by John Keegan
In the east, where the Union had begun a campaign, progressively crippling to the South, to secure control of the Confederacy’s coastline, little dry land had changed hands in 1861. Following the Confederate defensive victory at Bull Run, Joseph E. Johnston’s Army of Northern Virginia had remained close to Washington, threatening the Federal capital. Its presence caused constant anxiety to President Lincoln, particularly because its size was consistently exaggerated by his new General-in-Chief, George McClellan. In March 1862 Joseph E. Johnston withdrew it south of the Rappahannock, one of the west–east waterlines that defended Richmond. That move somewhat relieved Lincoln’s concern for the security of his capital; but it objectively complicated McClellan’s plan to take the Confederacy’s by his seaborne invasion, since it put the South’s largest army closer to his ultimate objective.
On a large-scale map—paradoxically, in mapmaking, the larger the scale, the less the detail shown; one mile to one inch, small scale, is much more informative than ten miles to one inch, large-scale, though the latter is the more useful for strategic planning—the situation in March 1862 would have looked thus: Joseph E. Johnston, with 40,000 men in the Army of Northern Virginia, stood on the Rappahannock, forty miles north of Richmond; McClellan, with 155,000 men in the Army of the Potomac, was sailing it down that river to land at Fortress Monroe at the tip of the Virginian Peninsula, sixty miles from Richmond; various Northern detachments, under the command of Nathaniel Banks, amounting to some 20,000, protected Washington. In the Appalachian Mountains to the west, other Union generals deployed detachments of various strength. Implanted in the middle of the theatre, confronting but also threatened by the Union forces in the mountains and around Washington, Stonewall Jackson deployed fewer than 5,000 men to protect Joseph E. Johnston’s flank, to hold the Federals in the mountains at bay and to deter Banks from bringing the Northern defenders of Washington down to assist McClellan in his seaborne advance on Richmond.18
In unbroken country—the flat, unforested, unwatered terrain of the Great Plains, say—Jackson’s position would have been untenable. He would have been swept up during a few days of fighting in a concentric advance by Banks and the Northerners to the west. Jackson, however, was not in that vulnerable position. He had the mountains and rivers of the Shenandoah Valley on his side and, by employing the accidents of geography, natural and man-made, to his advantage, might overcome the odds confronting him. In the months of March, April, May and June 1862, he defied every probability in the most brilliant exercise in manoeuvre warfare, depending wholly upon superior use of intelligence, in the broadest sense, perhaps ever achieved.
The Valley Army (formally the Army of the Shenandoah Valley District) began its virtuoso campaign of diversion at the head of the Shenandoah Valley, where it had spent a hard winter near Romney, Jackson’s boyhood home. His orders were to avoid pitched battle but to operate in such a manner as to prevent Banks, outside Washington, from reinforcing McClellan as he advanced on Richmond. As events unfolded, he was to fight several pitched battles but nevertheless achieve the spirit of his instructions.
Though tied to Washington, Banks was also under orders to clear the northern end of the Valley and in late February he crossed the Potomac River where it joins the Shenandoah at Harper’s Ferry, then he advanced south. His purpose was to protect the two strategic lines of communication, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (connecting the sea to the Ohio River system beyond the Appalachians) and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (a principal rail route westward through the Appalachian Mountains), from Confederate interference. Jackson at first proposed attacking his advance guards at Winchester, where a railroad spur terminated at the Valley Turnpike, believing that he could inflict a defeat on the Union forces while they remained dispersed. The plan, however, defied Joseph E. Johnston’s order to decline action; while Johnston was withdrawing his army from Manassas to protect Richmond, he was particularly anxious not to risk a defeat anywhere that would allow Banks to bring his army to reinforce McClellan’s. Jackson’s plan also frightened his subordinates, who were sure they would be beaten. After a heated debate in a council of war, his first, on the evening of 11 March, Jackson gave up the argument. As he rode away into the darkness, he burst out to Dr. McGuire, his chief medical officer, “That is the last council of war I will ever hold.”
