Stuart had to make another decision: Should he continue on his way, cross the Chickahominy and make for his own lines, or should he rush down the railroad and attempt to capture the Federal base at White House? A vast prize that was, distant a bare four miles. If it could be destroyed, McClellan would be compelled to retreat. Such a prospect was alluring, but was it not an enticement? Every moment that passed after the arrival of the train at White House would be devoted to preparation for defense. Reinforcements might close the Confederates’ line of retreat. Regretfully but decisively, Stuart shut his mind to this highest adventure of all.25
A wagon park at the station, filled with grain and coffee, was set afire. While this was being done, the squadrons from Garlick’s Landing arrived, reporting the destruction of two schooners and many wagons loaded with fodder. With that the column started at once for the Chickahominy. A bright moon now had risen, one day past the full, and lighted the bad road. The column dragged. Troopers snatched sleep, horses staggered. Midnight came before the exhausted artillery horses hauled the pieces to Talleysville. From that point the distance to Forge Bridge was less than seven miles.26
Long as each minute seemed, the night was almost ended. If all went well, the winding, marshy river soon would lie between the Confederates and their pursuers. Lieutenant Jonas Christian, who lived at Sycamore Springs on the bank of the Chickahominy, told Stuart that he knew a blind ford on the plantation that was nearer than Forge Bridge. The columns could slip across there and not waste precious hours rebuilding the burned Forge Bridge span. The moon was just being dimmed by a faint light in the east when Lieutenant Christian turned down the lane at Sycamore Springs. Presently young Christian halted in startled surprise. He was at the ford, but it had a different appearance from the easy crossing he had known all his life. In front of him was a wide, swift, evil-looking stream that extended far beyond its banks. The placid Chickahominy was an angry torrent, the ford perhaps a death trap.
Rooney Lee, the first officer of rank to arrive at Sycamore Springs, stripped quickly and swam into the stream to test it. Strong though he was, he had to battle to escape being drowned or swept downstream. “What do you think of the situation, Colonel?” John Esten Cooke asked when Lee pulled himself ashore. “Well, Captain,” replied the half-exhausted swimmer, with all the courtesy of his stock, “I think we are caught.”27
Stuart rode down to the ford. Carefully he surveyed the stream, then stroked his beard with a peculiar twist that his staff noticed he never employed except when he was anxious. He looked dangerous—-just that. Silently he observed as the most experienced swimmers began to cross the river with their horses, but only a few of the men had enough skill in the water to breast so wrathful a stream. Trees were felled in the hope that the men might clamber over them, but they were too short to bridge the swollen stream.28
Time was passing. The summer sun was up. Stuart decided that his one hope of escaping was to patch together a crude bridge. He ordered his command to the site of Forge Bridge, a mile below. Here the stream was swift but the channel was narrower than at the Sycamore Springs ford. Stuart entrusted to Redmond Burke, as resourceful as dauntless, the task of building a bridge. From a large abandoned warehouse near at hand came framing timbers to span the river between the abutments of the old bridge. With much effort they were pushed across and then lifted up toward the abutments. Stuart watched all the while, and ere long the dangerous look faded from his face. He began to hum a tune. His eye told him the timbers were long enough, but even he must have held his breath when, with a final “Pull together!” the first long beam was set. It rested safely on both banks, but with few inches to spare.
A shout went up from the men. They could save the guns! Quickly the bridge was floored with siding from the warehouse. Over it, in renewed strength, the men made their way. The rifle and the howitzer lumbered across. Fitz Lee left five men to fire the bridge, and by the time the rear of the column had passed out of sight the flames were crackling. Then—as if to add the perfect dramatic touch to the climax—a little knot of Federal lancers appeared on the north bank and opened fire.29
When on the right bank of the Chickahominy at last, Stuart was thirty-five miles from Richmond. He turned over the command to Fitz Lee and hurried on ahead. On the morning of June 15, forty-eight hours from the time he had set out on the expedition, he reported to General Lee. The column moved more slowly and arrived in Richmond on the sixteenth, to receive a conqueror’s welcome.
