“No, no,” answered Jackson, “we have won it by the blessing of Almighty God.”29
4
THE GALLANT RIVALRY OF MANASSAS
As Jackson gave thanks at his bivouac for the success of the bloody twenty-ninth of August, James Longstreet was completing his first tactical maneuver on the right of the long line formed that afternoon. Although Old Pete, prior to the move from the Rapidan, never had handled more than two divisions in action, he had directed admirably his part in the movement up the Rappahannock. In marching to support Jackson his infantry made as good time as had the renowned foot cavalry of the former Army of the Valley, and his dispositions for the march beyond Thoroughfare Gap had been excellent. Now he was to face a new test, the leadership of four divisions immediately and of five as soon as Dick Anderson arrived with Huger’s old command. D. R. Jones was experienced and of moderate abilities. Hood, with his own and Law’s brigade, could be trusted. Cadmus Wilcox, with the three detached brigades of Longstreet’s old division, was capable though not brilliant; at the head of the other three brigades was James L. Kemper, who as recently as Seven Pines had been a colonel.
Perhaps Longstreet felt that he should be cautious; he certainly hoped that he could receive attack instead of having to deliver it. Whatever the precise reasoning behind his calm mien and composed manner, he shook his head several times on the twenty-ninth when Lee asked if a forward movement was not in order. Deliberately, almost stubbornly, Longstreet delayed any action until late afternoon. Then he ordered a reconnaissance in force by Hood. Hood encountered an advancing Federal column and gained the better of the clash, but concluded that a withdrawal under cover of darkness was desirable. As he did so, he came on Dick Anderson, who had come up and, in ignorance of the ground, marched almost within the enemy’s lines.30
At morning on August 30, with Anderson’s arrival and Hood’s return, Longstreet had all his troops united and under the eye of Lee himself. Their position was one of exciting military interest. They were thrown diagonally across the Warrenton Turnpike in such a way that their line, following the best elevations, formed an angle of about 160 degrees with Jackson’s front. The two commands were jaws that opened widely to the southeast. Would Pope be reckless enough to thrust his infantry into those jaws? Longstreet’s men waited to see; Jackson’s veterans remained where they had dropped at the end of the fighting on Friday evening. Their order of battle from right to left was the same—Jackson’s division under Starke, Ewell’s under Lawton, and A. P. Hill’s.
The morning of August 30 was hot, silent, and dry. Such activity as the Federals displayed during the early forenoon seemed to be directed against the right of Jackson, not far from the apex of the angle his flank formed with Longstreet’s left. Curiosity concerning the situation opposite Longstreet led Jackson to trot over to army field headquarters. Lee was there with Longstreet and Stuart. Already the commanding general was pondering how he should stir Pope if the Federal leader permitted the day to pass without action. Of this, perhaps, the four Confederate generals talked. The curious silence persisted, a silence so complete that one would have thought the breathing of the 150,000 men lying in the fields would have been audible.
As the drowsy hours passed Jackson began to doubt whether an attack would be delivered. Then, with a suddenness that shook and startled, there crashed from his right the sound of many rifles. Old Jack knew the sound too well to be deceived. Without a word he mounted and rode off to see how his thinned regiments met the shock. He found that the enemy was streaming forward in three lines against his right, and that a similar formation was developing an attack on his center and left. The bluecoats were more numerous than they had been the previous day, and they pushed their advances farther. Jackson’s division contrived to hold its own, though narrowly. Ewell’s men had little to do. Farther toward the left Hill had to repair a break the Federals made.31
Sterner the assault became—violent, determined, and in abundant force. It was watched sharply by Old Jack. Usually he relied with pride on his own unsustained forces; this time—were the odds impossible? Would the right be overwhelmed? Assistance must be had; an officer must ride immediately to General Lee and ask for men from Longstreet to bolster the line.
