They Called Him Stonewall

by Davis, Burke;

  General Taylor saved the day. Winder went to the Louisiana camp with his news, and Taylor became unusually excited, for he admired the ability of this effective field commander. Taylor went to Jackson, begging that he reconsider and persuade Winder to remain. The crafty young officer first described the glory Old Jack had won in the Valley, and pictured his honors as enduring to late ages. He saw something in Jackson’s face like pleasure. He wrote:

  “Observing him closely, I caught a glimpse of the man’s inner nature. It was but a glimpse. The curtain closed, and he was absorbed in prayer. Yet in that moment I saw an ambition as boundless as Cromwell’s, and as merciless.”

  Jackson remained speechless. He gave no promise to make amends with Winder; but as Taylor left, Old Jack rose. “I think I’ll ride out with you, General,” he said.

  Later in the night, Taylor learned Jackson had visited Winder, that the resignation was withdrawn, and the service had saved a fine officer.

  The army moved rapidly eastward, despite all handicaps. Raiding Federal cavalry had burned a railroad bridge of the South Anna River near the village of Frederickshall, and Jackson’s officers were obliged to move the troops and supplies over a broken rail line, using fewer than two hundred small cars. They used an ingenious “riding and tying plan,” loading the cars with supplies at the western terminus near Charlottesville, unloading them at the South Anna, then shuttling the cars back again to pick up troops along the route. The corps thus moved toward Richmond, but in considerable disorder.

  The Reverend Dabney was outraged at the lack of discipline. He found one officer who had allowed his wagons to roll far ahead of his mounted guard, but when Dabney upbraided him, the officer said blandly, “I just come along. I had no orders from nobody.”

  It was an eloquent statement of the confusion inherent in a movement by an army whose commander could not bring himself to reveal the destination. When Dabney complained to Jackson of the lack of discipline, he was assured that there was a more pressing problem at hand: however it could be done, the corps must be pushed into place in front of Richmond before the enemy collected his wits and came out of the trenches to end the war.

  On Saturday, June twenty-first, Jackson and Dabney took an enforced rest in Gordonsville, while Jackson sent out scouts to investigate a rumor that a Federal raid was reaching toward his line of march, with Union infantry only sixteen miles away, on the Rapidan. The rumor proved to be false, and the army moved on.

  Until this moment, the gossips had a wide range of choice as objectives for the army, for it could still have moved toward Washington. But Jackson ended that possibility, going on to the east, so that the army could now be aiming only for Fredericksburg or Richmond. Jackson preserved his secrecy.

  He muttered to Dabney, “Will you take a railroad ride with me? We will leave our horses with the staff.” The two boarded a train after dark. Jackson fell asleep in the bunk of the mail clerk almost at once. Sidings were so infrequent, and traffic so heavy, that it was dawn before they reached Frederickshall, only twenty-six miles away. Jackson went to the home of Nathaniel Harris, where General Hood and General Whiting already had quarters. He went out to hear Dabney preach during the day, and talked with a guide Dabney had found, who was to show them the roads to Richmond.

  In the afternoon, Jackson said cautious farewells to his generals in the Harris house. Late at night, Jackson had Whiting aroused to write out a pass and an impressment order so that he might get relays of fresh horses on the route to Richmond. Quartermaster Harman was to ride with Jackson from Frederickshall. He got firm orders to address Old Jack only as “Colonel,” so that no chance remark might identify him. Mrs. Harris asked Jackson what time he would like his breakfast tomorrow, but the General could not bring himself to divulge his plans, even then. He said he would eat at the usual hour.

  It was not an easy ride, fifty-two miles in about fourteen hours. They were forced into a late start by Jackson’s insistence that they wait until 1 A.M., so that he would not break the Sabbath. They avoided crowds and took the most covert route through the city, after entering on Three Chopt Road; few people saw them, and those who recognized the General were so certain that he was still in the Valley that they did not believe their eyes.

