Lee's Lieutenants

by Douglas Southall Freeman

  For his exploits Stuart had both the praise and the criticism of the army. In Channing Price’s opinion, “The moral effects [were] great, teaching Pennsylvanians something of war and showing how J. E. B. Stuart can make McClellan’s circuit at pleasure.”40 The chief argument was whether the results of the raid were worth the risks. Jeb and his men had marched thirty-two miles their first day out, and on October 11-12, by moving almost continuously, they had covered eighty miles in twenty-seven hours—all this close to a hostile army of 100,000. Had they been justified in an operation that involved this frightful strain of man and horse? How had Stuart contrived to do what seemed to be impossible?

  The reasons could be ticked off: Picked men, spare horses, good guides, an accurate map, excellent teamwork, fortunate escape from observation. Yet all these scarcely would have sufficed if Stuart had not decided to keep moving. His night march of October 11-12, more than anything else, saved the raiders from the Federals who were set on their trails. If the Union cavalry had been diligent, prompt orders should have sufficed to snare the raiders. These essential conditions were not met; action instead was miserably slow. Even so, Stuart might have met superior force at White’s Ford had he halted on the night of the eleventh-twelfth. He had learned early in the war the advantages of night marching, but he never applied his lessons better than in pushing steadily southward through that autumn night.

  Captain Blackford had sharp words for the Federal cavalry: “The truth was that their cavalry were afraid to meet us and gladly availed themselves of the pretext of not being able to find us. Up to this time the cavalry of the enemy had no more confidence in themselves than the country had in them, and whenever we got a chance at them, which was rarely, they came to grief.” If it was so, it was not so to remain.

  General Lee did not fail to report the failure of the prime object, the destruction of the bridge across the Conococheague, but he pronounced the expedition of Stuart and his men “eminently successful….To his skill and their fortitude, under the guidance of an overruling Providence, is their success due.”41

  That was a longer plume for Jeb.

  CHAPTER 19

  Battle at Fredericksburg

  1

  CHIEFLY PERSONAL TO JACKSON

  Two weeks to the day after Stuart’s return from his Chambersburg raid, the Army of the Potomac crossed the river that gave it a name. Whither was “Little Mac” bound—up the Shenandoah Valley or southward on the coastal side of the mountains? Because the answer had to wait on the march, Lee divided his forces. On October 28, Jackson was directed to retire a few miles toward Winchester with his troops; Longstreet was ordered to move over the Blue Ridge into Culpeper County. Care was to be taken to man all the passes, so that the two columns could not be assailed separately.

  The cavalry, of course, had to screen this operation. A difficult task it proved. Hampton’s men were at Martinsburg and could not unite with Stuart for several days. Grumble Jones’s brigade had to be left to guard the rear of Jackson’s command in the Valley. Fitz Lee’s troopers alone were available to protect the march of Longstreet’s corps, and they scarcely were able to count 1,000 sabers. A malady among the horses had left hundreds of men without mounts. Not until the grayjackets had been skirmishing for five days did the arrival of Hampton give Stuart sufficient strength to risk a general action. Even then, at Barbee’s Crossroads, Jeb had to break off the engagement because of a rumored threat to his rear. Seldom had it happened previously that Stuart declined to fight to the finish. The operation as a whole, despite several fine individual performances by Pelham and command skills displayed by Williams Wickham and Tom Rosser, was not one of which Stuart subsequently spoke often.1

  Undistinguished as was the record of the cavalry during those first days of November, Stuart’s men assured an uneventful march of the First Corps. After its arrival in Culpeper, Lee made a brief visit to Richmond, during which time Longstreet administered all three arms of the service. After Lee’s return, Old Pete directed the whole of the infantry around Culpeper. He did it unostentatiously and well. Jackson, in the Shenandoah Valley, resumed virtually the semi-independent command he had exercised in the spring.

  Neither Jackson nor Longstreet had done more than make the first adjustments to the new divisional and brigade commands within their corps when Northern newspapers revealed the fact that the bluecoats, too, were undergoing a reorganization. McClellan had been displaced and sent home to “await orders,” which never were to be sent him. Ambrose Burn-side—he who had commanded opposite Toombs at Sharpsburg—had been given command of the Army of the Potomac. The Richmond Dispatch commented on McClellan: “It is said that he is the best general they have, and we think it probable he is. Yet they could have fallen upon no man who could have made a more signal failure than he did in his campaign against Richmond. If he be the best, they must all be exceedingly bad.”2

  While Burnside prepared to campaign, Jackson’s men were destroying railways. Every mile of track within their reach, from the Potomac to the southern terminus of the Manassas Gap Railroad, they sought to wreck beyond repair that autumn. Old Jack, one soldier grumbled, “intends us to tear up all the railroads in the state, and with no tools but our pocket-knives.” The general held his men strictly and severely to their tasks, yet with this was mingled admiration for them. One night while he was in his tent, the Stonewall Brigade raised the rebel yell and split the air until the brigade in the nearest camp joined in. Then another and another brigade sent echoing through the wood the fox hunter’s cry. “Old Blue Light” came from his quarters, strode to a rail fence, leaned on it after his fashion of resting, and listened till the last echo died away. As he walked back, he said as if to himself, “That was the sweetest music I ever heard.”3

