Jackson was in close touch with Richmond now, and he sensed vastly increased interest in his little army by headquarters strategists. He had suggestive orders to make a show of strength toward the Potomac if the chance arose. Headquarters saw the prospect of striking fear into the North. General Joseph E. Johnston was almost deferential in orders. His language by no means commanded Jackson to disregard the trap now being built in his rear:
“If you can threaten Baltimore and Washington, do so,” the order read. “It may produce an important diversion.” But it continued: “Your movements, of course, depend upon the enemy’s strength in your neighborhood.”
So, despite growing dangers, Jackson hastened to further provoke the Federals, and sent his men to throw the Yankees from Harpers Ferry. During planning of the thrust he revealed taut nerves.
He was discussing the movement with Arnold Elzey, one of his most effective general officers. Elzey passed on to Jackson the report of some guerrillas, that the enemy had placed big guns, naval Dahlgren guns, on the heights at Harpers Ferry. Jackson snapped at him.
“Are you afraid of heavy guns?”
The commander of the brave Maryland troops flushed, but held his tongue, and went with his men to Harpers Ferry where, after an artillery duel and a brief skirmish, the Yankees were driven off, and Jackson’s column pursued as far as the village of Halltown. Here, at last, they were turned south for a retreat down the Shenandoah Valley.
There was one more bit of gallantry on the part of Turner Ashby to be reported to the commander: When the Federals had shot down his artillerymen, and a party of the enemy charged his field pieces, Ashby dismounted and, seizing a sponge-staff, loaded a gun and fired it into the midst of the oncoming men, until the survivors fled.
Jackson turned his attention to the wagons, for he had captured stores priceless to the Confederacy: quartermaster’s and sutler’s goods valued at $150,000; an endless array of medical supplies; thirty-four thousand pounds of food—bacon, flour, salt, sugar, hard bread, cheese; one hundred cattle, and hundreds of army horses. This in addition to the ninety-three hundred stands of small arms, chiefly new rifles, and the three thousand prisoners, seven hundred of whom he released on parole. Thus, though the people of the region were in the midst of harvest, he was forced to seize from them every vehicle capable of rolling, and down the Valley went his wagon train, twelve long miles of it.
On Friday of the same week, Jackson’s army was already moving back toward Winchester. It was a sultry, rain-swept day; and in the afternoon, when the General became sleepy, he lay under a big tree to escape the showers. He woke to find at his side Colonel Alec R. Boteler, a unique and valuable servant of the army.
Boteler was Jackson’s chief link with Richmond, and a man of influence. He divided his time between Jackson’s staff, of which he was an informal member, and the Confederate Congress, where he held a seat. He was an old friend, well educated, and a man of parts. Jackson trusted him in all matters.
The General, having stirred from sleep, saw Boteler roughing in a pencil sketch of him stretched beneath the tree. The artist left a description of the scene.
“Let me see what you have been doing there,” Jackson said. And he took the sketch, his eye wandering over it, indifferent to the quality of the drawing. He said nothing of the picture, the artist noted a bit ruefully, but said only, “My hardest tasks at West Point were the drawing lessons, and I could never do anything in that line to satisfy myself, or, indeed, anyone else.”
He then turned to the business at hand, and inviting Boteler to sit beside him, he began:
“I want you to go to Richmond for me, for more men. Banks is across the river at Williamsport, being reinforced from Pennsylvania. Saxton is in front of me, getting reinforcements from the railroad. I have just learned that Shields is near Front Royal, and Frémont is moving. You can see, I am nearly surrounded by a large force.”
Boteler asked the size of Jackson’s army, and without hesitation the General explained the disposition of his fifteen thousand men, and his hopes of being able, even now, to defeat the Federal forces nearest him. He then asked Boteler to press for heavy reinforcements from Richmond.
“If they will send me more men, to bring my force to 40,000, I can cross the Potomac, lift the seige of Richmond, and change the fighting front from the Potomac to the Susquehanna.”