He was to be as good as his word; indeed, better. It is a military catchphrase that “Councils of War never fight”—the phrase was to be President Theodore Roosevelt’s but the idea is as old as antiquity—and, after the timidity shown by his brigadiers at Winchester, Jackson withdrew into himself.19 Famously taciturn even in his cadet days at West Point and much more given to private prayer than conversation, he henceforth kept his thoughts to himself, revealing his intentions only at the last moment and then in peremptory, often cryptic orders. That was not a deliberate security measure, more a reflection of his introverted nature; but it had the highly desirable effect, in what was to be a campaign of repeated surprises, of shrouding the unexpected in silence.
Between 11 and 20 March, the Valley Army retreated southward down the Valley Turnpike, covered by the cavalry force under Turner Ashby. Ashby was a born cavalier, untrained in formal cavalry tactics but a horseman to his fingertips and a dasher and doer. At times during the campaign, his and his troopers’ lack of discipline would infuriate the professional Jackson, but his relentless aggressiveness always restored him to his general’s favour. Meanwhile, as the retreat lengthened, Jackson was pondering his strategy. “Mobility was the essential factor in the Valley Army’s future.”20 The army could manoeuvre successfully in the face of a superior enemy, however, only if it made correct use of the Valley’s geography, forced the enemy to make mistakes and denied Banks the use of essential links in the communication chain. It was a crucial factor in Jackson’s calculations to know that his opponent was not a professional soldier, indeed not a soldier at all; a leading type of the Civil War “political” general, appointed for party reasons, Banks had been a Congressman, Speaker of the House of Representatives and most recently Governor of Massachusetts. Jackson’s calculations essentially turned, nevertheless, on objective, not subjective factors: roads, bridges, rivers, hills. Now that Banks was inside the Valley, he had to keep him there, but without fighting battles he might lose. He also had to keep at a safe distance from the Union forces to the west, in the Allegheny Mountains. Finally, he had to keep open his line of withdrawal eastward towards Richmond, should Joseph E. Johnston send for him to assist in the defence of the city against McClellan’s army in the Peninsula.
His first thought was of bridges: those to be denied to the enemy, those essential to his army’s ability to manoeuvre. There were many in the Valley, most wooden and easily combustible, but some of critical importance. Two were railroad bridges, one over the South River at the southern end of the Valley, which Jackson needed if he were to escape by rail to Richmond, and one at Front Royal on the Manassas Gap Rail Road, a main line in the Northern supply chain. It had already been burnt by Jackson’s headquarters guard, and he had sent the rolling stock beyond it south to prevent Banks from using the wagons in a subsequent advance.
Of the road bridges, the headquarters guard had also burnt the one at Front Royal, to impede Banks’ advance down the Luray Valley, east of the Massanutten Mountain into which the North Fork flowed. The three bridges at Luray were essential to Jackson, however, were he to decide to slip across the central mountains through the Massanutten gap, and he also needed to preserve the spans at Port Republic and Conrad’s Store, both crossing the South Fork or its tributary, which carried roads leading through the Blue Ridge gaps and so to Richmond. Finally, there was a wooden bridge at Rude’s Hill, where the Valley Turnpike crossed the North Fork, which was perhaps the most important of all. If destroyed, with Banks to the north and Jackson to the south, its loss would stop a Northern advance dead at that point. Equally, its destruction behind Jackson’s back would terminate his chance of opening a counter-
offensive up the Valley west of the Massanutten.
A dispassionate observer, taking his stance in mid-March 1862 at Staunton, Jackson’s main base at the extreme south of the Valley, would have assessed the situation thus: Banks, having failed to follow up Jackson’s retreat from Winchester with energy, was stuck between that place and Strasburg but retained the option of moving down either the North or South Forks; the latter manoeuvre would require bridging at Front Royal but that was within his army’s capability. Jackson, at Mount Jackson on the North Fork, had two choices: he could reverse his retreat and move up the Turnpike to find and fight Banks near Winchester; or he could cross through the Massanutten Gap to enter the Luray Valley and open a new offensive front.
