Tactics apart, there was a large strategical consideration. Jackson possibly reasoned, even at this early stage of the operations, that after so hard a blow Banks would hesitate to withdraw from the Shenandoah Valley and join the army operating against Johnston. Such a withdrawal had been considered probable, because the Confederates assumed McClellan would call to him every available man. If the fight at Kernstown held Banks’s troops west of the Blue Ridge, Jackson’s satisfaction would be doubled.
The possible effect of the battle and the stout defense against odds did not prevent soreness. Specifically, it did not alter the fact that General Richard Garnett had ordered the Stonewall Brigade to retire from the front of action. Jackson could not forgive that. On April I he relieved that general of command, put him under arrest, and drew up charges and specifications for a court-martial. Garnett was charged with neglect of duty under seven specifications.
Besides the determination Jackson thus exhibited for the maintenance of discipline and the precise execution of the letter of orders, something personally rigid was involved: He was resolved that affection for his old brigade should not induce him to spare it. “We had to pay dearly for our reputation,” one private wrote years afterward. At the moment, feeling in the Army of the Valley, particularly in the Stonewall Brigade, was that Garnett did not deserve arrest and court-martial. Jackson was unyielding. He never consented to have Garnett again in his army and prepared to testify against him if a court-martial were held.13
Of this Jackson was convinced: The battle had been worth waging; his stand concerning Garnett was correct. Regarding one aspect of the contest he was not quite so certain. That was the violation of the Sabbath by fighting that day. The general received a letter from Mrs. Jackson wherein his beloved expressed distress and a measure of spiritual alarm that he had attacked on the Lord’s Day. Deacon Jackson of the Presbyterian Church of Lexington had now to square his conduct with that of Major General T.J. Jackson in command of the Valley District. It was the deacon who wrote the apologia: “You appear much concerned at my attacking on Sunday. I was greatly concerned, too, but I felt it my duty to do it…. So far as I can see, my course was a wise one … though very distasteful to my feelings….” Then the general had the deacon come to the point: “Arms is a profession that, if its principles are adhered to for success, requires an officer to do what he fears may be wrong, and yet, according to military experience, must be done, if success is to be attained…. Had I fought the battle on Monday instead of Sunday, I fear our cause would have suffered….”14
The military argument and the religious were reconciled as well as might be: If a battle had to be fought on the Sabbath, then success was evidence of the favor of the Lord. Less clear but not to be disdained was the implication of the converse—that if a soldier unwisely delayed a Sunday battle and by so doing sustained defeat on Monday, then that was proof that the Lord disapproved poor military judgment.
In that argument the general triumphed over the deacon.
2
THE BUILDING OF A “NEW MODEL” ARMY
Stonewall’s thought was centered on making ready his troops for the next move of adversaries who had followed at a discreet distance. The manner in which he went about the recruitment, training, discipline, and organization of his men brought to light some interesting personal characteristics not observed previously by his comrades. Tested also was his aptitude for army administration.