  Jackson came to Lee’s headquarters in the Dabbs’s farmhouse near Nine Mile Bridge in the midafternoon, confident that his week-long efforts to baffle the enemy had been successful, and that he had taken every precaution to screen the move of the corps. The enemy, he thought, could not dream that he was near. He was wrong.

  A Confederate deserter had left Gordonsville at about the time Jackson rode to the east, having divined that Stonewall was heading for Richmond. This man was picked up by Union horsemen on June twenty-fourth at Hanover Court House, and he—nameless in the official records—provided McClellan with the news. The deserter reported Jackson near Richmond with his entire army from the Valley, ready to strike the Union flank. He estimated Jackson’s strength at fifteen brigades. A telegram to Washington brought a flurry of new orders, and the Federals attempted to prepare a reception. Jackson was to find that all things, including military security, were different here in the east.

  Jackson was badly worn by the ride and dismounted stiffly, dust-covered, sore and sleepy. He found that Lee was at work and waited for him in the yard, resting against the picket fence, head down. He was slumped there when General D. H. Hill rode up. The grizzled little South Carolinian had been called from his camp near Seven Pines for a conference with Lee. He was surprised to see his newly famous brother-in-law. Jackson, he was positive, had only yesterday been far down the Valley, confronting Banks and Shields; heavy reinforcements had gone to him. Yet here he was. The two had not met since Jackson had earned his exalted reputation in the Valley. They passed warm greetings.

  Things were bad in these parts, the barbed-tongued Hill told Jackson. His men had been falling back before McClellan’s army, which was all but numberless. There was little food; for the last three days his men had been issued nothing but corn in the shuck. Several thousand soldiers had fled to Richmond on pretext of sickness. And the very cannon were untrustworthy; the scoundrels of the ordnance department used brittle metal in gun barrels, and shells often burst in the mouths of artillery pieces.

  Jackson made little reply to his outspoken friend, whom he had known so well for so many years. Hill was in some ways like Jackson—a schoolteacher who had married one of the Morrison girls; a man of strong religious bent; a firm warrior for temperance who had ordered liquor poured out when found in his camps. He was now fresh from the bloody holding action against McClellan, which had ceased only when the Federals, within sight of the spires of Richmond, had dug in to gather strength for the kill.

  Hill and Jackson went in to Lee. The commander in chief, gravely courteous, greeted them and offered refreshments. Jackson took only a glass of milk and downed it in a few gulps. Lee began to explain the plan of assault on the Yankees, though in general terms. It was a bold plan, born of desperation in an effort to stave off a siege of Richmond. Lee offered it calmly, clothed with assurance, as if it were an everyday affair to abandon the capital city by stripping it of troops and, with a force of 85,000 men, to march against the trenches of an enemy of 105,000. But there was none too much daring here for Jackson, who had more than once pressed bolder schemes upon Lee. Old Jack considered with a cold mind.

  The other general officers entered, and Lee began to explain in detail. He now faced Jackson, D. H. Hill, Longstreet, and A. P. Hill.

  But for A. P. Hill, a year younger at thirty-seven, Jackson was the junior officer in the council; yet he brought to the conference room a prestige the others lacked, even Lee.

  The conqueror from the western battlefields was surely not a presence: an inexpressive face, almost hostile with indifference, a beard yellowed with dust; the uniform wrinkled from the road. Yet about him clung his Valley reputation, and there was a delicate note of deference in the air. Jackson wore the green
est laurels of the Confederacy, though as if utterly unaware of them. He was, to this day, the South’s lone invincible general.

  Old Jack watched Lee closely. He had not seen the commander for months, though they had exchanged messages almost daily. His admiration of the older man was sincere; he had not joined the gossip about the ascent of the staff officer, the paper-shuffler, the engineer.