Boteler prepared to leave for Richmond, going as far as Winchester in one of the army’s railroad cars, with Jackson at his side. They bumped along on the route of the army’s swarming retreat to the southward, until the General was aroused from his sleep in the afternoon to take a dispatch from the front. It was sobering news.
The troops he had left at Front Royal, the Twelfth Georgia, under Colonel Z. T. Conner, had been attacked by the men of General Shields, and had fallen back, after setting fire to three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of captured stores Jackson had accumulated with such care. Nor was that the worst of it. Colonel Conner had abandoned his command and had ridden to the rear as swiftly as possible. Fortunately one fearless officer was on hand, a sixty-year-old captain, William F. Brown, who, undismayed, marched the command away from the overwhelming Federal advance, to safety.
Jackson stared sleepily at the dispatch, crumpled it in his hand, and stared for a moment into the rain beyond the dirty windowpane. Well, Shields had cut the Valley pike at Front Royal, and that escape route was gone. The Federal was only twelve miles from Strasburg, too, and Jackson’s troops were at least forty-four miles from that point. He might well be caught between two strong armies, but if he doubted his ability to outmarch the enemy, he gave no indication. He went back to sleep.
Later, he revealed flashes of the grim humor which settled upon him.
As he rode among the troops in Winchester, Jackson passed near a boy lieutenant of Ashby’s cavalry who could not suppress his curiosity.
“General,” the lieutenant asked, “are the troops going back?”
“Don’t you see them?”
“Are they all going?”
This was too much for the suspicious commander. “Arrest that man as a spy,” he called to a colonel at his elbow.
The astounded boy seemed on the verge of fainting, when Colonel Ashby came up and saved him with a word: “He ain’t got much sense anyway, General.”
In the evening, back in his hotel room, Jackson dealt with Colonel Conner.
“How many men did you have killed, Colonel?”
“None.”
“And how many wounded?”
“None.”
Then, sharply, betraying some of the anger he felt at being robbed of the stores from the victories of Front Royal, Middle-town and the Valley pike, Jackson cried, “Do you call that a fight, man? You’re under arrest.”
Jackson turned to the details of a march which, if it could be accomplished, would be recorded as another of his miracles. His rear guard was almost sixty miles from Strasburg, where safety lay. The enemy’s vanguard was some fifty miles nearer that town. In addition to the vastly longer march he must make, Jackson had also to protect his wagons and his twenty-three hundred marching prisoners.
He sent out Ashby with sweeping orders: Cut off the Federal view at every roadway, every lane, every ford; engage the pickets, drive off cavalry, do all possible to confuse Shields and Frémont and to delay their junction. The horse artillery was to fight at every opportunity. In the flying horsemen and their guns he put his faith that his infantry could outmarch the enemy, five miles to one. Already, as he went to his room in Winchester for the evening, flashes of coming battle played in the country to the south.
Boteler said farewell to Jackson that night as he came by to get some papers meant for Richmond delivery. The colonel had ordered the hotel to send up a couple of glasses of whisky, which caused Jackson some concern.
“No, Colonel,” he said. “You must excuse me. I never drink intoxicating liquors.”
“I know, General, but this is a time when a stimulant
will do both of us good. Make an exception and join me.”
Finally Jackson sipped once or twice at the glass and asked, “Boteler, do you know why I abstain from drinking liquor?”
“No.”
“Because I like the taste of it so much. When I found that out, I made up my mind to do without it.”
Jackson left Winchester only when the army was far in front of him, at 2:30 P.M. Douglas thought the men looked sullen as they tramped along the macadamized road to the south, halting for their ten minutes in each hour and lying flat in the road, for Old Jack forced them to make the most of their rests, and would not permit sitting or standing.
