He could look back to errors and oversights on the part of the staff, artillery, cavalry and himself. But he had attempted to build on the errors. And on the western battlefields which he was preparing to leave, he had struck the war’s hardest blows against Federal morale: first, against Lincoln and his Washington advisers; second, against the Federal field commanders in the Valley; third, against the fine regiments of Union soldiers which, so poorly led as to be cut to pieces by superior tactics, often lost heart and gave way to panic. Jackson’s very name was now worth many Confederate divisions. In his presence, the Federal anxieties had steadily increased, and Union strategy had been seriously altered. In the praise falling upon the leader and the Valley army from all sides, it could be seen that the Confederacy recognized its most accomplished soldiers.
Jackson could now speak to Imboden of his methods, so often demonstrated in the Valley:
Always mystify. Mislead and surprise the enemy if possible. And when you strike and overcome him, never let up in pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow, for an army routed, if hotly pursued, becomes panic-stricken, and can then be destroyed by half their number.
Another rule—never fight against heavy odds, if by any possible maneuvering you can hurl your own forces on only a part, and that the weakest part, of your enemy and crush it. Such tactics will win every time, and a small army may thus destroy a large one in detail, and repeated victory will make it invincible.
Struggling up the mountain this night, the army felt little of the spirit of invincibility. The rain continued; and when they camped in Brown’s Gap, the wind reached the men. The darkness was intense. One corporal, Edward Moore of the Rockbridge Artillery, recalled dolefully that he made his way up the hill by following a grisly caisson. A soldier of the Second Virginia, his head blown off by a cannon shot and a white handkerchief tied over his shoulders, had been strapped to the carriage. Moore and his companions trudged along, with eyes on the bobbing white blur. The night was uncomfortable, but morning saw the army moving down into a pleasant valley and warming weather. There was no sign of the enemy.
Before Jackson left the scene of his last battle in the Valley, he had clashed with his quartermaster, John Harman. He had told Harman to glean the field of muskets and all else of value, but muskets in particular. Harman reported that he had completed the task. Many of the guns, he said, looked like those of his own men. Jackson shouted with an anger revealing this as a sore subject with him.
“The enemy has thousands of weapons like them,” he said. “I want to hear no more such talk—and never from an officer!”
“I won’t be talked to like that,” Harman said. “I will give you my resignation this instant.”
The quartermaster stalked out angrily, despite Jackson’s call. The General was finally able to explain that he had for months been vexed by stories that Confederate soldiers were throwing away their arms, and that he had lost his temper upon hearing the tale from Harman. He refused to accept the resignation and Harman, his wrath still smoldering, agreed to remain in the service.
Jackson’s mind turned to Richmond, where Lee’s dispatches beckoned him. From afar, even to the conqueror of the Valley, the scene was dazzling. The scale of battle would be much vaster than he had known in the Shenandoah, thus the opportunity for glory would be greater. He knew well the chief of the enemy forces, McClellan, his West Point classmate. And he had troops keen for fight. They had struck hard in the Valley, and they could, of course, perform equally well in the east.
McClellan’s huge army lay below Richmond after weeks of fighting its way up the Peninsula from Yorktown. Lee could hardly hope to drive it back without the aid of Jackson, and he must conceal Jackson’s coming as long as possible. To that end, he sent reinforcements to the Valley commander. These were the troops of General Whiting, which marched across the state to meet Stonewall just as he was moving eastward. There were rumors set afloat that a big offensive was planned for the Valley. Even General Whiting was left in the dark. When Lee called for secrecy, Jackson responded wholeheartedly.
Whiting had reported to Jackson at Port Republic, in ignorance of the developing plan. There was a pleasant enough greeting for the commander of fresh and veteran brigades, but the strangest and most perfunctory conversation: the weather, springtime, roads from Richmond, the absence of the enemy. Whiting returned to his troops at Staunton in a flaming temper.
“Jackson treated me like a dog. It’s an outrage!”