  Lee was fifty-five. He had held command for just three weeks, and had fought no battle beyond direction of the final hours of the inconclusive action at Seven Pines. He was, Jackson knew, intimately influential with President Davis; a man of ability and charm who would have little difficulty with his officers. There was a gentle authority in his voice. His manner of offering his plan of battle bordered on humility, but Jackson was quick to see its daring of conception. Here was true Virginia aristocracy, too, if a man believed in that: The commander was a son of Washington’s great cavalryman of the Revolution, who had left as an echo behind him, “First in war, first in peace …”

  Lee had overcome family shame and bankruptcy, had led a distinguished career in the United States Army, and at last had left the fine ancestral home of his wife to the enemy and come to Richmond to follow his destiny with Virginia. Jackson trusted Lee. If the role of lieutenant was uncomfortable to him, Old Jack did not reveal it.

  Jackson had no fear of Lee’s background, either as aristocrat or Old Army engineer. He had marked the vision of the commander during the Valley campaign, as well as his lack of that false pride which had already overcome many a Confederate dandy.

  Lee had once shown himself to the troops of the army he had begun to call, somewhat grandly, the Army of Northern Virginia. One sharp-eyed cannoneer had recorded his debut:

  “General Lee first appeared before us in citizens’ dress, in white duck with a bob tail coat; jogging along without our suspecting who he was. We thought at first he was a jolly easy going miller or distiller on a visit as a civilian to the front, and perhaps carrying out a canteen of whisky for the boys. He showed himself good-natured … stopping once to reprove, though very gently, the drivers for unmercifully beating their horses when they stalled; and walking about and laughing at one of Artemus Ward’s stories; and kept in a good humor about it the rest of the day.”

  Lee spoke as became the man who had lately written, on taking command from the wounded Johnston: “I wish that his mantle had fallen on an abler man, or that I were able to drive our enemies back to their homes. I have no ambition and no desire but the attainment of this object, and therefore only wish for its accomplishment by him that can do it most speedily and thoroughly.”

  Jackson listened to Lee, perhaps surprised by the candor with which the commander laid his problem before subordinates, a course Jackson could not have taken. The Valley conqueror was perhaps less attentive than he might have been to the other lieutenants present. All were West Pointers, able soldiers, evidently in high favor with Lee. Longstreet, a captain and Union paymaster when war came; squat, domineering, stubborn, becoming deaf at the age of forty-one. Jackson had known him slightly in Mexico. Red-haired A. P. Hill, hot-tempered and brilliant, had been with Jackson at West Point; he was yet untested in field command. Jackson knew D. H. Hill thoroughly from Lexington friendship. Hill had a tongue noted for its asperity, was nearsighted, wore thick spectacles, and was prone to be intolerant of others, though a thorough soldier.

  The other men were aware of the details of Lee’s plan and its development in days of conversation with President Davis. Lee explained for Jackson’s benefit that McClellan’s forces lay roughly along a north-south line, across the Chickahominy River. The northern flank seemed to invite attack. Victory there would pinch off the enemy’s rail transport and force his troops to the south to retreat, or to come from their trenches and fight.

  Only details of the plan remained, for the proposal had been argued freely by the generals before Jackson’s arrival. Lee spoke briefly, saying that Jackson’s command was near by and would take part in the attack. He showed Jackson how his Valley troops would push the attack north of the river, coming down from Totopotomoy Creek to the southward, thereby opening the Chickahominy bridges to other units of the army, which would not have to cross in face of enemy fire. He said little more. Lee left the room to attend to other business and left the officers to confer. Longstreet led the discussion.

  Jackson did not challenge the decision that his corps should take the longest road (his men now lay at Beaver Dam Station, fifteen miles northwest of Richmond) and assume the most difficult objective. He was to march through strange country to Ashland, a railroad station just north of Richmond, and then move southward, advising General Branch of A. P. Hill’s division, which would be the unit on his right. The word would be passed in turn to the other divisions, lying still farther south and east. The divisions were to move eastward in echelon, on roughly parallel roads, and strike the enemy simultaneously, or almost so. Jackson’s objective lay near the village of Mechanicsville, where the council anticipated little resistance. Hill and Jackson, united, would push from there toward Cold Harbor and McClellan’s exposed line of supply. That would enable Longstreet to move up, over a bridge made safe by Jackson’s advance.