The second choice, however, would take the Valley Army off the macadamised Turnpike onto dirt roads, limit its mobility and expose the main base at Staunton to Federal attack. Jackson therefore decided, even though he thereby kept himself further from contact with Johnston at Richmond and nearer to the remaining Federal forces in the Alleghenies, to retrace his steps and bring Banks to battle at Winchester. Moreover, he was encouraged to reverse his course by Johnston, who, retreating towards the Richmond river lines from Manassas, now expressed the anxiety that Jackson had got too far away from Banks. “Would not your presence with your troops nearer Winchester prevent the enemy from diminishing his force there? . . . I think it important to keep that army in the Valley, and that it should not reinforce McClellan. Do try and prevent it by getting and keeping as near as prudence will permit.”21
He had implicitly not encouraged Jackson to seek battle, but Jackson was not prudent when he scented the chance of a successful fight. On receipt of Johnston’s despatch, he immediately turned north again, marched through unseasonal snow on 22 March and, on the 23rd, found contact with Banks’ advance guard at the village of Kernstown, five miles short of Winchester.
Ashby’s cavalry opened the engagement, skirmishing forward during the morning with infantry in support. As the Union troops opposite began to form a line of battle, he fell back, to meet Jackson bringing up the main body. Ashby may have sent word to Jackson that he was opposed by only four regiments; alternatively, the intelligence may have come from local spies. In either case, Jackson was misinformed. The Federals were in much greater number, about 10,000 to Jackson’s 4,000, and with plentiful artillery, which, quickly brought into action from well-chosen positions, began to cause casualties.
Despite his inferiority in strength—and despite the day being a Sunday, on which the pious Jackson always sought to avoid fighting—he decided in the early afternoon to attack. The Northerners were deployed on both sides of the Turnpike but in greater strength to the west, where ridges and hillocks gave commanding views. It was there that Jackson made his effort. To assist him in directing the battle he summoned an officer of the 2nd Virginia, Major Frank Jones, “who knew the countryside: he could look across the Pike and see his front porch.”22 Local knowledge would not on this occasion, however, get Jackson out of a spot. He was about to bite off more than he could chew. Worse, his temperamental taciturnity added to the difficulty of the situation. He issued an unclear command and then lost control of events by leaving his central position to gallop about, trying to restore order. His leading brigade lost direction, came under heavy artillery fire, took cover and then fell back. Jackson brought up guns of his own—of which he had nearly as many as the enemy—and infantry reinforcements, but after a final and bitter exchange of volleys at short range, his men were beaten; many had run out of ammunition. Jackson himself wrote a few days later, “I do not recollect of ever having heard such a roar of musketry”; but the Federal fire was the heavier and at about six o’clock in the evening the Valley Army began to slip away and retreat down the Turnpike.23
The Battle of Kernstown was a Confederate defeat. Southern losses were 455 killed and wounded, 263 taken prisoner; Union losses were 568 killed and wounded. Proportionately, the Valley Army had come off much the worse. On the other hand, the strategic effect was to its advantage. Even though the enemy had advanced when attacked, they formed only part of Banks’ army; another division had already left to join McClellan at Richmond, and Banks had gone to Washington. McClellan himself ordered Banks, who returned from Washington posthaste on the Kernstown news, “Push Jackson hard and drive him well beyond Strasburg.” He amplified his instructions on 1 April, emphasising that the Kernstown battle had forced a change of plan, requiring Banks to stay in the Valley instead of leaving it and, once the railroad was repaired, to advance to Staunton, Jackson’s main base, at the bottom of the Valley, so as to force “the rebels to concentrate on you and then [you to] return to me.”24
What he did not do was to offer Banks more troops. Lincoln’s anxiety to protect Washington, the pull on his resources exerted by operations in and west of the Alleghenies, all combined to reduce his striking power against Richmond. Given McClellan’s specific orders to Banks to advance down the Valley Turnpike, west of the dividing barrier of the Massanutten Mountain, he thereby spared Jackson the anxiety that he might have to defend the Luray Valley to the east of the Massanutten also. Indeed, once he became aware of the pattern of Northern deployment, Jackson recognised that the opportunity was opened to use the Luray as an avenue for a counteroffensive of his own. He was to take full advantage. Although he was to spend the rest of March and much of April falling back west of the Massanutten, he was already contemplating countermeasures which would take him up the corridor to the east, where he could reopen attacks towards Harper’s Ferry and Manassas—and so heighten Lincoln and McClellan’s anxieties.