Surely the commander was polite, John Imboden suggested, for Jackson was never less than civil to officers.
“Oh, hang him! He was polite enough. But not one word—not after marching all this way, hurrying to him. Not a whisper of an order, or a word about his plans. Not even to me, after all this!
“Do you know what I got out of him, in the end? Why, he simply told me to come back here to Staunton, and he would send orders. I hadn’t the slightest notion what they would be. He treated me like a child, I tell you. I believe he hasn’t more sense than my horse!”
By breakfast time the hot-tempered Whiting was confirmed in his opinion. He had a brief order from Jackson: he was to board the train and move to Gordonsville, at once. Whiting roared once more.
“I told you he was a fool, didn’t I? Why, I just came through Gordonsville day before yesterday, and now he sends me back east.”
Old Jack passed a strict order that no soldier was even to mention the plans of the army, and this air of mystery in a state of ignorance afforded the troops several days of raucous jests. They trapped Jackson himself.
He rode among the men one morning and saw one of Hood’s soldiers who had wandered into an orchard, where he had climbed a cherry tree and was gobbling ripe fruit. Old Jack rode to him.
“Where are you going, soldier?”
“I don’t know.”
“What command are you in?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, what state are you from?”
“I don’t know.”
Jackson called to another soldier. “What’s the meaning of this?”
“Well, Old Jack and Old Hood passed orders yesterday that we didn’t know a durned thing till after the next fight, and we’re keeping our mouths shut.”
Jackson laughed and trotted away.
On June thirteenth, Jackson declared a day of rest for the troops and posted a proclamation:
The fortitude of the troops under fatigue and their valor in action have again, under the blessing of divine Providence, placed it in the power of the commanding general to congratulate them on the victories of June 8 and 9.
While beset on both flanks by two boastful armies, you have escaped their toils, inflicting successively crushing blows upon each of your pursuers. Let a few more such efforts be made, and you may confidently hope that our beautiful valley will be cleansed from the pollution of the invader’s presence.
He called for a period of thanksgiving and “divine service in all regiments.”
On the same day, he called the tireless Colonel Boteler into headquarters, and once more sent him to Richmond to ask for reinforcements so that Jackson could invade the North. Boteler was to deliver the message verbally to Lee, assuring him that Jackson was ready to move to Richmond, but suggesting that the Valley army, turned loose above the Potomac, would bring the North up howling, demanding that McClellan’s grand army be brought home to defend native soil.
“If they will only give me 60,000 men,” he said in his squeaky voice. “I will go right on to Pennsylvania. I will not go down the Valley; I don’t want the people there to be harassed. I will go with 40,000 if the President will give them to me.
“My route will be along the east of the Blue Ridge—I ought not to have told you even that. But in two weeks I could be at Harrisburg.”
He was afire with the plan, but did not lose sight of Lee’s primary interest in the trenches about Richmond. He had written: “Circumstances greatly favor my moving to Richmond in accordance with your plan. I wi
ll remain if practicable in this neighborhood until I hear from you, and rest the troops who are greatly fatigued.”
Only Boteler knew of Jackson’s reincarnated scheme of invasion. The staff officers could do more than guess at their destination. For five days, in any event, few thought of movement, and the regiments lay content in the meadows of the limestone valley. Jackson wrote Anna of the place, which was familiar to her, and of Weyer’s Cave near by, where she had once been sightseeing. He asked, “Wouldn’t you like to get home again?”
Lee now sent Jackson insistent dispatches: He must hurry to Richmond. McClellan was becoming stronger, and there was danger that he might creep forward behind his trenches until the city was enveloped. Lee put the order gently: “If you agree”; but the compelling haste was clear in every line. Jackson was to conceal his movements and come as swiftly as possible to the capital. It was an order to delight Jackson; he might have written it himself. Lee had not even commented on Jackson’s plan of invading the North; he would send private word by Colonel Boteler.
