They Called Him Stonewall

by Davis, Burke;

  And on a hot day, as Ewell trotted by his troops in a roadway, he gave testimony that Jackson, too, was experiencing a return of the spirit which had moved him in the Valley, and that his mood was one of readiness to meet the enemy.

  Ewell passed an army chaplain and asked, “Doctor, can you tell me where we’re going?”

  “That question I should like to ask you, General, if it is a proper one.”

  “I pledge you my word, Doctor, that I do not know whether we march north, south, east or west, or whether we will march at all. General Jackson simply ordered me to have the division ready to move at dawn. I have been ready ever since, and have no further intimation of his plans. That is almost all I ever know of his designs.”

  Jackson was anxious for battle, but for a few days the details of preparation all but overwhelmed him. He did not become less devout, however. A Presbyterian minister, a Reverend Ewing, who took Jackson into his house for a few days, was more impressed with Old Jack’s piety than his military bearing: “There was something very striking in his prayers. He did not pray to men, but to God. His tones were deep, solemn, tremulous.… I never heard anyone pray who seemed to be pervaded more fully by a spirit of self-abnegation.” The army could sense no such spirit in its chief.

  This week Jackson got heavy reinforcements. Lee sent him the twelve thousand tough veterans of A. P. Hill, spared from Richmond, though their departure left Lee only fifty-six thousand to face McClellan. Hill came gladly, for Lee had removed him from arrest by Longstreet, saying that it was for the good of the service to halt the quarrel. The young redhead must have been relieved to escape the stern discipline of Old Pete. He could not know that he was approaching an even more uncomfortable squabble.

  The coming of Hill was accompanied by a warning from Lee to Jackson which illustrated the extreme candor of the commander’s relation with the Valley conqueror. In a remarkable order, Lee wrote:

  A. P. Hill you will, I think, find a good officer with whom you can consult, and by advising with your division commanders as to their movements much trouble can be saved you in arranging details, as they can act more intelligently. I wish to save you trouble from increasing your command.

  This scolding was undoubtedly plain to Jackson, though somewhat veiled. Lee was willing to entrust the safety of Virginia’s northwestern border to Old Jack and to give him some twenty-five thousand men for the defense, but found it necessary at this date to instruct Jackson, as if he were a young cadet, in his first lessons of command. Lee was introducing to him an officer he had known since West Point, and recommending him. More, he was warning Jackson that he must not keep secrets from Hill and urging him to abandon his customary reticence and reveal plans to his division commanders. At this order, somehow, Jackson’s ill will seemed to turn toward Powell Hill, as if he were to blame for the lecture delivered by Lee.

  The week was a busy one, too, because of a court-martial. Jackson had never given up the affair of General Garnett, whom he had charged with neglect of duty on that cold March Sunday at Kernstown. Through postponements caused by battle, Old Jack had pursued the cause, and Lee had regretfully sent a traveling court with Jackson’s army. It was sitting this week in Ewell’s headquarters. Jackson was also trying, with less success, to push to a conclusion the trial of Colonel Z. T. Conner, who had run from his troops at Front Royal in the Valley campaign.

  But Jackson could not give full time even to these matters of such compelling interest to him. The cavalry still plagued him. Since the death of Ashby, and Jackson’s transfer to the Richmond front, the Valley cavalrymen had been more or less independent, and had elected their own officers, as was the practice in other regiments. But now Jefferson Davis intervened. Without consulting Jackson, and spurning the suggestions of Lee, the President named Beverly Robertson, an old West Pointer with a bald head and a flowing mustache, as chief of Jackson’s cavalry. Robertson had seen little active fighting, and he brought with him a taste for the most severe discipline. There was an immediate reaction from the troopers, long accustomed to free and easy ways which not even Jackson had been able to mend in the days of Ashby. There were complaints. The problem was the more difficult for Jackson because he disapproved of Robertson, perhaps because the cavalryman had been thrust upon him.