Before he would be free to act in that way, however, there was to be much action at the south of the Valley. Jackson, following his retreat from Kernstown, had brought the Valley Army into defensive positions near Mount Jackson, on the North Fork of the Shenandoah, where he reorganised. Banks, following slowly, occupied Woodstock. The actual outpost line between the two armies, from 3 to 17 April, was along a minor stream called Stony Creek. The two sides skirmished across it during two weeks of inactivity, Jackson content to keep Banks in play, Banks hesitating to advance lest Jackson slip through the Massanutten Gap to Luray and strike at his line of communications higher up the Shenandoah. Eventually, however, Banks perceived—with a rare flash of inspiration—that if Jackson could make geography work his way, it could be made to work for him also. He saw that, given the very small distance involved, he might, by a brisk advance down the Turnpike, drive Jackson past New Market, the entrance to the Massanutten Gap, and harry him on south to Harrisonburg or even Staunton. At dawn on 17 April, Union infantry launched a surprise attack, cavalry following. The Confederate defences were driven in, and when Ashby’s troopers tried to stop the Northern advance by burning the bridge at Rude’s Hill, where the North Fork runs in an impassable trench, the Union cavalry were upon them quickly enough to put the blaze out. The Valley Army, outnumbered nearly two to one, had no option but to leg it south as quick as it could go. Two days of forced marching took it out of reach of the pursuit; but, following Kernstown, Jackson knew that he had suffered a local reverse.
Strategically, however, he was still in the ascendant. Joseph E. Johnston, increasingly hard pressed by McClellan near Richmond, had actually sent orders for him to be ready to leave the Valley; his new quarters, in Swift Run Gap, one of the key passes through the Blue Ridge, positioned him to do so. Jackson, however, became increasingly persuaded as April drew out that he could protect Richmond better by staying where he was and using Swift Run as a secure base—the high ground on two sides protected him against surprise attack—from which to strike at Union forces in the vicinity. He calculated that they numbered 160,000 altogether, spread out across eastern, northern and western Virginia, and that most were successfully pinning down their Confederate opponents: McClellan had Joseph E. Johnston fixed at Richmond, McDowell was facing Anderson on the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg, Frémont, in the Alleghenies, menaced the small force o
f Edward Johnson. Jackson alone had freedom to manoeuvre, for, though the Federals now appeared to dominate the southern Valley, he was confident that he could outwit them in a mobile campaign. The question was whether Banks presented the most profitable target.
What tipped the decision eventually was growing evidence that Frémont was emerging from the Alleghenies to strike at Edward Johnson’s small and isolated force near Staunton, Jackson’s main base, crammed with war supplies and with produce from the Valley farms. To go to Johnson’s aid would require a march of fifty miles along bad roads and across the front of Banks’ army, still stationed near Harrisonburg, on the Valley Turnpike, after its advance from victory at Kernstown the previous month. The risk was sustainable, however, for Banks lay behind the North River, the bridges over which had been burnt on Jackson’s orders to cover his retreat to Swift Run Gap. Hotchkiss was therefore sent to locate Edward Johnson’s exact position and to reconnoitre a route towards him. On 30 April the Valley Army set out.
It would have reassured Jackson had he known that Banks believed the Valley Army was already leaving Swift Run Gap to go to Richmond. His mind, however, was set on his course, so much so that when torrential rain—“great sluices of water running along the road for hundreds of yards”—blocked the route Hotchkiss had chosen, Jackson turned his column about, marched it back into Brown’s Gap, gave his men a night’s rest and then started them west again along a more southerly route. It had the advantage of running parallel to the Virginian Central Railroad, onto which Jackson loaded his sick and stores. Piecemeal by rail and road the Valley Army concentrated at Staunton on 6 May, left the next day to join forces with Edward Johnson, who was marching to meet it, and then pressed westward towards a tiny place called McDowell (also, confusingly, the name of the Union general commanding on the Rappahannock north of Richmond).