Jackson had already closed the roads about him with his cavalry and taken trouble to confuse the enemy. At almost the same moment Jackson read Lee’s order, General Nathaniel P. Banks was telegraphing Washington that Old Jack was advancing on him in overwhelming force.
Jackson began to spin his veil of secrecy in earnest. The army began to tell this story of him, though it was of dubious accuracy:
One night he rode out in the rain to play his mysterious game. He had written Colonel T. T. Munford, his new cavalry chief, ordering a meeting at the village of Mount Crawford, ten miles away on the Valley turnpike. They were to meet at the head of the single street, and Munford was warned “not to ask for me or anybody.”
Munford reached the village at the proper hour. Dim light revealed a motionless figure in the road. Munford approached, and the figure saluted.
“Ah, Colonel, here you are. Any news from the front?”
“All quiet, General.”
“Good. Now, Munford, I want you to produce on the enemy the impression that I am going to advance.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jackson sat for two or three minutes telling his cavalryman how the dismounted riflemen should be pressed close against the enemy lines, and pickets kept there, alert; how to keep plentiful fires burning and to spread false reports. Abruptly, the General called farewell and rode off, Sorrel going into a slow gallop in the resounding darkness. Munford stared after him.
Jackson sent for Jed Hotchkiss, and the engineer went in with his maps. The General put him through a catechism on roads and streams and the points of strength in the Valley. Hotchkiss, when dismissed, had the idea that the coming offensive would be in the direction of Lexington.
Within half an hour, Hotchkiss was puzzled by a second call from Jackson. Casually, close-mouthed, like a horse trader’s opening to his intended victim, Jackson said, “Major, there’s been some fighting down about Richmond, there at Seven Pines, I believe. Will you let me see maps of that country?”
Hotchkiss fetched maps of lowland Virginia—poor ones—and for most of the afternoon the two studied the roads, woodlands, streams, fords, heights, swamps, and all eminences and obstructions. When it was done: “Thank you, Major. That will be all.”
Hotchkiss went to his tent with the suspicion that the army was to sweep eastward and join the fight for Richmond.
Even Ewell knew nothing; he blithely gave leave to some of his staff officers, telling them in confidence that reinforcements were coming and that the Valley army would soon fall upon Banks again. The good-humored Ewell did not resent secrecy now. When some of Jackson’s staff, left behind, reported to Ewell for duty, the bald Indian fighter said with heavy sarcasm, “I ain’t commanding but a division, and am only marching under orders. I don’t know where, of course. I’ve not got much staff left, but that’s more than I’ve any use for, the way it is now. I have a little suspicion about Richmond, but I can’t say.”
And Jackson’s staff, without instructions, set out in pursuit of their commander, who had disappeared.
Now and again officers bearded Jackson about his overpowering love of secrecy. Old Jack would smile patiently: “If my coat knew my plans, as Frederick the Great once said, I would take it off and burn it. And if I can deceive my friends, I can make certain of deceiving my enemies.”
On June seventeenth, the troops had begun the eastward swing. Jackson met one of his brigade commanders near headquarters.
“Colonel, have you received the order?”
“No, sir.”
“I want you to march.”
“When, sir.”
“Now.”
“Which way?”
“Get in the cars—go with Lawton.”
“How must I send my wagons and battery?”
“By the road.”
“Well, General, I hate to keep asking fool questions, but I can’t send my men off without knowing which road to send them.”
Jackson laughed, but only briefly. “Send them by the road the others take.” And he rode on.
The next day he had most of his troops in Staunton, moving along the Virginia Central Railroad. Still his officers did not know that Lee had called in the Valley troops, nor that Boteler had returned, bringing verbal refusal of Jackson’s offensive into the North. The prospect of a blow into Pennsylvania appealed to Lee, but the straits in which the capital found itself made invasion an impossibility. First things first; the investing of Richmond must be foiled without delay.
