To the Confederates, after Jackson’s withdrawal from Cedar Mountain, the danger on the Rappahannock seemed more imminent than that on the James. Pope manifestly was too strong to be attacked by Jackson. The Army of Virginia might resume its advance on Gordonsville; rumor persisted that McClellan was preparing to evacuate. The wisest course, in the judgment of Lee, was to concentrate against Pope and, if possible, to dispose of him before McClellan could join him. By August 13 it was apparent that Burnside either had left or was ready to leave Fredericksburg. His objective might be either Pope’s army or an attack on the Virginia Central. To protect that line Lee decided to post two brigades at Hanover Junction. In order that the blow against Pope might be heavy, reinforcements sent directly to Jackson on August 13 were formidable—ten brigades under Longstreet. Two days later Lee himself arrived at Gordonsville and opened army headquarters.35
All of this entailed some changes in the high command. For the general supervision of the Richmond front there returned to duty a one-time celebrity who already was being forgotten—Major General Gustavus W. Smith. That officer had recovered slowly from his collapse of June 1, but by August 10 was well enough to undertake divisional command again. To him were assigned D. H. Hills old troops, and in addition Lee requested Smith as “senior officer with this wing of the army” to direct the operations of Dick Andersons division at Drewry’s Bluff and those of D. H. Hill’s Department of North Carolina. Smith now exercised as conspicuous a command as ever had been his under Johnston. If there was any hesitation about entrusting so large a field to Smith, it does not appear in surviving records.36
Before Smith had undertaken his new duties, the rumors of McClelland evacuation of his base on the James River were verified. By transport and by march, the Army of the Potomac moved to join Pope. This could not have been prevented by Lee, but the humiliation was that McClellan escaped without casualties. In the whole operation, August 7-20, he lost scarcely a wagon wheel. The failure of D. H. Hill to make any move against McClellan somewhat shocked Lee and, no doubt, the President. This unpleasant incident arose because Hill commanded directly across the James from McClellan’s base and must have observed the activity of the Federals, but he neither harassed them on the river nor organized any pursuit of the rear guard.
Such negligence was worse than surprising in the light of what had happened earlier in August. On the first, Hill had been directed to bombard the Federal camps at Harrison’s Landing and the shipping in the James River. The bombardment was in every respect a fiasco and had been the occasion of painful concern on Lee’s part regarding Hill’s fitness for departmental command. Now that he did nothing to interfere with McClellan’s withdrawal, Lee had regretfully to write the President, “This induces me to say what I have had on my mind for some time. I fear General Hill is not entirely equal to his present position. An excellent executive officer, he does not appear to have much administrative ability. Left to himself he seems embarrassed and backward to act.” These were not pleasant phrases to couple with the name of the soldier who had shone through the battle smoke of Seven Pines and of Gaines’ Mill, but the facts could not be blinked. What should be done? Lee’s decision was to recall Hill to field service when opportunity offered.37
Another difficulty of a personal sort, involving Beverly Robertson of the cavalry, continued to cause friction but presented no new difficulty after Lee’s arrival at Gordonsville. Jackson persisted in his belief that Robertson had rendered less service than he had a right to expect, but Lee, it would seem, continued to think Jackson might have been too exacting. The simplest remedy was applied: On August 17, Robertson’s brigade and the other cavalry of Jackson’s command were put under Stuart, who personally supervised, for a time, Robertson’s movements.