  But now matters reached a climax. On Robertson’s orders, Colonel W. E. (“Grumble”) Jones had taken his Seventh Virginia troopers toward the Rapidan River and had run into Federal cavalry at the village of Orange. Jones was wounded and his men were roughly handled, with ten dead and fifty captured. Robertson had offered no support. Jackson asked Lee to remove Robertson from his command and to replace him with Jones.

  The patient reply from Lee was couched in firm paternal tones:

  That subject is not so easily arranged, and without knowing any of the circumstances attending it except as related by you, I fear the judgment passed [on Robertson] may be hasty. Neither am I sufficiently informed of the qualifications of Col. W. E. Jones, though having for him high esteem, to say whether he is better qualified.

  In short, it was a rebuke, and an ultimatum scarcely concealed. Jackson was to attend to the affairs of his army and leave at rest such problems of command. Even so, Lee had not allowed all of his feeling to creep into the dispatch to Jackson, for he had lately written President Davis an explanation of the affair: “Probably Jackson may expect too much, and Robertson may be preparing his men for service, which I have understood they much needed. With uninstructed officers, an undisciplined brigade of cavalry is no trifling undertaking and requires time to regulate.”

  It was an impressive demonstration that Lee, busy as he was with the watching of McClellan on the James and the army of General Burnside at Fortress Monroe, had still a complete understanding of Jackson, his problems, needs and moods; and though he could be inflexibly firm with him, yet gave full rein to the talents of his lieutenant. Lee was in almost constant touch with Gordonsville.

  Amid these concerns, Jackson wrote Anna a letter reflecting no difficult moments, but which instead was aglow with confidence and religious joy.

  My darling wife, I am just overburdened with work, and I hope you will not think hard at receiving only short letters from your loving husband. A number of officers are with me, but people keep coming to my tent—though let me say no more. A Christian should never complain. The apostle Paul said, “I glory in tribulations!” What a bright example for others!

  One affair which he did not appear to bear as a tribulation was the court-martial of Garnett, where he appeared as a stern-faced accuser and took the witness stand, submitting to cross-examination by Garnett.

  “What was your plan of battle at Kernstown?” Garnett asked.

  “First to defeat the enemy by gaining heights on his right, which commanded his position, pressing on toward Winchester, then turning his right and getting in his rear.”

  Garnett, waiting through the reply with the air of a man conscious of his advantage, asked, “Did you communicate this plan to me before or during the action?”

  “I did not to my recollection.” Jackson’s voice and face were uncompromising, and by his air he was unconscious of the fact that he was defending one of his unique military principles. The spectacle was enjoyable to listening officers, though Jackson’s stand was scarcely a surprise to them.

  For some hours the trial went on, with the generals clashing over details of that battleground of March twenty-third, so intent that they might well have been on the scene this day. The versions of Garnett and Jackson were incompatible, just as were the long written reports each had filed. Garnett had written that Jackson had kept him “entirely ignorant,” as profoundly ignorant “as the humblest private.” Jackson was vindictive, Garnett said, and had treacherously filed secret charges against him, seeking to drive him out of the army. He challenged Jackson’s “motives and truthfulness.” Across the face of Jackson’s charges Garnett wrote the single word “Lie.”

  The court was destined to adjourn w
ithout a decision, and just now war interrupted. Spies came to Jackson with news from the front, and news of a sort he could not disregard: The enemy was vulnerable. Pope had scattered his force, and though it occupied Culpeper, only a fraction had arrived there. With haste, the Confederates had an opportunity for attack. Jackson suspended the court-martial and issued orders that sent men streaming from the three big camps about Gordonsville. There were a few inconsequential delays.

  The army moved in a heat wave; and the baked air soughed in one room where there was genuine consternation at news of the march. There lay General Winder, so ill for the past few days that Dr. McGuire forbade him to go into the field. Winder suffered today, for if Jackson went into battle, he felt that he must rejoin his brigade, whatever McGuire’s orders; on the other hand, if the army was simply changing positions, Winder would be content to lie obediently in bed. In this dilemma he sent young McHenry Howard, a staff officer, to try and find out from Jackson the plans of the army. Howard was reluctant, knowing the fierce defense of privacy which was habitual with Jackson. He went only on Winder’s direct order.