Jackson was out of Staunton and into Waynesboro within a few hours. In the dusk the General, riding with Major Hotchkiss, a courier and another officer, had a spectacular view of the army, which lay in camp over the Blue Ridge, for miles. Campfires blazed on either side of the climbing road, from the base to the summit. Hotchkiss went ahead to find quarters for the General. He once failed and returned to report.
“General, I fear we will not find our wagons tonight.”
Jackson, more earnestly than the occasion called for, Hotchkiss thought, replied, “Never take counsel of your fears, Major. See if you can find us a place to sleep, and something to eat if you can.”
The four finally rode through the gap and down the eastern slope, to a farmhouse owned by one James McCue. They ate well there, and retired to a single large room with three beds.
When the lamp had been blown out, Hotchkiss and the General lay for a time talking. The Major idly reviewed for Jackson the gossip of the day, about the destination of the army. Jackson laughed at each guess Hotchkiss made. Just before they fell silent, the General piped, “Do any of them say I’m going to Washington?” He laughed as if this were the greatest joke of all.
Hotchkiss saw Jackson kneel by his bed for more than five minutes. He thought of what Jim had told the staff somewhere back on the route of the Valley campaign:
“Gentlemen, when my General goes to getting up in the night to pray, you better watch out. There’s going to be hell to pay. He prays all the time, but when I see him up at night, I never asks no questions. I pack the haversack, because he’s sure to call for it next morning.”
The next day Jackson reached Mechum’s River. He met the Reverend Dabney there and beckoned him into a little hotel room, locking the door.
“I am going to Richmond ahead of the troops. To see General Lee. On the train. The corps is going to join in an attack on McClellan—but I will be back to you before you reach Richmond.
“Dabney, I want you to march the troops to Richmond, following the rail line as much as you can. I want you to march at the head of Ewell’s division.”
He gave Dabney orders to preserve secrecy, and shook hands. He went out to board an express train for the east. Kyd Douglas thought he looked like a passenger bound for Europe, shaking hands with everyone in sight. Old Jack clambered into the mail car, but even there could hardly break off a conversation with an elderly man who had hung around the station, clumsily trying to discover Jackson’s destinati
on. Just before the train moved, the old man surrendered subtlety and shouted, “General, where are you going?”
“Can you keep a secret?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Ah, so can I.”
The train left the old man grinning after it.
Jackson had scarcely disappeared when Ewell beseiged Dabney, “Dammit, now, excuse me, Major. Reverend. But Jackson is driving us mad. He don’t say a word to so much as move a horse. And here, now, he’s gone off on the railroad without trusting me—his senior Major General—with a single solitary word. No order, no hint of where we’re going.
“But that quartermaster of his, that Old John Harman, he knows it all, I suppose. He’s been telling the troops we’re heading for Richmond to fight McClellan.”
Dabney offered consoling words, assuring Ewell that he ranked high in Jackson’s esteem, and that Harman, if he knew anything, had only guessed it. Ewell continued to protest. This time, Jackson had gone too far; it was an additional insult to Ewell because he had so lately recanted from his original opinion that Jackson was insane. He had said as much to Colonel Munford:
“I take it all back, and will never prejudge another man. Old Jackson is no fool; he knows how to keep his own counsel, and does curious things; but he has method in his madness; he has disappointed me entirely.”
Today it appeared that this might not be a mature judgment, after all. This season of secrecy seemed more irrational than any other Jackson had yet displayed.
General Winder, too, was still smarting from a hurt Jackson had given him. As the swing to Richmond began, Winder, the able West Point-trained brigade commander who led the Stonewall Brigade, had asked Jackson for a brief leave. He wanted, innocently, to go to Richmond itself. He was as ignorant of the developing movement as anyone else, and was incensed when Jackson refused him, bluntly and without reason given. Winder was already tender where Jackson was concerned, for he felt that Stonewall interfered unnecessarily in the command of his old brigade. Today he bristled. He had no means of knowing Jackson’s distracted mind was far away, already in the moist trenches of the Peninsula, facing McClellan. Winder offered his resignation. Jackson accepted it.
They Called Him Stonewall Page 21