The Maryland troops marched until 10 P.M. in the rain, without food, and had only dry crackers for breakfast. The Stonewall Brigade made thirty-five miles before halting at midnight, when the troops fell to the ground, exhausted. Jackson spent most of the night by General Taylor’s campfire. Taylor remembered:
“He was more communicative than I remember him before or after. He said Frémont, with a large force, was three miles west, and must be defeated in the morning. Shields was moving up Luray Valley, and might cross Massanutton to New Market, or continue south until he turned the mountain to fall upon our trains near Harrisonburg. The importance of preserving the immense trains, filled with captured stores, was great, and would engage much of his personal attention; while he relied on the army, under Ewell’s direction, to deal promptly with Frémont. This he told me in a low, gentle voice, and with many interruptions to afford time, as I thought and believe, for inward prayer.”
Dawn on Sunday, June first, was wet, fog-swept and lashed by occasional squalls of rain. There was sharp skirmishing through the day, but the enemy was slow and puzzling. Ewell’s men stabbed into the heavy woods where cannon smoke drifted low in the trees, to find only retreating Federals. Ewell growled, “I’m completely puzzled. Those damned fellers. I have driven back everything as far as their main body.… Jackson told me not to commit myself. I wish he were here now.… I’m sick of this fiddling about.”
Jackson pushed the troops on south, convinced that the enemy which fired on them from cover had no serious intentions of attack. He put Taylor’s men in the rear with orders to show no lights after nightfall.
The General had word from Winchester that Banks had crept back into that town, but the Federal could not possibly attack the rear of Jackson’s force that night. Frémont would wait until tomorrow; Shields had not yet threatened from the direction of Front Royal. It looked as if Jackson, with an audacity possible only because he gauged so well the enemy generals, had managed to drive down the Valley between the two armies of the Federals and might escape. Frémont was following Jackson down the west side of the Massanuttons, while Shields sped down the east side.
Late in the day, Jackson knew he was safe, for down the hills, all but wobbling on weary legs, came the rear guard of General Winder’s men, who had covered thirty-six miles in the day. Now there was nothing in the rear but Ashby’s cavalry screen. The Army of the Valley had concentrated in the face of the enemy. If the trap were sprung now, Shields and Frémont would catch nothing.
The Sunday night was terrible, however. Jackson drove the army along, determined to move into some new position known only to him. Orders went out to press toward New Market, for the race was on against the Federals, down opposite sides of the Massanutton range. Jackson heard no complaints, but these were plentiful in the ranks as the troops moved in a driving storm. The General met one officer whose command had become strung out in the hectic march.
“Colonel, why don’t you get your brigade together, keep it together, and move on?”
“It’s impossible, General. I can’t do it!”
“Don’t say impossible! Turn your command over to the next officer. If he can’t do it, I’ll find someone who can, if I have to take him from the ranks.”
The rear guard was charged by the enemy time and again, and there were occasional stampedes. Ewell’s division came down hillsides so steep—they were ankle-deep in mud—that the troops locked arms in ranks, to prevent falling. These men marched all night, until they reached Woodstock.
Taylor wrote long after: “The darkness was so intense that the road could not have been found but for the white limestone.… The white of the pike alone guided us along. Owls could not have found their way across the fields.”
The next day was scorching and the men suffered, for there was little water along the roadway now, and Old Jack pressed them without mercy.
After waiting once more for the Sabbath to pass, so that he would not desecrate it by causing mail to be carried, he wrote his wife:
I am again retiring before the enemy. They endeavored to get in my rear by moving on both flanks of my gallant army, but our God has been my guide and saved me from their grasp. You must not expect long letters from me in such busy times, but always believe that your husband never forgets his little darling.
Jackson had escaped the enemy pincers. He now began to entertain bold ideas once more. But before he could deal with either force of the Federals, he had to attend to an unpleasant detail. The cavalry was in trouble—the same old trouble.
The rear-guard actions had been severe as Jackson’s trailing regiments brushed across Frémont’s front. For several hours General Winder, with the Stonewall Brigade, had fought for his life against swarms of Union horsemen. Taylor had offered to countermarch to his aid, but Winder beat off the attacks, and finally Ashby came in with his troopers and ended the threat.
