Lee's Lieutenants

by Douglas Southall Freeman

  Richmond papers still would not have it so. They continued to assert a Confederate victory and the achievement of the objects of the campaign, which were described as the capture of Harper’s Ferry and “the rousing of Maryland.” Not until after September 25 were they willing to concede that the entire army was back in Virginia. The maximum the Richmond Dispatch ever admitted was that “the victory, though not so decisive as that of Manassas, was certainly a Confederate victory.”1

  In none of the comment on Sharpsburg was reference made to the condition which was second only to the prowess of the individual fighter on that field. That condition was the success of the Confederate command in bringing every unit at hand into action. At Second Manassas that same ideal of combat had been achieved offensively. Sharpsburg was cheering proof that the full cry of pursuit on Longstreet’s front at Manassas had not been the result of lucky accident.

  Among other reasons, Second Manassas was won and Sharpsburg not lost because direction by two men, Longstreet and Jackson, under Lee’s orders, had succeeded the system of semi-autonomous, frequently jealous, and often uncooperative divisions. That awkward system, which had proved so nearly ruinous during the Seven Days, had been forced on Johnston and then on Lee by the fact that Confederate law had not provided for any unit larger than a division. The device employed after June, of placing a number of divisions under Longstreet and Jackson, scarcely would have been possible had not those two able men been senior major generals. The restrictions of the statute had been accepted in theory and obviated in practice because the two senior divisional commanders fortunately were good soldiers.

  Now the law was changed for the better. A brief amendatory act, approved by the President September 18,1862, provided for the organization of divisions into corps, which units were to be commanded by officers of the new grade of lieutenant general. The President asked Lees opinion concerning the men who should be promoted. Outside his own army, Lee recommended Kirby Smith. In it, he felt that two corps commanders would suffice.2

  One of these should be Longstreet. To that conclusion Lee came so readily that when he wrote Davis on the subject he did not think it necessary to elaborate on Longstreet’s merit or record. Both had been distinguished during the Maryland expedition. Longstreet’s judgment in deferring attack at Second Manassas on August 29 perhaps was questionable; his mood may not have been the most cooperative when he learned of Lee’s purpose to detach Jackson for operations against Harpers Ferry; but after that his counsel had been wise and his handling of his troops all that could be asked.

  His A.A.G., Moxley Sorrel, did not overpraise the performance at Sharpsburg he thus described: “He seemed everywhere along his extended lines, and his tenacity and deep-set resolution, his inmost courage, which appeared to swell with the growing peril to the army, undoubtedly stimulated the troops to greater action, and held them in place despite all weakness.” When the fight was over, and Longstreet was able to report to field headquarters, Lee rewarded him with words that made Old Pete’s staff officers swell with pride: “Ah! Here is Longstreet; here’s my old war-horse! Let us hear what he has to say.” The next day, September 18, Old Pete concluded that the extension of the Federal right to the Potomac was in such strength that the army should return to the Virginia shore. When Lee came to his bivouac that evening and expressed his intention of withdrawing from Maryland, Longstreet was so much pleased his view coincided with Lee’s that he recorded the fact in his report.3

  If, then, Longstreet was to be one of the two new lieutenant generals of the army, was Jackson to be the other? On the basis of military performance, could there be any other choice? Stonewall’s part in the operations around Manassas had been flawless. No allowance had to be made there for lack of experience in handling large bodies of men. Had Jackson done as well in Maryland? He undeniably had closed in slowly on Harpers Ferry, and had shown there a certain awkwardness in the use of signals. An exacting critic might have disputed on the seventeenth the tactical wisdom of placing Lawton’s and Hays’s brigades where they were at the time of Hooker’s onslaught. These three matters apart, Jackson’s capture of the Ferry and his tenacious battle on the left at Sharpsburg had been shrewd, vigorous, and free of mistakes. His achievement was the more remarkable because A. P. Hill, Ewell, and Trimble were absent, the trusted Winder was dead, and eight of the fourteen brigades had colonels, some of limited experience, at their head.

