In the same week, Jackson was saddened again, this time by the death of young John Pelham, whose courage had won the praise of all at Fredericksburg. He had fallen on a raid against the enemy in a minor skirmish. Cavalrymen saved the body with a daring swoop and brought it to camp for Stuart to weep over. The army mourned.
Jackson seemed unable to forget the approaching opportunity to attack and destroy the Federal army. He sent most of the personal baggage of his officers and men to rear camps and kept his wagons ready and waiting. In conversation with an officer, he spoke with confidence of the coming battle. “My trust is in God,” he said, but then, with flashing eyes and a rising voice he cried, “I wish they would come!”
Jackson had not been idle in his personal correspondence. His Lexington pastor, the Reverend White, had asked him to make a public statement on religion and the army, and drew this reply:
This I shrink from doing, because it looks like a presumption in me to come before the public and even intimate what course I think should be pursued by the people of God.…
Each Christian branch of the Church should send into the army some of its most prominent ministers, who are distinguished for their piety, talents and zeal.… A bad selection of a chaplain may prove a curse rather than a blessing.
I would like to see no questions asked in the army as to what domination a chaplain belongs; but let the question be, “Does he preach the Gospel?” The neglect of spiritual interests in the army may be partially seen in the fact that not one half of my regiments have chaplains.
He wrote to Boteler in Richmond, outraged that the Congress had repealed its ban against carrying mail on Sunday, saying, “I do not see how a nation that thus arrays itself, by such a law, against God’s holy day, can expect to escape His wrath.”
To a friend in Lexington:
Let our Government acknowledge the God of the Bible as its God, and we may expect soon to be a happy and independent people. It appears to me that extremes are to be avoided; and it also appears to me that the old United States occupied an extreme position in the means it took to prevent the union of Church and State. We call ourselves a Christian people; and, in my opinion, our government may be of the same character, without connecting itself with an established Church.
To one visitor he made a forceful statement somewhat in the vein of these letters:
Nothing earthly can mar my happiness. I know that heaven is in store for me; and I should rejoice in the prospect of going there tomorrow. Understand me: I am not sick, I am not sad; God has greatly blessed me; I have as much to love here as any man, and life is very bright to me. But still I am ready to leave it any day … for that heaven which I know awaits me.
But, chiefly, he wrote to Anna. At the death of Janie Corbin, he wrote movingly to his wife; and at news of the death of a kinsman’s child he wrote: “I wish I could comfort her, but no human comfort can fully meet her case; only the Redeemer can, and I trust that she finds Jesus precious.”
Anna wrote that their daughter Julia had chicken pox. Jackson, worried, called in McGuire and questioned him on the disease, and then wrote a long letter of advice and treatment to Anna. He also wrote:
How much I do want to see you and our darling baby! But … I am afraid since hearing so much about the little one’s health, that it would be imprudent to bring it upon a journey, so I must content myself. Mrs. General Longstreet, Mrs. General A. P. Hill, and Mrs. General Rodes have all been to see their husbands. Yesterday I saw Mrs. Rodes at church, and she looked so happy that it made me wish I had Mrs. Jackson here too.”
The month-old Julia was much on his mind:
I am gratified at hearing that you have commenced disciplining the baby. Now be careful, and don’t let her conquer you. She must not be permitted to have that will of her own, of which you speak. How I would love to see the little darling.… Can’t you send her to me by express?… I am glad to hear that she sleeps well at night, and doesn’t disturb her mother. But it would be better not to call her a cherub; no earthly being is such …
Don’t you accuse my baby of not being brave. I do hope she will get over her fear of strangers. If, before strangers take her, you would give them something to please her … I trust she would lose her timidity … I am thankful that she is so bright and knowing. I do wish I could see her funny little ways, and hear her “squeal out with delight” at seeing the little chickens.
I am sometimes afraid that you will make such an idol of that baby that God will take her from us. Are you not afraid of it? Kiss her for her father.
He wrote that he was reading Hunter’s Life of Moses, that he devoted most Sundays to meditation. “Time thus spent is genuine enjoyment.” He wrote of a variety of things, always returning to the baby.
Just to think our baby is nearly three months old. Does she notice and laugh much? You have never told me how much she looks like her mother.
I tell you, I want to know how she looks.
If you could hear me talking to my esposa in the mornings and evenings, it would make you laugh, I’m sure. It is funny the way I talk to her when she is hundreds of miles away.
At times he seemed wrapped in gloomy religious thoughts: “I think that if, when we see ourselves in a glass we should consider that all of us that is visible must turn to corruption and dust, we would learn more justly to appreciate the relative importance of the body that perishes and the soul that is immortal.”
He began to urge Anna to come to visit him: “Do you remember when my little wife used to come up to my headquarters in Winchester and talk with her esposo? I would love to see her sunny face peering into my room again.”
Finally, on April eighteenth:
I am beginning to look for my darling and my baby. I shouldn’t be surprised to hear at any time that they were coming, and I tell you there would be one delighted man. Last night I dreamed that my little wife and I were on opposite sides of a room, in the centre of which was a table, and the little baby started from her mother, making her way along under the table, and finally reached her father. And what do you think she did when she arrived at her destination: She just climbed up on her father and kissed him! And don’t you think he was a happy man?