The first man he put in training was himself; his initial lessons were in geography. Jed Hotchkiss, whose skill in topographical engineering had been demonstrated in Robert Garnett’s tragic expedition, had reported on March 20 as acting adjutant of the militia regiment from Augusta County. Jackson sent for him on the twenty-sixth. The general said: “I want you to make me a map of the Valley, from Harper’s Ferry to Lexington, showing all the points of offence and defence in those places. Mr. Pendleton will give you orders for whatever outfit you want. Good morning, Sir.”Thus, in three sentences, began the making of the maps which were to contribute to the sureness, and thereby to the speed and boldness, of all Jackson’s future operations in the Valley.15
Recruitment was advanced by similarly direct methods. The Conscription Act had created much discontent among the peace-loving residents of the Shenandoah. Numerous Dunkards, who were an offshoot of the Mennonites, murmured much at the performance of military duty. Jackson, in the end, agreed to employ these conscientious objectors as teamsters. Although this arrangement perforce was accepted by the Dunkards, some of the Rockingham militia openly rebelled against conscription and fled to the mountains. Jackson did not hesitate for an hour. He sent four companies of infantry, some cavalry, and two guns after the insurrectionists. One was killed; twenty-four surrendered. A leader of the movement later was captured. That was the end of the insurrection.16
During this period the troops of Jackson’s command had to elect their officers. In accordance with the rashly unwise re-enlistment acts, troops of any regiment or company could displace any man who had offended the majority. This process was democratic but it was not military. In the Stonewall Brigade it was complicated by the discontent of the colonels over the treatment of Garnett and over the severity of Jackson’s attitude toward them. Colonel A. C. Cummings of the 23rd Virginia, who largely had been responsible for the most brilliant achievement of Jackson’s brigade at Manassas, refused to stand for election. Cummings made no explanation, but he was supposed to have made up his mind that he would not serve under Jackson. Colonel James W. Allen of the 2nd Virginia was equally bitter toward Jackson, and his resignation was expected. Of those elevated by the suffrage, the most promising was John F. Neff of the 33rd, chosen colonel in succession to Cummings.17
Brigade reorganization was at least as serious a matter. To Garnett’s place Brigadier General Charles Sidney Winder already had been assigned by Johnston’s orders. Confederate service had few generals of a personality more military than this young Marylander, thirty-three years of age, West Point’s class of 1850. Winder’s thin, waving hair was combed back from a wide and towering forehead. A curling beard seemed to lengthen his sensitive, intelligent face. Restless, alert eyes, deep-set, reflected both daring and ill health. In the field he was flawlessly uniformed and always had the finest of mounts, but he did not create the impression of being a mere dress-parade officer. His reception by his brigade was distinctly cold. Because of their resentment over the arrest of Garnett, the colonels had agreed quietly that they would not call on the new commander. The men were openly hostile. All this suggested that Winder was to have a difficult assignment as head of the First Brigade.18
Colonel J. S. Burks, who had commanded the Second Brigade at Kerns-town, was absent on an indefinite sick leave. A qualified brigadier was much wanted in his place. Colonel S. V. Fulkerson, who soon would be ripe for promotion, could be continued safely to direct the Third Brigade, formerly under Brigadier General William B. Taliaferro. On April 13, Taliaferro returned by General Johnston’s order for assignment, not to the command of Burks’s brigade, which might have used him, but of his old brigade, now Fulkerson’s, which did not need him. Taliaferro had sided with Loring in that officer’s winter squabble with Jackson, and it was surmised immediately that Jackson did not welcome him to the command of one of the Valley brigades.19 Jackson made protest to the army’s adjutant general, but in vain. General Taliaferro remained. Nothing was done in Richmond concerning a general officer for Burks’s brigade.
By the middle of April the reorganization and refit of the little Army of the Valley were as far advanced as Jackson could carry them. Difficulties considered, he had been swift, decisive, and efficient in making good the losses and deficiencies of Kernstown. Jackson doubtless felt that the thanks of the Confederate Congress, published April 8, were deserved by his officers and men.20 As for the congressional praise of himself, he gave the glory to God. His military ambition might be far greater than any of his friends knew—greater than even he realized; but always
he purposed to shape it to the will of the Almighty.
The day of April 17 was a historic one. General Banks started up the Valley that day. The Federal commander was not a professional soldier, but in his rise from youthful hard labor in a Massachusetts cotton mill he had shown intelligence and persistence. A man who had been speaker of the House of Representatives and thrice governor of Massachusetts had a reputation he would do his utmost to preserve, and to increase, in campaigning against the former professor of V.M.I. All the theories Jackson had formulated of the Federal plans and all the strategy he had pondered, he now would have to put to the test.