In the eyes of a jubilant city and an applauding South, the glamour of Stuart’s exploit was not dimmed by the enemy’s incredible slowness and lack of organization in pursuit. General Philip St. George Cooke, whose service Virginia had coveted a year previously, proved himself utterly incapable of grasping his military problem or of acting promptly. The Confederacy rejoiced that Stuart the son-in-law had outwitted Cooke the father-in-law. Stuart’s satisfaction was as boyish as his feat had been extraordinary. Whether the raid was well conceived by Lee—whether it put McClellan on guard for the security of his right flank—is a question much disputed. That the whole was flawlessly executed none would dispute. Stuart became the hero of his troopers and one of the idols of the public. What was not less important, the cavalry was shown to be as trustworthy as the infantry.30
“That was a tight place at the river, General,” John Esten Cooke said to Stuart when it was all over. “If the enemy had come down on us, you would have been compelled to surrender.”
“No,” answered Stuart, “one other course was left.”
“What was that?”
“To die game.”31
CHAPTER 8
Guarding the Valley
1
GENERAL AND DEACON JACKSON AT ODDS
“Jackson is coming!” Within a few days after Stuart had returned from his ride around McClellan, that was the rumor. “Jackson is coming to reinforce Lee.” The possibility was itself enough to raise public hope and to restore to the threatened capital some of the lost confidence of 1861. Magic had become associated with the name of Jackson during the four months since his threatened resignation—magic and the victory that fervent Southerners had argued would follow a daring offensive. In February a few had appraised him as an able soldier, but some of his officers and many of this troops thought him eccentric, if not insane. Ministers and zealous church members had been those, and those only, who held him up as a model. Now, after a dazzling campaign, Stonewall was the new hero of the war.
General Jackson had not lacked resentment of Benjamin’s orders for the recall of Loring from Romney, but after he agreed to permit his resignation to be withdrawn he talked no more about the episode. From his headquarters in Winchester he discharged his duties as if there had been no friction with the War Department. Drill and discipline remained his military gospel. He rode and inspected and studied ground, and when every task of the day had been performed he joined his wife, who had come to Winchester to spend the winter. Everything was agreeable. He had a place for her in the home of a minister whose sympathetic, intelligent wife had pleasant patrician friends, with handsome homes and good cooks.1
In this company there was little except his old uniform coat and his bronzed face to identify Jackson as the flaming “Stonewall of Manassas.” His blue eyes, always direct and penetrating in gaze, seemed to soften; his voice was gentler than ever. He delighted in the company of gentle old ladies and of serious ministers. Spiritual more than martial discourse seemed to delight him. Did he not bear his full share in the exchange of religious experience and in the discussion of theology? He was not reserved of speech, either, or stumbling in expression. If the argument over religion grew complicated, he would “recur to some premise which others had overlooked,” and from it proceed “by a short and convincing direction, to his own conclusion.” The pleasure he found in domestic life was almost pathetic. Such a man scarcely seemed capable of doing battle. His delight was in the law of the Lord.2
So pleasant a life could not
last long for the commander of what was, in reality, an outpost town. Of Johnston’s prospective withdrawal from Manassas Jackson was kept informed, but he was loath to leave the lower Valley. He wished above all to be free to maneuver. “If,” he explained to Johnston, “we cannot be successful in defeating the enemy should he advance, a kind Providence may enable us to inflict a terrible wound and effect a safe retreat in the event of having to fall back.”3 That was to be the basis of Jackson’s offensive-defensive strategy.
Unwillingly, on March II, he left Winchester and started southward. The Federal advance was under Major General Nathaniel P. Banks, and the plan of Jackson was to turn on his pursuer and deliver a swift night attack. When Jackson discovered that a blunder in logistics had sent his columns farther than he had intended that first day, he was furious. For some reason he blamed the mistake on a conference he had called to prepare for the night attack: “That is the last council of war I will ever hold!” And it was.4
Falling back to Mount Jackson, forty-two miles south of Winchester, Stonewall established his camps. A different man he was, in some respects, from the church-going deacon of the winter, different in apparent interest but still profoundly religious. His life in Winchester had been a New Testament sermon. In the field he was an Old Testament Joshua. God was love, but He also was Lord of Hosts and, as such, was to be followed. The Sermon on the Mount did not cancel the Book of Judges or of Kings. Soldiers began to call Jackson “Old Blue Light.” Those who had read Thomas Carlyle’s Cromwell came to wonder, perhaps, if Jackson had in him the qualities of “Old Noll.”
