ Mill, when he was wounded, to Yancy’s mind. He related Jackson’s orders, and Hill answered, “Ride back to General Jackson and relieve his mind. My men are already on the move, and I expect them to reach General Rodes within the hour. I’m going to ride forward shortly to join General Jackson in scouting the enemy lines.”

  Yancy hurried back to the Plank Road.

  General Jackson had gone slowly ahead along the unfamiliar ground in the strong moonlight. With them rode Lieutenant Joe Morrison—Anna’s brother—Lieutenant Wynn of Jackson’s staff, and his signal officer, Captain Wilbourn. Softly they moved, quieting their mounts, whispering, for they didn’t know how close they were to enemy lines. Silently, cautiously, they crept forward. It was about nine o’clock, and the full moon rode high. Then, in the near distance, they heard axes ringing and trees being felled. The enemy was strengthening his breastworks.

  They were crossing right in front of the Eighteenth North Carolina, who were lined parallel to the road. Earlier that evening they had heard rumors that a Union cavalry attack was forming along their front. As they stared through the thick brush, they saw men—officers, mounted officers in fine uniforms. A quiet order was given, “Fire, and repeat fire.”

  Musket fire barked along the quiet road.

  Little Sorrel reared and twisted right, then carried Stonewall Jackson into the depths of the wilderness.

  “Cease firing, men!” General A. P. Hill, who had just that instant caught up with Jackson and Yancy and the others, thundered out through the woods.

  Joe Morrison shouted, “Cease firing, cease firing! You’re firing at your own men!”

  “That’s a lie! Pour it on ’em, boys!” It was never recorded who the officer that gave the firing orders was.

  Another volley rang out. Jackson reeled in pain and lost Little Sorrel’s reins. She plunged into the brush, and Jackson was hit soundly on the forehead by a low-hanging branch. His right hand had been shot. With his left he picked up Little Sorrel’s reins and guided her back to the Plank Road, where his frantic escort still was. When he reached them he was slumped over the saddle, bent almost double.

  Yancy and Lieutenant Wynn hurried to him and pulled him down, gently setting him on his feet. Then, slowly, supporting him, they took him to a small tree by the road and made him lie down beneath it for safety’s sake.

  Captain Wilbourn hurried, unafraid, toward the Confederate line of muskets that had shot at them, seeking their commanding officer. Lieutenant Wynn went to try to find an ambulance.

  Yancy took off his frock coat and was rolling it up to make a pillow for the general’s head, when General A. P. Hill rode up and threw himself off his horse. He hurried to Jackson and said painfully, “Oh, I tried to stop their firing. General, are you in much pain?”

  “It’s very painful,” Jackson answered. “I think my arm is broken. I think all my wounds came from my own men.” In the wash of sterile moonlight, Jackson’s long face was deadly pale, the gash on the broad forehead colored a gory black.

  Major General A. P. Hill threw himself down by Jackson and drew his head onto his lap.

  Yancy reflected that it might be said that General Hill was Jackson’s bitterest enemy in the army. Through the last two years, they had argued rancorously. Jackson had put Hill under arrest. Hill had made a list of charges against Jackson and submitted them to General Lee. Jackson had accused Hill no less than three times of neglect of duty. Even a few days before they had enjoined this battle with Hooker, Jackson and Hill were still squabbling.

  Yancy, of course, knew all this. All of Second Corps did. Now he watched in wonder as the hotheaded and acrimonious Hill ever so gently drew off Jackson’s gauntlets, the right one filled with blood, and then removed his sword and belt.

  Captain Wilbourn returned, evidently unable to find any officer, and the enlisted men refused to leave the battle line to carry a litter for, as Captain Wilbourn had discreetly said, “a friend of mine that is wounded.” Above all they didn’t want the men to know that it was Stonewall Jackson, or morale would likely hit solid rock bottom.

  Lieutenant Wynn returned and reported that though he couldn’t find an ambulance nearby, he had gotten word to the nearest brigade, which was General Pender’s, to send their surgeon. “I was afraid to go all the way back to Chancellorsville to get Dr. McGuire,” he said anxiously. “I knew Dr. Barr could make it here much faster.”

  Jackson murmured, “Very good.” Then, looking up at Hill, who still cradled his head, he whispered, “Is he a skillful surgeon, Hill?”

  “He stands high in his brigade,” Hill assured him. “We will have him see to you until Dr. McGuire can come.”

  Jackson seemed satisfied. Vaguely he looked up at the glowing night sky and murmured, “My own men.”