When Johnston had quit the line of the Rapidan for his march to Richmond, he sent instructions to Jackson and also to Major General R. S. Ewell, whom he had left on the Rappahannock with a division counted now at 7,500 infantry and some 500 cavalry. Jackson was known to be facing numerically superior forces which Banks might push up the Valley to Staunton. There he would be close to a main line of supply to Richmond and, at the same time, would be master of the rich Shenandoah. Banks must be held at a distance from Staunton and, if possible, driven out of the Valley. In the event Jackson had to fall back much farther, Ewell was to retire and march to Swift Run Gap. Jackson was to withdraw to the same position. The two forces were then to unite and give battle to Banks’s army near the crest of the Blue Ridge.21
Between Strasburg on the north and Harrisonburg on the south, a distance of forty-five miles, the Massanutton Mountains divide the Shenandoah Valley in twain. West of the Massanuttons, through a wide, open country, run the North Fork of the Shenandoah and the Valley Turnpike. East of the Massanuttons is the wooded Luray Valley, down which courses the South Fork of the Shenandoah. An inferior road leads northward to Front Royal; thence a road to the west links Front Royal with Strasburg. At the southern end of the Luray Valley, near Conrad’s Store, the road from Front Royal swerves westward to Harrisonburg. Thus the Massanuttons are surrounded by a parallelogram of roads. The Massanuttons themselves are crossed only by the road that joins New Market on the Valley Pike with Luray to the east. Unless an army that was operating on the Valley Pike controlled this New Market-Luray road, it had to march north or south.
East of the Massanuttons the terrain is of high strategical interest. The road that leads across the ridge from New Market continues eastward over the Blue Ridge at Thornton’s Gap to Sperryville. Another branch of the same road turns to the southeast and traverses the Blue Ridge, via Fisher’s Gap, to Madison Court House. At the southern end of the Luray Valley, from Conrad’s Store, still a third road leads over the Blue Ridge at Swift Run Gap and passes Stannardsville to the Virginia Central Railroad at Gordonsville. These gaps were most useful avenues to a force operating in the Luray Valley so long as that force was free to maneuver; in defense it could be trapped there.
The central Shenandoah Valley in relation to the passes of the Blue Ridge and the railroads of midland Virginia.
Still a third strategical value attached to the Luray Valley. If an enemy, on the west side of the Massanuttons, moved up the Valley Pike, with his line of communications extending northward past Strasburg, was not the Luray Valley a perfect covered way for an attack on the rear of such an adversary? And inasmuch as the Manassas Gap Railroad ran past Front Royal, at the northern end of the Luray Valley, to take Front Royal was to break the line of supply of an enemy in the main Valley. Once that line were lost to an invader, he would be compelled to get his supplies from Winchester by wagon; if that long and tenuous line were broken, the enemy would be compelled to retreat toward Winchester or westward over the Alleghenies.
These strategic possibilities of the Massanuttons were doubled for Jackson by his posting close to New Market. There he commanded the indispensable road over the mountains to Luray He could oppose the Federals as they advanced up the Valley toward New Market. Should the pressure be heavy, he could move over the mountains to Luray. If Banks pursued, he either could be met in the Massanuttons or lured into the Blue Ridge. Should Banks decline to pursue and instead press on up the Valley Pike, his rear would be exposed dangerously to troops descending the Luray-New Market road. “I hope,” Jackson wrote Ewell, “that Banks will be deterred from advancing much farther toward Staunton by the apprehension of my returning to New Market and thus getting in his rear.”22
Initiative and its dynamic, which is imagination, are not for long the exclusive possession of one belligerent. What would happen if Banks should realize the importance of the New Market-Luray road, should seize it and then press on toward Staunton? Jackson had considered that question and decided that the vicinity of Swift Run Gap in the Blue Ridge was a desirable point of concentration. Swift Run Gap had much the same strategic relationship to Harrisonburg that Luray had to New Market. By placing his troops at Conrad’s Store, just west of the gap, Jackson would be in position to meet any force coming south through Luray Valley. If the Federals moved toward Staunton from Harrisonburg, he would be standing on their flank and could threaten their rear.