On Jackson’s call for help, chief responsibility for the battle shifted to Longstreet. He was alert. At the angle between his line and Jackson’s he had taken his station. Already he had dispatched to commanding ground near-by the artillery battalion of Stephen D. Lee. The moment Colonel Lee’s batteries were ordered into action, they could fire eastward, directly across the left flank of the Federals who were moving stubbornly northward against Jackson’s right. It was an incredible opportunity, such as a gunner knows he will not have twice, an opportunity that Pope could not have allowed an adversary otherwise than through desperation or misunderstanding of the Confederate position.
When Longstreet received from Lee the request of Jackson for reinforcements, it was coupled with instructions to send a division. Old Pete looked again at the exposed Federal flank, within easy range. Far less time, he reasoned, would be required to break with gun-fire the lines assailing Jackson than to dispatch a column to the ridge. “Certainly,” he said in answer to Jackson’s call, “but before the division can reach him, that attack will be broken by artillery.” Wisely and unhesitatingly, he determined to disregard the letter of Lee’s order and to use the swifter method of relieving Jackson.32
The alert artillery commanders had harnessed and hitched the teams. Within minutes after Longstreet called for them, the guns had swept magnificently forward and were firing furiously. The effect was all Longstreet had expected. The fire of the battalion was overwhelming. Pope’s second and third lines in front of Jackson were torn and blasted. Bewildered men turned back under the swelling fire. When the front Union line found its supports had vanished, it broke off the fight. Joyfully Jackson’s men saw the enemy waver and fall back. Instinctively the gray-jackets raised their fox hunters’ yell and followed their foe.
Longstreet, ere that, had seen his chance. His waiting regiments could sweep forward and overwhelm the confused enemy. With perfect composure but with the joy of battle in his soul, he sent word along the line for a general advance. One of Lee’s staff officers galloped up to inform Longstreet that the commanding general had directed just such an advance. Old Pete must have been proud to be able to answer that the line was in the act of throwing its full weight against the enemy.
Sketch of the position of Jackson’s right, Longstreet’s left, and S. D. Lee’s artillery, August 30, 1862, near Manassas.
For most of Longstreet’s men, a furious, roaring attack soon became a pursuit in which valor had full play. Daring raced against the setting sun. Across the undulating fields swept the divisions of the right wing as if they were determined in that single afternoon to win as much of fame as Jackson’s foot cavalry had gained from the hour Hill and Ewell and Taliaferro had left the Rappahannock. The sole lament of Longstreet’s men was that heavy clouds brought early darkness. Jackson’s men said the advance of the Confederates from the right was across the front of the defenders of Groveton, who were denied their part in the pursuit. Longstreet’s the afternoon was, though some of Jackson’s brigades were able, late in the evening, to strike a blow.33
Morning of August 31 found the roads heavy with mud and the streams high from a night-long rain. Attempted pursuit could be little more than floundering. Besides, the Stone Bridge over Bull Run had been destroyed. Only by roundabout roads could Pope be followed; yet orders were to strike the Federals once more before they found shelter in the defenses of Washington. Longstreet was directed to remain on the field of battle to occupy the attention of the enemy and look after the victims of the action. Jackson was instructed to put his three divisions in motion and seek the flank of Pope. The line of advance was to be across Bull Run at Sudley’s Ford and thence to the Little River Turnpike. Down that road, in the direction of Fairfax Court House, Jackson might be abl
e to reach the flank of the defeated Federal army which, the cavalry warned headquarters, was now being reinforced heavily with more of the veterans of McClellan.
Weary the Confederates were after marching or fighting for six days, but on Jackson’s call they started northward through the rain. It was a time for congratulations, and it might have been a time for wiping out old scores, such, for example, as Jackson’s against Powell Hill. Had Hill not redeemed all his blunders, actual or imagined, by the stubborn vigor of his fighting? If Jackson pondered this, it meant less at the time than did the fact that Hill was marching too fast. Because of the pace, the men of the Light Division were said to be straggling, and Jackson sent to admonish its commander. In his mind he made another entry against A. P. Hill as a bad marcher. Before, Hill had been slow in moving; the reverse charge was equally serious. Both, Jackson told himself, involved a definite and reprehensible neglect of duty.