General Steuart, who had gone through such humiliating experiences about Winchester, had fought at Ashby’s side, and this time, more of his men had quailed, simply because they were poorly led. For one thing, the Twenty-seventh Virginia Regiment, mistaking the Second Virginia horsemen for Federals, poured a heavy fire into them, causing severe casualties.
Two colonels, Munford and Flournoy, went to General Ewell in indignation. They asked transfer of their regiments to Ashby’s command and, with Ewell’s approval, Jackson agreed. Without ceremony Steuart’s cavalry was placed under Ashby. Steuart was given an infantry brigade.
Jackson took one final precaution against a surprise attack by the Federals. He sent Colonel Stapleton Crutchfield, his new chief of ordnance, over the Massanuttons to see to the burning of two bridges over swift mountain streams. Jackson had the utmost confidence in this young man, a brilliant graduate of V.M.I., who performed his duties with a running fire of droll and witty comment, frequently spiced with Latin quotations. When Crutchfield reported the lone mountain crossing closed to the enemy, Jackson could relax for a time. The Union troops could not now surprise him with a thrust over the ridge, but would be forced to march the long way around, turning the mountain range at the south. And Jackson was already making plans to prevent their linking even there, by engaging each force in its turn.
Old Jack spent the night after the grueling march in a house near the village of Hawkinsville, and here had his final report of the rear-guard action from Colonel J. M. Patton. The officer reported that only one of the last attacking Federal party had escaped death or capture.
“I hate to see them shot down like that,” Patton said.
Jackson seemed not to notice this sentiment, and put several questions about the little skirmish. Finally, in his quiet drawl, he asked, “Colonel, why do you say that you saw those Federals fall with regret?”
They were so much braver than usual, Patton said. He had wished their lives could be spared.
There was fire in Jackson’s voice. “No. Shoot them all. I do not wish them to be brave.”
The General and his staff dried their uniforms before a fire, and as their clothing steamed, the young men smoked and ate and took quick drinks of whisky. Ashby entered, and the staff enjoyed him; he had just got his commission as brigadier general. Sandie Pendleton said seriously that Ashby should now expose himself less often, and give up his reckless manner of leading every charge.
Just a day before A
shby had led them a merry chase. Jackson had been handed a message late in the afternoon saying that the enemy had come upon the cavalry chief and were seriously threatening him. Jackson ran to his horse and, with a flying staff at his heels, went to the rear and at last came upon Ashby, who jogged unconcernedly in the road.
“Where is the enemy, Ashby?” Jackson asked.
The cavalryman said he supposed they had halted for the night; he had not seen a bluecoat for hours. Jackson showed him the dispatch which had brought them tearing through the rain to his aid. Ashby said that note had been written at eight o’clock in the morning, when he was indeed in trouble, but that he had long since driven off the attackers. The staff determined that the blame lay with an irresponsible courier who had carried the note all day before passing it to an innocent soldier for delivery. Jackson did not flame into anger as the staff expected.
“A water haul,” he said, and no more.
Ashby joked about the incident at headquarters; and when Pendleton continued to warn him against useless exposure in battle, Ashby said, “I don’t agree. I’m not the least afraid of any ball fired directly at me. They always miss. I’m afraid of the random shots—they always hit men for whom they’re not intended.”
The army moved along. One night Jackson, to the dismay of the staff, refused the offer of a big, comfortable house as headquarters because his soldiers had already pitched his tent. He tented in a lowland, and rain returned in the night. The General emerged long-faced in the morning, his uniform less presentable than usual, with shoes, papers and hats afloat in the currents of his tent. He went thankfully into a house for the next night.
5
CROSS KEYS
Jackson slowed his pace as he crossed the North Fork of the Shenandoah near the village of Mount Jackson, where he burned the only bridge on the main north-south road. The river was rising rapidly, and the pursuing Frémont, though he arrived with a bulky pontoon train, could not cross. The Federals had their bridge tossing on the current for a short time, but fresh rains drove them off with only a few troops put over, and Frémont was forced to cut his bridge and halt the chase.
They Called Him Stonewall Page 7