  Dr. Barr arrived and examined Jackson. He had been wounded three times—one bullet in the left shoulder, another in the left forearm, and one in the right palm. Captain Wilbourn had tied a handkerchief above the wound in his forearm as a tourniquet and had torn up a shirt to fashion a sling. He had also put strips of cloth around Jackson’s right hand. “The wounds are already beginning to clot,” Dr. Barr said, “so I don’t believe any additional bandaging is nee
ded right now. But he must be taken to a field hospital as quickly as possible.”

  Hill, who as a major general was the senior officer, ordered Barr back to his brigade. Sounds of firing and shouts of, “Halt, surrender!” sounded in the woods. The booming of artillery sounded closer, and the shells began to light up the woods very near to them. Hill tenderly slipped Jackson’s head aside then stood. Now that General Jackson was wounded, he was next in command. General Hill was the only other major general in the field that night. “I’m going to go form the troops and meet the attack, General Jackson. And I will do my utmost to keep the men from knowing that you are wounded.”

  “Thank you,” Jackson said faintly.

  Hill left one of his staff officers, Captain Benjamin Leigh, to help, and another officer, Lieutenant James Smith, had joined them. It took six to carry a litter, so Lieutenant Morrison finally collared two soldiers and made them help. They had four rearing, stamping, spooked horses, so it was decided that Captain Wilbourn and Yancy must lead them, for no one could control Midnight but Yancy.

  Once one of the litter bearers dropped his side because he had been shot through both arms. Joe Morrison managed to keep the litter from dropping. Then shells started sailing over their heads, screaming their death song, and by the roadside broken branches and young saplings were crashing to the ground. The other soldier simply lay his side of the litter down and fled. As gently as they could, Morrison, Wynn, Leigh, and Smith laid the litter down as the tornado of fire—canister, grape, and minié balls—continued.

  Leigh ventured into the fiery woods and asked every man that he encountered for help, but they either ignored him and kept firing toward the enemy lines or they would melt back into the shadows. Finally, frustrated, Leigh went to a firing line and yelled, “General Jackson is wounded! We must have help getting him to safety!” Instantly he was surrounded by men, already fighting for the honor. Leigh chose the two stoutest, and they returned to the litter. Under heavy fire but without flinching, they and Yancy and Wilbourn went through the wilderness.

  Finally they found an ambulance to transport the general to Reverend Melzi Chancellor’s house, where Dr. McGuire waited. He joined Jackson in the ambulance and knelt by the litter. “I hope you are not badly hurt, General,” he said in his customary kindly tone.

  Jackson answered clearly, with no sign of fear, “I am badly injured, doctor. I fear I’m dying. I’m glad you’ve come. I think the place in my shoulder is still bleeding.”

  McGuire attended him as best he could in the jolting ambulance. It was close to eleven o’clock before they reached the Second Corps field hospital. Dr. Harvey Black, the chief surgeon, had heard the grievous news of Jackson’s injury, and he had arranged for a special tent to be set up for him and had it warmed. They carried Jackson in and settled him on a comfortable cot, covered with warm blankets. Slowly he regained some color, and his short, painful breaths eased. Two other doctors were in attendance.

  Dr. McGuire told him, “We must examine you, General.”

  Jackson nodded stiffly. It was obvious that he was controlling the pain with his iron will, though Dr. McGuire had given him whiskey and morphia.

  McGuire continued, “We will give you chloroform so that you will have no pain. These gentlemen will help me. We might find bones badly broken, General, so that the only course might be amputation.” McGuire paused then asked quietly, “If that is our conclusion, do you want us to go on with the operation?”

  Jackson’s voice was weak, but the answer was firm. “Certainly, McGuire. Do for me whatever you think best.”

  One of the doctors spread a soothing salve over Jackson’s face to protect his skin from the acrid chemical. Then he folded a cloth into a cone over his face and dropped chloroform onto it, the heavy, bitter odor permeating the room. The general breathed deeply several times and murmured, “What an infinite blessing. Blessing. Blessing…Bless…”

  The minié ball was just under the skin of his right hand, and McGuire removed it. He rolled it in his palm and sighed. “A smooth-bore Springfield. Our troops.”

  It was indeed necessary to amputate Jackson’s left arm. The skilled surgeons, each of whom had performed this operation hundreds of times in the past two years of war, accomplished it in record time.

  The general woke up a couple of times but slept the rest of the night peacefully.

  The next day was Sunday, May 3. It was a pleasant, sweetly clear day. All of the fruit trees were blooming—apple, pear, cherry, and peach. Their delicate scents floated on the still air.