Jackson lived in simple quarters. His fare was plain. Corn bread, milk, and butter sufficed him. Tobacco he never used. Whiskey he avoided because he thought he might come to like it. When he was attending to business in his tent, he was bolt upright on a stool and kept the toes of his boots directly in front of his legs as if that were a disciplinary exercise of mathematical precision. Sometimes he would talk freely, though never brilliantly, of general topics. Again he would remain almost wholly silent. One of his men wrote of seeing “staff officers ride up … and tell him something about the lines, or about something of importance, and he would calmly sit there for a few minutes, then turn his horse and ride slowly away, his staff following, without his uttering a single word.” If he walked it was with the long stride of the farmer who seeks to cover ground swiftly. When he rode, his stirrups were short and his seat, though secure, was awkward. In the saddle he held his head high and his chin up, for full vision ahead, though he kept the brim of his weather-beaten cap down over his eyes. Always he wore the same ill-fitting, single-breasted major’s uniform coat that had been a jest to his cadets at V.M.I. His deep-blue eyes kept their direct gaze. In height he stood close to six feet and was strong and angular, without any surplus flesh. He was slightly deaf in one ear and for that reason sometimes could not determine the direction of distant artillery fire.5
The commanding general was in sharp physical contrast to the next man in the esteem of the Army of the Valley—Colonel Turner Ashby, head of the cavalry. In appearance Ashby was dark, almost swarthy, suggesting the popular conception of an Arab. To romantic Southerners he looked as if he had stepped out of a Waverley novel. With fierce mustachios and a beard that a brigand would have envied, he was of middle height and of a frame not apparently robust, though wiry and of astonishing strength. Away from bugles and battle smoke Turner Ashby’s mien was that of a mild, affable, and modest gentleman. Those admirers who always remembered how he looked never recalled anything he said. He spoke best with his sword.6
The War Department had authorized Ashby to form a company of artillery and supplied the ordnance for this battery—one long-range English Blakely gun, a smoothbore 12-pounder howitzer, a 3-inch rifle gun. Ashby had no experience in gunnery beyond that acquired in a few brushes with the enemy. Jackson, who by that time had assumed command in the Valley, doubtless knew Ashby’s inexperience, but he knew also the quality of the graduates of V.M.I., his own former students, who were to command the battery. “Young men, now that you have your company, what are you going to do with it?” was the question he put them. The three addressed in this manner were Robert Preston Chew, nineteen, captain; Milton Rouse, seventeen, first lieutenant; and James Thomson, eighteen, second lieutenant. These lads had no answer at the moment to give their teacher, but Ashby was preparing one. He proposed that the thirty-three gunners who were to serve in Chew’s battery should be mounted instead of being required to plod along afoot or to ride the caissons when they could. Where the cavalry went, the guns were to go. That was the substance of Ashby’s proposed tactics, which were to be an all-sufficient answer to Jackson.7
General Banks had advanced James Shields’s division to Strasburg, halfway between Winchester and Mount Jackson, and Ashby had his troopers where they could report every Federal move. The first test came quickly. On March 21, ten days after the Confederates evacuated Winchester, Ashby found that the Federals were retiring northward from Strasburg. He sent word to Jackson, and with one company of cavalry and Chew’s battery started immediately in pursuit. Jackson quickly followed. Some of his troops marched twenty-one miles the next day. The rear regiments covered twenty-seven. Another rapid march, averaging sixteen miles, brought Jackson’s column by 2:00 P.M. on Sunday the twenty-third to Kernstown, four miles south of Winchester.8
Ashby had important news. He had heard from friendly sources that only four regiments of infantry, with some cavalry and artillery, remained in Winchester. Ashby’s information was that the Federal troops visible on open ground to the east of the Valley Pike, when Jackson reached Kerns-town, were merely a rear guard.