  That the divisions on the left could be held together at Sharpsburg, even at the price of excessive casualties, evidenced not only Jackson’s ability in se, but also his influence over his subordinates. Many of his lieutenants were developing a faith in him as a leader comparable to that which great captains of the past had aroused. Sandie Pendleton wrote, when the expedition was ended, “I have been reading Carlyle’s “Cromwell.” General Jackson is the exact counterpart of Oliver in every respect, as Carlyle draws him.”4

  Jackson proved himself at Sharpsburg as stubborn in conflict as “Old Nol.” As soon as his front grew comparatively calm, he sought out Walker and, while he made his lunch off apples plucked from a tree, Old Jack planned a counter-stroke on the left. “We’ll drive McClellan into the Antietam!” he said confidently; but he found he could not challenge the powerful batteries the Union commanders had placed to guard their flank. The next morning, September 18, he was at the front soon after daylight. When he found John B. Hood there his instant question was, “Hood, have they gone?” A negative answer brought a regretful, “I hoped they had,” and he went on to see how fared his own exhausted troops. All day Jackson awaited, almost eagerly, the attack that did not come.5

  One thing only marred Jackson’s fine record during the entire operation from Cedar Mountain to Shepherdstown. That was his relations with A. P. Hill. The fiery commander of the Light Division had no intention of accepting the stigma of arrest. At the first moment the army was free of pressure after Sharpsburg, Powell Hill addressed to the commanding general an application for a court of inquiry on Jackson’s charges. He was determined that Jackson should explain the public humiliation of a fellow-officer. Jackson endorsed the application with a summary statement of the facts as he saw them, and stated flatly, “I found that under his successor, General Branch, my orders were much better carried out.”

  General Lee faced the difficult task of maintaining Jackson’s authority and of applying an emollient to the bruised sensibilities of Hill, whom he regarded as an excellent officer. Lee‘s immediate conclusion was that the circumstances did not justify an inquiry. In endorsing Hill‘s application, he mentioned “what appeared to be neglect of duty… but which from an officer of his character could not be intentional and I feel assured will never be repeated,” and concluded, “I see no advantage to the service in further investigating this matter….”6

  For once, Lee’s tact failed to relieve unpleasantness. The sensitive Hill misinterpreted Lee’s reference to “what appeared to be neglect of duty” which “will never be repeated” as acceptance of Jackson’s charges. Vigorously, on September 30, Hill renewed his application for a court of inquiry. “I deny the truth of every allegation made by Major General Jackson,” he wrote Lee, “and am prepared to prove my denial by any number of honorable men.” Nor was that all: On his own account, Hill drew up charges against Jackson and boldly forwarded them to Jackson to be sent to Lee.

  The matter presented Jackson with something of a puzzle. He had no reason to find fault with Hill’s conduct during the Maryland expedition. Hill had obeyed every order with promptness and with precision, and he had won the plaudits of the entire army. Jackson concluded he should accept Hill’s virtual challenge to present charges and specifications, but Old Jack decided that in sending these to Lee he would state personally he did not think a hearing was necessary. The result was Jackson’s charges of neglect of duty, in eight specifications. He explained he was not presenting the charges because he wished Hill brought to trial, but he could not forbear arguing the points Hill had made in the
renewed application for an inquiry.

  A stubborn temper there was on both sides, a temper so stubborn the patient Lee did not attempt forthwith to bend it. Instead he applied his usual philosophy and left to time what he could not himself settle: Hill’s renewed application and charges against Jackson, along with those of Jackson against Hill, were put in the confidential files at headquarters and left to slumber there. Quietly Lee exercised his discretion of deciding in any given case whether charges should be brought before a court.7

  Was this unhappy affair to be weighted against Jackson? Was he to be denied promotion to lieutenant general and corps command because he always was having difficulties with one or another of his subordinates? Apparently Lee did not take this into account at all, or if he did, he counted it for righteousness on Jackson’s part that discipline was inculcated, even though the method was stern.