I am glad to hear that she enjoys out-doors, and grows, and coos, and laughs. How I would love to see her sweet ways! That her little chubby hands have lost their resemblance to mine is not regretted by me.… Should I write to you to have any more pantaloons made for me, please do not have much gold braid about them. I became so ashamed of the broad gilt band that was on the cap you sent me as to induce me to take it off. I like simplicity.
A few days later he added impatiently: “Yesterday I received your letter, but you did not say a word about coming.… I do hope that ere this you have received mine, saying you could come, and that you at once got an escort and started. There is no time for hesitation if you have not started.”
He made arrangements to put Anna and the baby in the Yerby house, a country home near his headquarters, and on gray Monday, April twentieth, at noon, he went excitedly to the railroad station at Guiney’s, in a dripping raincoat, pushing his way into the coach. He found a smiling wife and a fresh, pink-faced, fat little daughter, just aroused from a nap. He had scarcely time to notice dark Hetty, Anna’s lifelong maid.
Jackson and the baby grinned and cooed at each other on the journey to their quarters, Anna recalled. But he could not take Julia in his arms because of his wet coat. Once in their room:
He caressed her with the tenderest affection, and held her long and lovingly. During the whole of this short visit, when he was with us, he rarely had her out of his arms, walking her, and amusing her in every way that he could think of—sometimes holding her up before a mirror and saying, admiringly, “Now, Miss Jackson, look at yourself!”
Then he would turn to an old lady of the [Yerby] family and say: “Isn’t she a little gem?” He was frequently told that she resembled him, but he would say: “No, she is too pretty to look like me!
”
Anna admired him as he knelt by the cradle of the sleeping baby: “I often wished that the picture of that father kneeling over the cradle of that lovely infant could have been put upon canvas.” But she pointed out that Old Jack was also a stern parent.
One day she began to cry to be taken from the bed … and as soon as her wish was gratified, she ceased to cry. He laid her back upon the bed, and the crying was renewed with increased violence. Of course, the mother-heart wished to stop this by taking her up again, but he exclaimed: “This will never do!” and commanded “all hands off” until that little will of her own should be conquered.
So there she lay, kicking and screaming, while he stood over her with as much coolness and determination as if he were directing a battle; and he was true to the name of Stonewall, even in disciplining a baby! When she stopped crying he would take her up, and if she began to cry again he would lay her down again, and this he kept up until finally she was completely conquered, and became perfectly quiet in his hands.
On April twenty-third, when Julia was five months old, Stonewall had her baptized in the parlor of the Yerby house, with the Reverend Lacy officiating and many staff officers present. Julia “behaved beautifully.” On the next Sunday, Jackson took Anna to church. She was much impressed.
My husband took me in an ambulance to his headquarters, where the services were held, and on the way were seen streams of officers and soldiers, some riding, some walking, all wending their way to the place of worship.… We found Mr. Lacy in a tent, in which we were seated, together with General Lee and other distinguished officers.
I remember how reverent and impressive was General Lee’s bearing, and how handsome he looked, with his splendid figure and faultless military attire. In front of the tent, under the canopy of heaven, were spread out in dense masses the soldiers, sitting upon benches or standing. The preaching was earnest and edifying, the singing one grand volume of song, and the attention and good behavior of the assembly remarkable.
Anna recalled that Jackson did not allow her visit to interfere with his military duties, but on one occasion her presence led him into a surprising demonstration. He rode up to show her a new bay horse, Superior, a handsome animal given by admirers, and after taking the horse to the porch of the house, “he remounted him, and galloped away at such a John Gilpin speed that his cap was soon borne off by the velocity; but he did not stop to pick it up, leaving this to his orderly behind him, who found great difficulty in keeping even in sight of him. As far as he could be seen, he was flying like the wind—the impersonation of fearlessness and manly vigor.”
Anna had been in camp about a week when a traveling photographer—Minis of Richmond—appeared in Jackson’s headquarters, asking that Stonewall sit for a picture. The General refused, but Anna was at his elbow. She persuaded him to sit: “As he never presented a finer appearance in health and dress (wearing the handsome suit given him by General Stuart).”
Anna herself arranged his hair, “which was unusually long for him, and curled in long ringlets.” Jackson posed in a chair, seated in the draughty hall of the big country house, where “a strong wind blew in his face, causing him to frown, and giving a sternness to his countenance that was not natural.”
This was one of their last moments together.
Anna wrote of this final photograph of her husband: “The three-quarters view of his face and head—the favorite picture with his old soldiers, as it is the most soldierly-looking; but to my mind, not so pleasing as the full-face view which was taken in the spring of 1862, at Winchester, and which has more of the beaming sunlight of his home-look.”
The army had looked with curiosity at Anna Jackson, the wife of their strange, compelling corps commander. An officer left a record of the impression she made on the visit: “Slightly built and tolerably good looking, and was somewhat gaily though modestly dressed.”