  General Jackson’s faithful chaplain, Reverend B. T. Lacy, led a small funeral procession of a few of Jackson’s aides and staff officers to his family estate nearby, Ellwood. Yancy trailed behind, exhausted because he had not been able to sleep for worry about the general.

  The solemn procession went to the Lacy family burial plot, where a very small grave had been dug. Reverend Lacy and the men said the Lord’s Prayer. And then they reverently interred Stonewall Jackson’s crushed arm.

  The Sabbath was always a good day for the general. He awoke and ate a light breakfast and was cheerful. He sent Yancy with a dispatch for General Lee, just a few lines about his wound and the victorious attack the previous night. He visited with Reverend Lacy and told him that he had thought he was on the point of death when he had fallen on the litter, had prayed, and had immediately felt the peace of the Lord enter him, and he still knew that peace. Lieutenant Smith, another of Jackson’s young aides, came in with some reports of the ongoing battle, and Jackson received them intelligently.

  Yancy rode as if he were being chased to General Lee’s headquarters. He didn’t want to be away from General Jackson for even a minute. General Lee read Jackson’s few scrawled lines, his handsome face grave. Then he quickly wrote a note and gave it to Yancy to take back to the general. Again Yancy pushed Midnight to his fastest gallop, a ride so smooth it was almost dreamy when he stretched out so elegantly.

  Yancy brushed by the aides and officers gathered outside the tent and went in to Jackson. After all, he was the general’s courier, and he had the right to deliver his dispatches to him. “General Lee sent this, sir,” he said.

  Jackson said, “Please read it to me, Lieutenant Tremayne.”

  Yancy read:

  General,

  I have just received your note telling me that you were wounded. I cannot express my regret at this occurrence. Could I have directed events, I should have chosen for the good of the country to be disabled in your stead. I congratulate you on your victory, which is due to your skill and energy.

  Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

  R. E. Lee, General

  Jackson looked embarrassed. Turning slightly away, he said in a choked voice, “General Lee is very kind. But he should give the praise to God.”

  That night Jackson slept peacefully without waking up and awoke Monday morning feeling well, and he ate well.

  Early on, Dr. McGuire had a note from General Lee advising him to move the general to the rear. The Federals were threatening to cross the Rappahannock at a ford nearby, and they might drive in the direction of the field hospital.

  Jackson blithely said, “If the enemy does come, I will not fear them. I have always been kind to their wounded, and I’m sure they would be kind to me.”

  The doctors were still discussing whether it would do more harm than good to move Jackson, when they received another note from General Lee that evening. It was peremptory in tone, which was unusual for the courteous general. He ordered them to move Jackson.

  The next day they put General Jackson in an ambulance, and Yancy packed up his bedroll in preparation for leaving. Captain Wilbourn was returning to the front, and he came to speak to Yancy as he was saddling Midnight. Yancy came to attention and saluted.

  “I know that you and Mrs. Jackson are friends, and General Jackson does seem to have a closer relationship to you than to the other aides,” Captain Wilbourn said. “But, Lieutenant Tremayn
e, do you not feel that you should return to duty?”

  “Sir, I am on duty,” Yancy answered, staring straight ahead. “I am General Stonewall Jackson’s courier.”

  Captain Wilbourn stared at him for a moment, and then his stern face softened. “I see. Carry on, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Engineers went ahead of the general’s train, grubbing up roots, removing logs and branches, digging up jutting rocks, and filling in sinkholes and ruts to make the ride in the spartan ambulance as smooth as possible. Reverend Lacy, Dr. McGuire, and Lieutenant Smith rode with him. Yancy rode behind, with Jim driving a cart that had General Jackson’s belongings in it.

  The rule of the road was that the heavier vehicles had the right of way. When the ambulance driver tried to make teamsters pull aside, all he got for his trouble were harsh refusals. But when they were told that it was Stonewall Jackson being transported, they ran their wagons into the ditch, hopped out, and stood bareheaded, some of them in tears as the ambulance passed. From them the word passed quickly up the road that “Old Jack” was coming.

  They also passed many men, veterans of Second Corps who were very lightly wounded and were walking to the field hospital. They shouted friendly messages to him, and many of them cried out that they wished they had been wounded instead of the general.

  All along the road now hundreds of people gathered. Yancy searched their faces and saw in them the same reverence and sorrow that those who knew him well felt. Men stood with hats in hand; women bowed their heads and wept. Many people now came with gifts, whatever delicacies their meager farms could offer. Yancy and Jim collected pails of milk, cakes, pies, honey, dried fruits, bags of fried chicken, and fresh biscuits until the wagon was filled to overflowing. Jackson was endearingly surprised and grateful at the attention.