A new Federal blunder now offered an opening for swift, decisive action. When Lee took command at Gordonsville on August 15, General Pope remained incautiously in an exposed position north of the Rapidan. Behind him was the Rappahannock, and the Union army was in the “V” formed by the two rivers. If the Confederates could throw cavalry in the rear of Pope and burn the main railroad bridge across the Rappahannock, he would be cut off from his base. That done, his army might be attacked furiously and captured or slaughtered in detail. To effect this, promptness and secrecy were essential: Any discernible preparations for an offensive would send Pope’s army streaming back across the Rappahannock to wider fields of maneuver. Lee believed that speed was the muzzle of secrecy, and decided to ford the Rapidan on the night of August 17 and to assail Pope on the eighteenth.38
A great opportunity this presented the cavalry, which, unfortunately, was not concentrated. Hampton’s brigade was on the Richmond front and could not be used. Stuart, with the other brigade under Fitz Lee, was at Davenport’s Bridge on the North Anna. On the morning of August 17, Stuart boarded a train for army headquarters with the understanding that Fitz Lee would proceed that day across country to the vicinity of Raccoon Ford on the Rapidan, a march of approximately thirty-two miles. After Stuart had completed his railroad journey and reported to the commanding general, he and his staff rode to Verdiersville, a hamlet through which Fitz Lee would pass en route to Raccoon Ford.
When Stuart arrived there, late in the evening of August 17, the residents had no news of the cavalry. He was puzzled but not alarmed; doubtless Fitz would come up shortly. Meantime there could be relaxation and perhaps sleep. On the porch of the Rhodes house Stuart prepared his bivouac. He divested himself of his haversack and carefully laid to one side his plumed hat. It was a hat of which he had particular reason to be proud. During a truce to bury the dead after Cedar Mountain, he had met the Union generals Samuel Crawford and George Bayard, both of whom he had known in the old army. They had made jesting claims concerning the battle, whereupon Stuart bet Crawford a hat that the Federals would assert Cedar Mountain had been a victory for the Union. In due time, under a flag of truce, a hat had arrived at the outpost for Stuart, and with it a New York paper proclaiming a triumph for Pope in the action of August 9. This was the hat Stuart now put beside him on the porch where he spread out his cloak for a bed.
At dawn the mist of August lay heavily over the fields. As the men stirred they heard from the east the clatter of a column of cavalry. Stuart got up and walked down to the fence that fronted the property. Through the mist he could see troopers moving down the road leading to the Rapidan. The column came from the direction of Fitz Lee’s delayed advance; the men must be his. Stuart directed two of his men to go up the road, halt the column, and tell its commander to report immediately. A fine if jovial rebuke there would be for Fitz Lee, twelve hours late on a march of thirty-two miles! A minute more and then pistol shots, the challenge of voices, the scamper of returning horsemen—the column was not Fitz Lee’s but the enemy’s!
Every man for himself. Stuart did not wait for hat and cloak. He turned; he ran to his horse; he vaulted into the saddle; he struck with his spurs. Over the garden fence, at one bold jump, went horse and rider. The others scattered. Vigorously they were pursued, but all escaped. When they assembled again, after the blue column clattered off to the river, they were chagrined, humiliated, and amused all at the same time. Stuart had lost not only his cloak, his hat, his sash, and his plumage, but also something much more serious—the haversack that contained his maps and some recent correspondence that would be informative to the enemy. When the sun mounted hotly, Stuart had to make of his handkerchief a cover for his reddish locks. Thus adorned with what seemed to be a capillose flag of truce, he was greeted everywhere with the same jibing question: “Where’s your hat?”39
Fitz Lee did not feel he was to blame for the embarrassment of his chief. His explanation was the simple one that he never had understood his presence was required on the Rapidan at a particular time. When Stuart left him, Fitz’s impression was that the advance could be leisurely. Besides, he was short both of ammunition and rations, and as his trains were at Louisa Court House, he decided to move via that town
. This made his march fifty-two instead of thirty-two miles, and prevented him from joining Stuart until the night of the eighteenth. He had notified General Lee that his horses were in bad condition and would not be fit for hard service on the nineteenth. The commanding general, accordingly, deferred the advance of the army until the twentieth. By that time, Pope had taken alarm, crossed the Rappahannock, and escaped from the “V.”