  If Lee had felt any concern about Jackson, it had been on different ground. In his letter to the President, Lee wrote: “I can confidently recommend Generals Longstreet and Jackson, in this army.” Of Longstreet he said not another word. Concerning Jackson the language of the commanding general was somewhat unusual. Was Lee revealing his own previous doubts, or was he seeking to relieve the President’s misgivings? “My opinion of the merits of General Jackson,” he wrote, “has been greatly enhanced during this expedition. He is true, honest, and brave; has a single eye to the good of the service, and spares no exertion to accomplish his object.”8 What was behind the “enhancement” of Lee’s opinion? Why should it be in order to speak of an eye to the good of the service? The evidence does not permit an answer, but Lee’s opinion was one he never changed later. From the time of these operations, Lee’s trust in Jackson and his confidence in the abilities of Stonewall were absolute. Every new experience was to increase the respect of general and lieutenant each for the other.

  The response of the two men themselves to their new honors was typical of the difference between them. Longstreet’s reflections on his rise in military rank nowhere appear. If there was any change in him, it was an enlargement of his confidence in his own military judgment. In the close and costly fight at Sharpsburg, he had seen the vindication of his view that the army should not have been divided for the capture of Harper’s Ferry. Feeling that he was right and Lee wrong, he may have considered himself the better soldier of the two.

  Jackson’s feeling about his promotion was one of a deliberate subordination of the soldier to the Christian. When his wife joyfully congratulated him and asked if she might have an article prepared about him, he wrote back in Cromwellian spirit: “It is gratifying to be beloved and to have our conduct approved by our fellowmen, but this is not worthy to be compared to the glory that is in reservation for us in the presence of our glorified Redeemer…. It appears to me that it would be better for you not to have anything written about me. Let us follow the teaching of inspiration—‘Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth: a stranger, and not thine own lips.’”9 Was it difficult for him to write that?

  2

  A CRISIS IN REORGANIZATION

  Promotion of Longstreet and Jackson legalized and facilitated the system of command Lee had created after the Seven Days, but among general officers of lower rank that organization had now to be rebuilt. Cedar Mountain, Second Manassas, South Mountain, and Sharpsburg had taken exorbitant toll. The loss of Winder at Cedar Mountain and the wounding of Ewell, Taliaferro, Trimble, and Field at Second Manassas had been followed at South Mountain by the death of Garland. At Sharpsburg the number of slain general officers proved to be three. George B. Anderson, who appeared to have been wounded slightly, died on October 16. He was thirty-one and had graduated high at West Point. In command of a brigade under D. H. Hill, he had displayed qualities of stout leadership. All the physical excellencies coveted by soldiers were abundantly his—a handsome figure, fine horsemanship, a commanding presence that inspired his regiments. A soldier’s death, in combat, had come to Brigadier W. E. Starke, who had succeeded to field command of Jackson‘s old division after John R. Jones had reported himself incapacitated. The other general who fell in the Maryland expedition was L. O’Brien Branch. “He was,” A. P. Hill wrote sorrowfully, “my senior brigadier, and one to whom I could have intrusted the command of the division, with all confidence.”10

  Besides these three whose names had to be stricken permanently from the rolls, five generals had been wounded—Dick Anderson, Robert Toombs, Rans Wright, R. S. Ripley, and Alexander Lawton. Of these the man whose absence would be most seriously felt was Anderson. His brigadiers were of unequal ability. The senior of them, Roger Pryor, was by no means the most skillful in combat. If Anderson were to be incapacitated for any length of time, transfer of at least one of the brigade commanders would be necessary to assure competent handling of the division. Below brigade command the casualties had been grievous. Two colonels had been killed at South Mountain and eight at Sharpsburg. Among the lieutenant colonels the slaughter had been heavy. For the corps of officers as a whole, it never had reached such ghastly totals.