  Howard found Jackson kneeling in his room as he packed a carpetbag for the road.

  “General Winder sent me to say that he is too sick to go with the command.”

  “General Winder sick? I’m sorry for that.”

  “Yes, sir, and the medical director has told him he must not go with the brigade. But he sent me to ask you if there will be a battle, and if so, when, and he would be up, and which way the army is going.”

  After this nervous utterance, Howard stood as if expecting a lightning bolt. Jackson remained on his knees in deep thought, and smiled at the uncertain boy.

  “Say to General Winder that I am truly sorry that he is sick.” He paused. “That there will be a battle, but not tomorrow, and I hope he will be up; tell him the army will march to Barnett’s Ford, and he can learn its further direction from there.”

  Howard went from the headquarters as if from the presence of a miracle.

  Even as he emerged, troops were moving.

  Jackson had sent Captain Blackford of Stuart’s command to scout the enemy, and the horseman returned with a full report of Pope’s strength. Jackson called for him to appear in person. Blackford wrote:

  “I found the General in a tent with nothing but a roll of blankets … and two stools and a table. He was seated on one stool and motioned me to the other, asking … me to tell what I had seen. After … a few minutes I perceived he was fast asleep. I stopped and waited for several minutes. He woke up and said: ‘Proceed.’ I did so for a few minutes when I noted he was asleep again so I stopped. He slept longer this time and when he awoke he said … ‘You may proceed to your quarters.’”

  On the afternoon of August seventh, two regiments of Federal cavalry were driven from the fords of the Rapidan and fled into Culpeper, reporting a huge Confederate advance. General Pope, thinking this a Rebel feint, placed an entire regiment under arrest for cowardice.

  That night, Jackson’s army camped around Orange Court House. When the commander arrived in the village, not finding a house at his immediate disposal, he sat on a stile in a street and soon fell asleep. He was taken to the home of the Willis family near by. Before retiring, Jackson gave marching orders. The army would move at dawn, with Ewell leading, Powell Hill following, and Jackson’s old brigade, now under Winder, as a rear guard. Jackson made changes in the orders, deciding after a further study of his maps to send Ewell on a different road from the other divisions. The army was to reunite at Barnett’s Ford.

  The change of plan was a refinement Jackson added to give more protection to his wagon trains. General Hill knew nothing of the change—or later said so. The result was a traffic snarl among marching troops that opened a long feud between Hill and Jackson.

  Early August eighth, Hill rose, alert and ready for work. He followed Jackson’s orders, going to the road to which his troops had been assigned. He assumed that troops passing him there belonged to Ewell’s division, as the original orders had specified. After thousands of these men had passed, Hill found that they were Winder’s men instead, and that Ewell was on some other route.

  Hill decided that, rather than break into the marching column to take his place, he would await its passage and then put his men behind. Jackson rode up to him in the roadway, and in short tones asked why Hill’s men were not marching. Hill tried to explain. An argument began which lasted most of the day.

  Orders went awry. Hill claimed that Jackson sent him word to halt the comedy of errors and return to Orange Court House. Jackson recalled nothing of the sort and said he had twice urged Hill to press forward. In any event, Ewell moved but eight miles, and Hill but one, though their troops were legendary marchers. And while the command fretted, men suffered. Private Casler reported that eight men in ranks dropped dead from sunstroke.

  Whatever was to blame for the failure of the army today, Jackson had not given heed to the strong advice of Lee; he had refused to give his confidence to Powell Hill, as he had refused it to others. His inability to share his plans had cost him a long march against the enemy.

  Saturday, August ninth, began with few signs of looming battle. At 4 A.M. Jackson had given the insistent Winder formal command of his division, and though this officer remained in an ambulance, he clung to his post.