Stuart was outraged that the tardiness of one of his officers should have been responsible, even in part, for the escape of the Federals. His outrage was in a measure justified, but in a measure only. Although Fitz Lee manifestly should not have carried his brigade twenty miles off its march without authority for doing so, he was not solely responsible for delaying the offensive. Even had he arrived on schedule, the army’s commissary was unready; Anderson’s division was not at hand. At the earliest, the crossing would have been twenty-four hours later than planned. Pope would not then have been caught between the rivers, but his rear guard might have been assailed. If Fitz Lee was culpable, Stuart himself was not free of blame. Apparently his orders to his lieutenant were verbal and they may have been vague. This seems to have been overlooked at the time. Stuart blamed Fitz Lee; nobody blamed Stuart.40
When Fitz Lee had not appeared on the seventeenth, Longstreet, with his usual vigilance, had sent infantry to watch the roads that led up from the crossings of the river. How had the Federal cavalry passed that guard? Why were they able to reach Verdiersville and so nearly catch Stuart? Inquiry showed that Longstreet’s order to cover the road from Raccoon Ford had been sent to Robert Toombs. Toombs himself was absent, but his senior colonel duly detached two regiments in accordance with instructions. On his return, Toombs found the order that the troops were to cook three days’ rations in preparation for the advance. He sent a request to Longstreet to recall his regiments so they might prepare their rations. Longstreet was not to be found, whereupon Toombs on his own account ordered the men back to their brigade. It was over the road they thus left open that the Federal cavalry passed.
Toombs was put under arrest, but the next day he strapped on his sword when he went to ride, an act contrary to regulations. Further, he delivered a violent speech to his men, who cheered him. For these new offenses he was ordered back to Gordonsville and told to stay there. He did, but prepared to make a political issue of his treatment. In a letter to his confidant, Vice President Stephens, he made no reference to the fact that the enemy had penetrated the position he had vacated. In his eyes, the entire affair was persecution. Said he, “My zeal for the public service and desire to prepare my starving regt. for battle is my sole and only fault.”41
CHAPTER 15
Return to Manassas
1
RAPPAHANNOCK: ACT ONE OF A NEW DRAMA
The infantry that crossed the Rapidan on August 20, 1862, was divided, without formal order, into Longstreet’s Right and Jackson’s Left Wings. This of itself was historic because it meant that the Army of the Valley ceased to exist as a separate force; Jackson’s command definitely became a part of the Army of Northern Virginia after the Battle of Cedar Mountain.
To this unified army two new brigades had come. At the head of one returned Shanks Evans, who had won fame at Manassas. Shanks was full of fight and sure of the valor of his four South Carolina regiments, which were left as an independent brigade, unattached to any division. The other new brigade had been brought, as had Evans’s, from South Carolina and was under the command of Thomas F. Drayton, a former classmate of President Davis’s at West Point and a member of one of the leading families of the Palmetto State. In that family the tragedy of the divided nation was exemplified: While Thomas Drayton was defending the coast of South Carolina, his brother Percival commanded U.S.S. Pocahontas in the operations against Port Royal. General Drayton was in spirit a gentleman and in bearing a soldier. Whether he had the qualities of command had been put in some doubt. He was brigaded now with Toombs and G. T Anderson in D. R. Jones’s division, a connection not ideal. Jones’s health was getting progressively worse, and he could not be expected to direct closely the administration of his command.
This division was one of four to undergo change at the beginning of the campaign. A second was Ewell’s, to which was transferred Lawton’s brigade from Jackson’s division. The third change was in the command of Whiting’s division. Whiting was on sick leave at the time and did not attempt to share in the new campaign. His old brigade, now under Colonel E. M. Law, continued to serve with Hood’s in a half division that Hood commanded. Soon it became known as Hood’s.1
The fourth change presented a problem of administration and, still more, of command. Longstreet’s old division counted six brigades, two of which were under general officers—Pryor and Featherston—whose ability in the field was subject to question. George Pickett, reckoned among the best leaders in the division, had not yet recovered from the wound received at Gaines’ Mill. Longstreet was charged with duties so numerous that he could not undertake to handle the division in action. What should be done with it? Should it be divided, and if so, under whom? The necessities of war soon dictated the informal assignment of three brigades to Cadmus Wilcox and three to James Kemper. Both arrangements were known to be temporary and both seem to have been devised by Longstreet himself. He was beginning to show excellent judgment of his subordinates, whose admiring support he was winning rapidly.