Jackson probably received this intelligence with more excitement than he showed. For the first time in his career he was about to make his own decision to give battle. Not one of his subordinates did he consult; to none did he give any indication of what he was thinking. He could count a few more than 3,000 infantry, with 27 field guns. Ashby’s strength was 290 cavalry and the 3-piece battery. This force seemed ample for the task in hand, which now and always, in Jackson’s military code, was to smite the Northern invader and drive him from Virginia. There was one obstacle only: The day was the Lord’s. Was not the commandment plain—the Lord had blessed the day and had hallowed it. That was the Law, but the fact was grim: To delay until the Sabbath was past might be a worse sin and one against his own men, because the Philistines might bring up new hosts. If the decision were wrong, might the Lord forgive a humble sinner—but the enemy must be attacked that day, aye, that hour.9
As Jackson saw it, his best opening was on his left. Swiftly, sharply, unhesitatingly the orders were issued. Ashby must hold the Valley Pike, with the brigade of Colonel Jesse S. Burks as support and general reserve. The Third Brigade, Colonel Samuel V. Fulkerson, and Jackson’s own veterans of the First, under Brigadier General Richard B. Garnett, were to deliver on the left the attack designed to turn the enemy’s right.
Jackson gave the order for the advance. Garnett moved up to support Fulkerson. The infantry pushed steadily forward. Batteries came up quickly on call. Ashby held his own. As Jackson fed in his reserves they seemed to assure victory. Then, in the center where the Stonewall Brigade was fighting, the enemy’s fire swelled ominously. That of the Confederates diminished. Disheartened men, with empty cartridge boxes, began to slip to the rear. Jackson was startled but not dismayed. His eyes began to glare. He rode toward the front. He met a man with back to the enemy. “Where are you going?” he demanded. The soldier explained that he had fired all his cartridges and did not know where to get more. Jackson’s face flamed. He rose in his stirrups. “Then go back and give them the bayonet!” he snapped.10
It was too late. Instead of a retiring rear guard the Confederates now faced onrushing regiments. Soon Dick Garnett, though as brave as the bravest, realized that the odds against him were hopeless. Before he could communicate with Jackson he might be overwhelmed. Reluctantly, Garnett ordered a wit
hdrawal. Fulkerson’s right was exposed. He, too, had to give ground.
At the sight of his own brigade in retreat Jackson put his horse at a gallop and rode to Garnett. In hoarse, commanding tones he bade the brigadier halt the withdrawal. The men must stand to their work! He was intensely excited but not despairing. Two regiments he still had in reserve. They were supposed to be advancing. With them he would remake his line and hurl back the attack. Where were they? What delayed them? Jackson soon heard the answer: The two regiments were a short distance to the rear. Garnett had told the senior colonel to halt there to cover the retreat.
That settled it! Nothing now could be done except to break off the action and get the little army out of range. But the troops must maintain their ground until every man and every musket that could be retrieved was carried to the rear. “This army stays here until the last wounded man is removed,” Jackson said grimly. “Before I will leave them to the enemy I will lose many more men.” This was repeated, remembered, elaborated. Thenceforward it was part of the army’s creed. Wrote Dick Taylor of Jackson: “In advance, his trains were left far behind. In retreat, he would fight for a wheelbarrow.”11
The halt that twenty-third of March was made at Newtown, four miles and a half south of Kernstown. The enemy made no immediate attempt at pursuit. In one sense Jackson had a right to be satisfied. The fault was not with his troops or his tactics but with his information and reconnaissance. Ashby had been misled by Winchester friends who themselves had been deceived. Jackson had not faced merely a rear guard. Shields’s division of 9,000 men had been near Winchester on the twenty-second and had been led back quietly toward Kernstown. Reconnaissance, which had been hasty and inexperienced, had failed to disclose them. Although Jackson lost 700 men killed, wounded, and missing, he thought that the Federal casualties had been larger. He reasoned that if he had done that well with the odds three to one against him, he could afford to be satisfied with his troops, and with his cavalry and artillery no less than with his infantry.12
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