On Wednesday, April twenty-ninth, a booted courier ran heavily over the porch of the Yerby House, and soon there was a rapid climbing on the stairs and a rap on the door of Jackson’s room.
“What is it?”
“General Early’s adjutant wishes to see General Jackson.”
Jackson got out of bed. “That looks as if Hooker were crossing the river,” he said to Anna. He went out of the door in his hastily arranged clothes. He was back within ten minutes.
He was changed when he returned to the bedroom and spoke to Anna. He had been right, he said. The Federals had flung some of their 138,000 fine troops over the Rappahannock, and fighting was to be expected. She must take the baby southward immediately. He must go to headquarters. If his duties permitted, he would return to see them to the train. Otherwise, her brother Joseph could accompany her. He gave her a hasty kiss, and left, without breakfast.
He was hardly out of sight when artillery began to roll. Volleys shook the house and brought the Yerby family to panic. The Reverend Lacy appeared with an ambulance, saying that Jackson had sent him to get them out of danger. They went off with no more than a note from Jackson, saying that he could not leave his post.
Anna, Hetty and Julia went with their baggage into the crude vehicle just as musketry began to rattle in the area about the house. On her way to catch the train to Richmond, Anna saw “several wounded soldiers brought in and placed in the out houses, which the surgeons were arranging as temporary hospitals. This was my nearest and only glimpse of the actual horrors of the battlefield, and the reader can imagine how sad and harrowing was my drive to the station on that terrible morning!”
Jackson no longer had time to concern himself for his family’s safety. He had immediately sent a message to Lee about the Federal move; the enemy had come over a pontoon bridge and now lay in strength on the river bank, though they did not appear to be ready to attack. Jackson was forming a strong line along the railroad track parallel to the river. The message found Lee in his tent. He was notably calm.
“Well, I heard firing,” Lee said. “And I was beginning to think it was time some of you lazy young fellows were coming to tell me what it was all about. Say to General Jackson that he knows just as well what to do with the enemy as I do.”
Jackson went to the front, saw that two vigorous officers, Early and Rodes, were making proper plans to receive the enemy, and he returned to headquarters. Here he discovered that the movement in his front was probably a feint, and that the enemy was crossing in force above Fredericksburg, to the west, and that Union troops in great numbers were moving through the rough country toward a village called Chancellorsville.
Just as his servants were striking his tent, Jackson stepped inside for a final moment, dropping the canvas behind him. Soldiers near by were startled to hear Jim cry, “Hush! The General is praying.” Within a few moments the staring men saw Old Jack emerge. There was an Old Testament look about his face.
22
CHANCELLORSVILLE
The Virginia spring was now in full flower, and in the woods beyond the drying roads were drifts of redbud and dogwood. Peaches and cherries were in bloom, and on the damp earth were carpets of bluets and mandrakes and bloodroot and rue anemones. Few soldiers took note of them.
North of the river, Fighting Joe Hooker was stripping for action the world’s finest army, so he proudly declared. Unmistakable orders had gone out. Not a Confederate private but understood what was to come.
President Lincoln had spared nothing to give Hooker the mightiest army the Union could muster, backed by mountains of supplies. Lincoln had lately written his commander:
… Our primary object is the enemy’s army in front of us.… What then? The two armies are face to face, with a narrow river between them. Our communications are shorter and safer than those of the enemy. For this reason we can with equal powers fret him more than he can us … continually harass and menace him … If he weakens himself then pitch into him.
Hooker had made plans, several of them, but always with this central idea, which he explained to Lincoln:
Aft
er giving the subject my best reflection, I have concluded that I will have more chance of inflicting a heavier blow upon the enemy by turning his position to my right (that is, moving upstream), and if practicable, to sever his communications with Richmond.
Hooker could keep few secrets. Lee wrote to Richmond that the Federals were issuing ninety thousand rations, and concluded that the enemy had seventy thousand men, at a minimum. Lee’s privates evidently knew even more. They yelled across the river, deriding the Yankees about the eight days’ rations they had been ordered to carry.
A Washington newspaper, the Morning Chronicle, soon gave Lee even more accurate knowledge of Federal strength, by blandly publishing vital facts on the Army of the Potomac: The sick of March 28 numbered 10,777; the ratio of sick to the entire army was 67.64 per 1,000. Hooker wrote the Secretary of War in anger and alarm, protesting the article, but it was too late; as he had feared, Lee was now working out the interesting Federal arithmetic. He began to understand what odds he faced. Hooker overestimated Lee’s strength but was not unaware of his advantage, even so. The Federals had positive information that most of Longstreet’s big corps was still far away, near Suffolk.
On April twenty-sixth, a cold, gray, rainy day, the Federal movement had begun in earnest, most of the strength moving upriver toward the fords west of Fredericksburg. The men carried sixty-pound packs, and, as usual, littered the roads with discarded burdens. They sang:
“Joe Hooker is our leader, he takes his whisky strong,
So our knapsacks we will sling, and go marching along.”
On April twenty-ninth, the day Mrs. Jackson was rushed back to Richmond to avoid Federal cannon fire, Lincoln wired Hooker:
“How does it look now?”
The reply:
They Called Him Stonewall Page 42