The Left Wing, Jackson’s, had to undergo less reorganization. No successor to Winder had been named, and William B. Taliaferro, the senior brigadier, was acting head of the division. Taliaferro’s ability to handle four brigades had not been established. He was young enough—he was not yet forty—and had abundantly the social station and acquaintance with public life that counted much in easing the way. Did he possess, besides, the essential qualities of command? In Jackson’s mind Cedar Mountain had not answered the question one way or the other. Some of Stonewall’s misgivings of the spring must have been relieved; otherwise he would have found a way of keeping the command out of Taliaferro’s hands.
In Jackson’s division William E. Starke now was serving as the head of one of the two Louisiana brigades. He was forty-eight and by birth a Virginian, but he had lived for years in Mobile and in New Orleans, where he prospered as a dealer in cotton and interested himself in politics. To him early in the war had been assigned the 60th Virginia. When the Louisiana troops in Virginia were brigaded separately, in accordance with Mr. Davis’s cherished policy of organization by states, Colonel Starke’s associations with the Gulf seemed to warrant appointment as a Louisiana brigadier. In the Seven Days he had earned reputation as a hard fighter; now a surprising climb awaited him.
Because of his demand for the letter and the spirit of discipline, Jackson had a new encounter with A. P. Hill. In preparing for the passage of the Rapidan, Stonewall remembered what had happened at the start of the advance to Cedar Mountain, and particularly admonished Hill to march on August 20 at moonrise, with his division taking the lead. So Jackson specified. Early on the designated morning he rode forward to see if Hill was on the move. He found to his annoyance that none of the troops of the Light Division had left their camps. Indignantly he ordered forward the first of Hill’s brigades that he found ready for the road. It appears that Hill was misled by conflicting orders, or perhaps misinformed concerning the time of moonrise. In any event, wrote Jed Hotchkiss, Jackson was “much put out” at the slow start, and no doubt was convinced that whatever the military virtues of A. P. Hill, promptness was not among them.2
In the earliest light of what gave promise of being a hot, dry twentieth of August, the infantry clambered up the banks of the Rapidan and began a drama in three scenes. The first scene was shaped by the country in which the rival armies were operating. For most of its length the left bank of the upper Rappahannock, above where it receives the waters of the Rapidan, commands the lower right bank. Consequently, if Pope showed diligence, he could move up or down the river and dispute Lee’s attem
pts to cross at any point. By guarding the fords, he could protect his line of supply via the Orange and Alexandria Railroad or, at the least, should receive early warning of a threat to that line. Most of the advantage seemed to be on the side of the defensive. Pope, by every applicable test, should be able to stand off Lee till McClellan arrived.
Lee, for his part, scarcely could afford to lose time or men in forcing the Rappahannock. An attempt to do so east of the railroad was ruled out by exposure to a flank attack from Fredericksburg. A crossing west of the railroad was the strategy imposed on him. He had to make an effort to outflank Pope by marching up the river—and at the same time protect the lower crossings so his adversary could not get on his flank or in his rear. The first actors in this part of the drama, which covered August 20-25, were the cavalry.
On the day the Rapidan was passed, Robertson’s brigade got into a lively action with Bayard’s Federal cavalry, in which most of the fighting was done by Grumble Jones. Stuart had praise for Robertson as well as for Jones—no doubt gratifying to Lee and reassuring to Jackson—but he wanted more. Stuart felt that he had lost the opportunity of burning Rappahannock Bridge and been robbed, besides, of hat and cloak. He could not recover his apparel, but he could get revenge. His eye settled on the point where the Orange and Alexandria crossed Cedar Run near Catlett’s Station. If the bridge there were destroyed, Pope would perhaps be compelled to retire. In any event, there would be adventure in a raid against the railroad. On the second day after the passage of the Rapidan, Stuart’s proposal was approved by headquarters.3
Lee's Lieutenants Page 39