The divisions bivouacked for the night at Pleasant Valley with no issue of rations; the wagons were far to the rear. By morning appetite had triumphed over discipline. “The soldiers were very bad,” Jed Hotchkiss admitted in his journal, “stealing everything eatable they could lay their hands on, after trying to buy it. They were nearly famished, our wagons being still behind.” They dragged hungrily down the Little River Turnpike toward Fairfax Court House. Afternoon found the van near the fine old mansion Chantilly where, under black, lowering clouds, it ran directly into the Federals. The column halted and was deployed—Hill on the right, Ewell’s veterans, under Lawton, holding the center, Jackson’s division under Stark guarding the left. These arrangements were made quickly because the enemy was aggressive and seemed determined to attack unless driven at once from the field.34
On Jackson’s order Hill opened the action on the right, his men advancing under a violent thunderstorm that drove a lashing rain directly in their faces. Soon five of Hill’s six brigades were engaged, but even with this force could not bring a decision. On the left, one of Lawton’s brigades broke under its new and confused leader and Early’s men had to beat off the attackers. With advances here and repulses there, the fire raged furiously until the two Federal commanders, Brigadier General Isaac Stevens and Major General Philip Kearny, were killed. Then, sullenly, the Federals broke off the action in the gathered darkness.
To the Federals, any action was costly that had such a toll of leadership; to the Confederates, the Battle of Chantilly was disappointing both because of the storm and because of the absence of fine performances. Most, from private to commanding general, seemed at the time to have regarded the action as a skirmish rather than as a serious meeting engagement.35
Jackson’s march to Chantilly, August 31-September 1, 1862.
Chantilly ended what might be termed the Virginia phase of the campaign begun when Jackson, on July 13, was dispatched to Gordonsville. On the Federal side the first part of the operations had been entirely creditable. Pope had ventured recklessly far beyond the Rappahannock but discovered his danger, quickly put the river between him and the Confederates, and guarded the fords. It was on August 25-26 that the change came. From the hour Pope’s lookouts reported Jackson on the march northward the Federal commander lost his grip on the situation. He overworked his cavalry; his infantry he was slow to concentrate. He believed Jackson’s march of August 25 was a withdrawal toward the Shenandoah Valley. He held to that until he established beyond all possible self-deception the identity of the troops that had reached Manassas Junction; then he concluded that Jackson was in full, hurried retreat and that he could cut off and destroy the impudent raiders. On the twenty-ninth Pope did not know until late afternoon that Longstreet had arrived, then misjudged his posting. Until the Army of Virginia was driven from the field and in retreat on Washington, Pope insisted that the Confederates had been beaten.
Lee, for these reasons, was fortunate in his opponent, but no less was he wise in judging how far he could gamble on Pope’s confusion; to the commanding general, more than to anyone else, credit for the victory was due. Lee’s dispatches and his final report presented the achievements of Jackson and Longstreet with so balanced a hand that the reader suspects a deliberate purpose not to stir jealousies.36
The special satisfaction of Lee was in the evidence that the army at last had what every army requires, capable corps commanders. Both Longstreet and Jackson, he felt, now were qualified to handle large numbers of men and to throw the entire force simultaneously into action. Could the contrast of two months have been more nearly incredible? June 30, Glendale; August 30, Second Manassas—the dates recorded a swift revolution. If, moreover, there was in Lee’s mind any suspicion that Jackson was selfishly ambitious and more interested in the furtherance of his own fame than in the advancement of the Southern cause, his behavior at Second Manassas began to remove that suspicion.
As possible doubts concerning Jackson faded, misgivings about Longstreet did not arise. It had been because he hoped Pope would assail him that Old Pete had stood out against delivering an attack on the afternoon of August 29; Lee’s questions and hints were not pushed with the vigor of one who believed his lieutenant definitely in error. Nor is it easy to say how much Lee lost on the field of Manassas by delaying the attack until the thirtieth. Had a general assault been made successfully on the afternoon of the twenty-ninth, Lee would have had the whole of the next day to follow up his advantage before the rain of the thirty-first halted him.