Were Conrad’s Store and Swift Run Gap a position preferable to Fisher’s Gap, seventeen miles farther north? Jackson thought the junction with Ewell should be at one, then the other, then the first. Ewell obediently and uncomplainingly made successive starts and stops, but in bewilderment he began seriously to doubt whether his brother officer over the mountains, who seemed so often to change his mind, was altogether sane.
Each day brought complications justifying the caution which Ewell mistook for vacillation or for aberration. Jackson established himself on April 19 at Conrad’s Store; Banks moved slowly but confidently up the Valley to New Market. Alive to the danger of an attack via the Luray-New Market road, Banks dispatched a covering force, which Jackson estimated at 1,000 men, to Luray. He did not seem disposed to adventure farther eastward toward the Blue Ridge. Altogether, he appeared to be checkmating Jackson.
Still further discouragement was presented Jackson by the situation west of Staunton. Brigadier General Edward Johnson held the crest of the Allegheny Mountains with a small contingent and had beaten off one attack with so much success that he had received the nom de guerre “Allegheny” Johnson. Rumor had it that now heavy Federal columns under Major General John C. Frémont were marching against Johnson from thewest, thereby threatening to descend on Staunton itself and cut Jackson’s rail communications with Richmond. There were indications, also, that Banks might attempt to turn Johnson’s rear by a movement from Harrisonburg. Jackson sent for Allegheny—“a large and rather rough-looking man on horseback”—and from their discussion concluded that Johnson’s small force would be compelled to fall back lest it be caught between one column from the north and another from the mountains. It was altogether probable that Banks could assure the fall of Staunton without material danger of an attack by Jackson and Ewell.23
To add to all Jackson’s difficulties, part of Ashby’s cavalry had become demoralized. One entire company of sixty men had been captured with their mounts. Many men on outpost duty were rendered hors de combat because of overindulgence in a favorite regional beverage, applejack; in a skirmish, some had run from charging Federals. Such conditions were contagious and a threat to all future operations. Manifestly, for all his prowess and brilliance in combat, Ashby was neither a disciplinarian nor an army administrator. A long personal meeting with the cavalryman revealed a new aspect of Jackson’s character, a contradiction of the prevalent belief among his men that he never yielded. He apparently made the best compromise he could, keeping Ashby in command of the cavalry on that officer’s promise to discipline his troopers, though left to dispose them as he saw fit. Jacksons report to General Lee faced the facts with candor: “I became well satisfied that if I persisted in my attempt to increase the efficiency of the cavalry it would produce the contrary effect, as Colonel Ashby’s influence, who is very popular with his men, would be thrown against me.”24
The cavalry commander, who meanwhile had not relaxed his vigilance, reported the enemy advanc
ing. It was apparent Banks was moving his main army from New Market to Harrisonburg. Although still guarding the road across the Massanuttons to New Market, he was reducing force in the Luray Valley.
Either defensive or offensive demanded that the Confederate forces be concentrated. Jackson directed Ewell, on April 28, to bring his men as close as possible to Swift Run Gap. Beyond that, what was practicable? General Lee’s injunctions from Richmond conformed wholly to Jackson’s inclination to assume the offensive. His flaming desire was to attack Banks, whose sprawling column seemed, in Jackson’s words, to present “the golden opportunity for striking a blow.”25 Such was his state of mind that twenty-eighth of April. That night must have been one of prayer and reflection. As he debated the issues, alone at his headquarters, three alternative propositions shaped themselves in his mind:
First, he might go to Allegheny Johnson’s relief and assail Frémont’s van, under Brigadier General Robert Milroy, which was advancing from the west.
Second, he might go northward down the Luray Valley, attack the Federals there, and, if he beat them, start across the Massanuttons toward New Market—a move that would force Banks to retreat.
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