  Jackson frowned in concentration, for though he had pored over the maps of this region with Hotchkiss, he was not familiar with the details; and Hotchkiss was gone, sent back to the Valley to more map making. Jackson was by no means at home with the terrain of which the others spoke so familiarly, but he made no protest.

  When could he move? How soon could the Jackson troops pass Ashland, ready to march down against Mechanicsville? Perhaps in memory of the open Valley country, confident of the ability of the Foot Cavalry, Jackson said, “Tomorrow.”

  That meant that battle could be given on the following day, which would be June twenty-fifth. But Longstreet demurred. He knew well the kinds of roads Jackson was to meet: narrow, screened with jungles of luxuriant swamp growth, cut by sluggish streams, meandering and confusing. He proposed that Jackson allow two days for the movement. Jackson agreed.

  Lee returned to hear Longstreet’s summary of their decision and nodded approval. He promised a set of written orders covering the movement of the four big divisions. It was almost dark when the officers left the Dabbs’s farmhouse, and Jackson began the long ride back to meet his men.

  On his way, he ran afoul one of his well-trained pickets, who refused to let him pass and engaged in a terse exchange with Old Jack, the soldier admitting only that he belonged to “Company D, Southern army.” The soldier scolded Jackson for his inquisitiveness, until a companion recognized the General and allowed him to go by.

  Jackson reached his troops at Beaver Dam Station in a downpour of rain. Things were in a state. Major Dabney had fallen ill of some intestinal complaint, and even before his illness had been unable to cope with the scattered troops. The column was strung out almost halfway to the Valley; twenty miles and more separated the lead and rear brigades, and the wagons were everywhere. His other officers were weary for lack of sleep, and Old Jack himself, all but sleepless for two nights, was on the verge of collapse. If he saw anything dangerous in the condition of his division, however, he said nothing. He gave no orders for furious haste.

  Jackson fell into bed, leaving his mud-soaked uniform and boots at the fireside. He had been a bit feverish, but it did not seem serious, and this was known only to Jim. His miserable columns pulled themselves together in the rain as he slept, but made little progress in preparation for the first big assault of the combined armies. The eastern rivers rose, the swamps filled, and a few miles away waited the massive lines of the enemy.

  12

  STRANGE FAILURES

  The boggy country below Richmond swarmed with the 105,000 Federals and their hangers-on. It was the most grandly equipped army of history, and there was scarcely room for it between the York and the James. With the army was an exotic party: the Prince de Joinville, of the house of Orleans and pretender to the French
throne; and his nephews, the Duc de Chartres and the Comte de Paris. They were on McClellan’s personal staff, and serious soldiers they were.

  The prince was astonished that the amateur soldiers of the United States were paid the handsome sum of thirteen dollars a month and would one day draw pensions of about forty francs monthly, this for soldiers who by European standards were capricious and undependable, and so well fed that they usually threw away most of their rations. It did not look like war to the prince.

  It was like a gay fete, he thought, with the observation balloons in the air, bands playing, signal flags flapping from the flowering trees. In the soft nights the ceaseless songs of mockingbirds literally wore out the Frenchman. And he marveled at New York newspapers sold on the battlefields, and at the signs of embalmers advertising their grim work.

  The army shocked an American, as well, for some Federal officers lived like emperors. George A. Townsend, a gifted reporter with the invaders, wrote of one who “furnished one of the deserted mansions, and brought a lady from the North to keep it in order. He drove a span that rivalled anything in Broadway, and his wines were luscious. His establishment reminded me of that of Napoleon III, in the late Italian war, and yet, this man was receiving merely a colonel’s pay. My impression was that everybody at White House robbed the government, and in the end, to cover their delinquencies, these scoundrels set fire to an immense quantity of stores and squared their accounts thus: “Burned on the Pamunkey, June 28, commissary, quartermaster’s and hospital stores, one million dollars.”

  Over this country, a few days earlier, Jeb Stuart and his troopers had dashed in their most spectacular exploit, a ride completely around McClellan’s army. They had discovered the Federal flank in the air north of the Chickahominy, where an exposed segment of the army was commanded by the dandy of the Federal forces, General Fitz John Porter.