How reasonable was the basic assumption? The commanding general himself evidently did not believe that Longstreet’s unwillingness to attack that day had any serious consequences. Lee is never known to have mentioned it, or to have considered it otherwise than as an entirely permissible disagreement on an open question. The effect on Longstreet may have been definite and deplorable, though here again there can be no certainty. Did Longstreet tell himself that he could say “No” and impose his will on Lee? Was there developing in his mind a belief that, no matter what the public might say of Jackson, he and not Stonewall had the large influence on Lee? A day was coming when these questions were to be asked again and perhaps with more reason.
To the divisional commanders under Longstreet and Jackson, the word most accurately to be applied at Second Manassas was adequate. The new organization had succeeded under the new men. There was nothing brilliant in the performance of any of them, but there was no conspicuous shortcoming by a major general anywhere during the campaign. A. P. Hill’s failure to close the gap between Gregg and Thomas on the twenty-ninth and to secure his flank the next morning were forgotten, perhaps too readily, in admiration of his superb defense. Dick Anderson might have been negligent in not having his advanced guard where it could warn him on the night of August 29 that he was stumbling almost into the enemy’s lines. If he was careless then, he hit furiously the next day. John B. Hood was magnificent. He had recommended the position of Stephen Lee’s guns. Hood’s Texans had set the pace in pursuit with all the contempt of danger they had shown in the swamp at Gaines’ Mill.
After Taliaferro was wounded, the handling of Jackson’s division by the new brigadier, William E. Starke, was that of a veteran. It began to look as if the smashing brigadier from civil life was worthy to be Sidney Winder’s successor. Not quite so large an opportunity as Starke’s had come to James L. Kemper, but the stout-hearted Kemper had led gallantly In keeping with the curious custom of regarding the cavalry as an ally, whose excellence it was proper to commend, and not merely as an arm of the service expected to perform its duty as the infantry did, Stuart received prominent mention in Lee’s dispatches. Stuart’s task had been simplified to the extent that the Federal horse had been sent galloping on one purposeless mission after another until men and mounts were worn to utter weariness. Stuart’s troopers had kept their striking power to the hour of decision. It was not Lee’s nature to be hasty in his judgment of men, but after Second Manassas he reasonably could feel that in the dread test of unequal battle he could count on such men as Dick Anderson and John
Hood and Jeb Stuart.
There were fine performances at Second Manassas by officers of lesser rank. The details were different, but the valor was the same. Gregg brandishing his scimitar on the little knoll; Colonel Bradley Johnson shrewdly directing a brigade of Jackson’s division by special assignment of Stonewall himself; Shanks Evans pursuing as hotly as he had resisted at First Manassas; old Bob Toombs released from arrest and rushing to his cheering brigade; Cadmus Wilcox unhesitatingly and swiftly moving his troops to threatened points; Beverly Robertson redeeming a late start by a gallant finish—these and many exploits no less splendid were reported.
Perhaps the most distinguished of the brigadiers was none other than the most conspicuous figure at Cedar Mountain, the sharp-tongued, keeneyed Jubal Early. To him, in large part, belonged credit for Ewell’s adroit withdrawal from Broad Run; Early it was who relieved Gregg at the critical moment on the afternoon of the twenty-ninth. Early was entirely satisfied with his performance and was convinced that he had earned promotion. Already he was hinting that if he could not get his deserts in Virginia, he would join Bragg in the western army. A shining performance among the colonels was Stephen D. Lee’s. His handling of his battalion of artillery on the great day at Manassas had won the plaudits of the army at the same time that it broke the final assault on Jackson’s right. When the Federals undertook to silence Colonel Lee’s fire by a direct charge, he had held his ground and repulsed them, though some of them got within 200 yards of him. Praise was awarded him by both Longstreet and the commanding general.
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