  D. H. Hill, in five small brigades at South Mountain and Sharpsburg, lost one brigadier general killed, one mortally wounded, three brigade commanders wounded, four colonels slain, eight colonels wounded, one lieutenant colonel killed and seven wounded. Colquitt’s brigade of that division had gone into action at Sharpsburg with ten field officers. Four of these were fatalities, five were badly wounded, and the tenth was stunned by a shell. In Lawton’s brigade all save one of the regimental commanders was killed or wounded. Hays lost all his staff and all the men who led his regiments. In Trimble’s brigade the colonel commanding and three of the four officers at the heads of regiments were casualties; the fourth was seriously wounded on the twentieth at Boteler’s Ford. In Jackson’s division the higher officers had been massacred—no less. When the battle shifted from the left that red seventeenth of September, what was left of the division was under command of a colonel, A. J. Grigsby. The famous Stonewall Brigade was commanded by a major. Taliaferro’s and Starke’s brigades were in the charge of colonels. Jones’s brigade was in the hands of a captain who had succeeded two other captains shot down.

  Summarized for the army, these frightful losses meant that for longer or shorter periods during the operations in Maryland, this situation existed: The commanders of nine divisions, instead of being nine major generals, had been four generals of that grade, four brigadiers, and, in the last hours of Sharpsburg, one colonel. The end of action on the seventeenth found fourteen general officers only in command of brigades. Colonels or officers of lower rank led the remaining twenty-six brigades. Some brigades were smaller than regiments should have been. Regiments, which long had been too thin, were in numerous instances bare companies.

  This was a crisis in command. The army could not continue under temporary officers. Straggling, which so nearly had wrecked the Maryland expedition, was due in part to the inexperience or incompetence of officers who led in the absence of sick or wounded seniors. Here, again, the law was at fault. Under existing Confederate statute, the colonels, in order of seniority, exercised brigade command during the absence, however prolonged, of the brigadier general. In the higher grades the same rule applied. A major general might be incapacitated for months; seniority might make the least competent of his brigadiers acting division commander; but nothing could be done under the law to replace the incapacitated major general or to rid the division of an acting commander not qualified to discharge his duties.

  The statutes required, moreover, that vacancies below the rank of general officer be filled by promotion or election. For amendment of this paralyzing law, Lee appealed to the War Department, and Secretary Randolph laid the issue before the Congress. The condition of the Army of Northern Virginia, he explained, required conferring on the President “the power of appointment, where neither promotion by seniority nor election will furnish competent officers.” Randolph added, “the experience of the commanding general of
that army has been unable to devise any expedient by which he may avoid the alternative of violating law or of exposing his army to ruin.”11

  Of all this President Davis was most unhappily conscious, but he also was aware of the political difficulties. First, on October 8, he asked Congress for authority to appoint from within brigade officers for any regiment of that brigade when neither election nor promotion would assure competent leadership. He spoke in strong words: “Tender consideration for worthless and incompetent officers is but another name for cruelty toward the brave men who fall sacrifices to these defects of their leaders.” Two days later he sought “some provision by which brigadier and major generals may be appointed when, by the casualties of service, commanders of brigades and divisions have become temporarily disabled.”12

  The Congress proceeded to compromise between the counsel of the President and the “democratic” organization of the army. First, it set up a complicated arrangement whereby an “examining board” would pass on the competency of any officer of any grade. Upon proof of incompetency, a successor would be named from the same command, by seniority or by examination. Only in the event no qualified man could be found within the command was the President authorized to make an appointment, which had to be from the same state. The most any commanding general could hope to accomplish under this act would be to remove, by a slow, complicated, often angry proceeding, an officer manifestly, perhaps notoriously, incompetent. Even then the restrictions were so stiff that there was no assurance that the man who took his place would be any better.

  A more acceptable if evasive compromise was a second law which authorized the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint twenty general officers and “assign them to such appropriate duties as he might deem expedient.” This meant that where the promotion to brigade command of the senior colonel could not be justified, the President could go outside the brigade and select a general for it. Wise selection would strengthen the shattered brigade and divisional command of the Army of Northern Virginia.13