  Caution was in order today, for Jackson knew little of the situation ahead. He did not know to what extent Pope’s command was separated. He was by no means optimistic over his own affairs. Before leaving headquarters, he wrote to Lee:

  I am not making much progress. The enemy’s cavalry yesterday and last night also threatened my train.… Today I do not expect much more than to close up and clear the country around the train of the enemy’s cavalry. I fear that the expedition will, in consequence of my tardy movements, be productive of but little good.… The enemy’s infantry, from reports brought in last night, is about 5 miles in front; his cavalry near ours.

  The day continued unpromising as Jackson rode through the moving army toward the Robertson River. For once the Federal cavalry was being fought with skill and daring, and Pope had flung the shifting screen of blue riders for as much as twenty miles before him—it was a handicap to which Jackson was not accustomed.

  An amusing incident at a ford entertained several officers. Jackson had come up while Old John Harman was empurpling the air with his oaths, trying to push over the wagons by the very power of profanity.

  “Don’t you think you could do as well without such cursing?” Jackson asked.

  Harman roared. “You think anybody can make a damned set of mules pull without swearing, you just try it, General! Go ahead, I’ll stand by.”

  Harman stepped back and Jackson presided over the ford as a lightly loaded wagon splashed across with no difficulty. “You see how easy it is, Major?” he called.

  “Wait till one of them damned ordnance wagons comes along!”

  At that moment, a huge ammunition wagon jolted into the stream and stuck. Harman shouted, “Better let me damn ’em, General. Nothing else will do.”

  Jackson left when another wagon became stuck in the place, saying mildly, “Well, Major. I guess you will have to have your way.”

  As he rode from earshot, Harman blasted forth with such torrents of profanity that mules and Negro drivers yanked their wagons from the ford and shortly passed Jackson.

  Jackson sent impatient messages to Beverly Robertson, urging him to get information on the enemy. Invariably, he got the surprising reply that Robertson was helpless, since so many of his men were straggling. Jackson became uneasy, and ten miles south of Culpeper, when he had crossed the river, he left his twelve hundred loaded wagons, or most of them, guarded by two brigades under Maxcy Gregg and A. R. Lawton. The rest of the column pushed northward.

  Jackson had placed the troops of General Jubal Early in the front; Early had lately recovered from a wound of the Peninsula campaign, and now had General Elzey’s old brigad
e. Behind him were some of the Louisiana troops, and then Winder’s. Despite the heat of the day, Winder had emerged from his ambulance and now rode with his troops, daring the sun. At the rear, with discipline tense, came the division of A. P. Hill, who seemed determined to give Jackson no opportunity to repeat yesterday’s critical scowls.

  Thus the army, twenty-four thousand strong, waded the river and hurried on. Just before noon it was halted. Robertson’s cavalry found Federal cavalry massed on a hilltop. Early’s infantry came up and fired a few cannon at the enemy. This drew an ominous reply—heavy artillery fire from the rear of the blue-coats. The Federals were on hand in some force.

  Early halted at a fork of the road on a pleasant landscape, and Ewell soon came up. They saw heavy woods marking a fork of the road, the right turn of which led to Culpeper; the left, to Madison Court House. Small streams ran on either side of the road, crossing the Culpeper fork. On every quarter except the front, cleared land rolled away in meadows and, on the right, extended to the bluff slopes of Cedar Mountain, known locally as Slaughter’s Mountain.

  After about an hour of reconnaissance by Early and Ewell, Jackson arrived. This was about 11:30 A.M. He found his two generals at a farmhouse and interrupted Ewell’s play on the porch, where the latter romped with some children.

  Jackson spread a map on the porch floor and leaned over it with Ewell. This was a brief scene, for Jackson found the terrain uninvolved. The General was almost casual. He and Ewell saw instantly the importance of Cedar Mountain, the key to this field, from which guns could sweep most of the open space. Jackson wasted no time with orders: Ewell was to send forward two brigades to the right, over the slopes of the mountain toward the Federal flank. Early was to push along the Culpeper road, with Winder’s brigade to his left and rear. Hill’s men were not put into line. These plans were made almost contemptuously, for Jackson did not go up to study the Federal position, nor did he send officers to do so.