  His officers, like his men, found in him this odd combination of discipline and good will. Publicly Jackson said nothing of the controversy with Powell Hill. To others of his lieutenants, if the relationship were close, Jackson on occasion spoke frankly of their military shortcomings. Hotchkiss was admonished that his “great fault” was “talking too much.” In another instance, there was a suspicion that Jackson was not all tears over the death of a man who had sent him many excited reports. Said Hotchkiss: “I think the general put him down as a decided sensationalist and so replied, though I know not. The general dislikes rumors, exceedingly; unless he can get substantial facts, I don’t believe he likes to hear anything”—which is not a bad rule for a soldier to follow.4

  Shifting headquarters to Winchester put Jackson in pleasant humor. Even a day there was a delight because of the Christian associations he had established there. The soul of Deacon Jackson had been stirred anew that autumn by the ministry of the eloquent Reverend Dr. Joseph C. Stiles. That eminent minister, who was unofficial chaplain general of the Confederacy, had come to the Valley and by his fervent preaching had helped fan religious feeling into the spiritual fire of the great revival that subsequently spread through the army and had historic influence on its morals and on the life of the South during drear and bitter years that were ahead. Early in the revival Jackson heard Dr. Stiles preach, and felt himself much edified. “It was a powerful exposition of the Word of God,” he wrote Mrs. Jackson. “… Dr. Stiles is a great revivalist, and is laboring in a work of grace in General Ewell’s division.” The soldiers ambitions were forgotten in the elder’s admiration of the preacher: “It is a glorious thing to be a minister of the Gospel of the Prince of Peace. There is no equal position in this world.”

  While he was in Winchester, Jackson made a special point of calling on the Reverend and Mrs. James Graham at the manse where Mrs. Jackson had been with him the previous winter. To Anna, who was close to the delivery of her first-born, conceived at the manse, Mrs. Graham wrote of the general: “He is looking in such perfect health—far handsomer than I ever saw him—and is in such fine spirits, seems so unreserved and unrestrained in his intercourse with us, that we did enjoy him to the full.”5

 
The Second Corps had left Winchester before Old Jack went to call at the manse. He followed his troops the next day past the battlefield of Kernstown. On the twenty-third he rode almost to Mt. Jackson. The march of November 24, when the van reached New Market, repeated for Jackson the move he had made the preceding May from the opposite direction on the Valley Pike. He turned to the east, passed over the windswept Massanutton, and then, crossing the Shenandoah at Columbia Bridge, began to climb the Blue Ridge. Night brought him to the road to Madison Court House, from whence Dick Ewell had entered the country of the Shenandoah in the spring. Now Jackson was looking over this road of new adventure to the Rappahannock, whither Lee and Longstreet had preceded him.

  In dealing with the enemy, the commanding general had continued to allow discretion and free movement to Stonewall, though gradually Lee himself had become convinced that the two corps of his army should be united. Jackson had lingered in the Valley as long as he dared. Doubtless this was because he hoped an opportunity might offer for another thrust at the rear of the Federals; but as scant prospect of a third Manassas developed, he reluctantly now was bound eastward.

  He dramatized this decision in a manner somewhat unusual for him. The morning his camp was nearest the crest of the mountains, he dressed with a larger expenditure of time and care than he usually allowed himself, and when he came from his tent he wore a dazzling uniform coat Jeb Stuart had given him. Sometime before, he had put aside his old weather-beaten cap for a tall black hat Jed Hotchkiss found for him. As he wore this with the brim turned down all around, he far outshone all previous appearance. To complete his adornment, he buckled on his sword. Before the incredulous gaze of his staff, he blushed and then smiled. “Young gentlemen,” he said, with an expansiveness as rare as his fine appearance, “this is no longer the headquarters of the Army of the Valley, but of the Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia.” They knew that this meant he was on his way to rejoin Lee.6

  By the evening of November 25 he was at Madison Court House, and in the hope that the Lord would deliver into his hand some part of the Union host, he kept his headquarters on the Gordonsville road November 26 and 27. Perhaps a personal consideration was added to his military reasons for lingering within easy distance of Gordonsville. In the knowledge that Mrs. Jackson’s pregnancy was nearing its end, he had told her when he left Winchester to address her next letter to him at Gordonsville.

  His forethought had its reward in a letter postmarked Charlotte, North Carolina. “My Own Dear Father,” it began. “As my mother’s letter has been cut short by my arrival, I think it but justice that I should continue it. I know that you are rejoiced to hear of my coming, and I hope that God has sent me to radiate your pathway through life. I am a very tiny little thing. I weight only eight and a half pounds….” It was signed, “Your dear little wee Daughter.” A girl, then! He had wanted a boy, but if God had sent a girl, then he not only would accept the Divine mandate meekly but he also would prefer a daughter to a son. As for sharing the news of his happiness, well … keeping one’s secrets was an essential rule in war and might be no less proper in respect to one’s private affairs. Kyd Douglas would say that not until December 26 did he learn his general was a father.7

  Jackson on the twenty-ninth of November started for Fredericksburg. Ahead of his infantry he travelled fast, fully forty miles. Much of his afternoon ride carried him through a gloomy, wooded, infertile district known as the “Wilderness of Spotsylvania.” The trees were mixed. Fine hardwood soared close to tangles of stumps where trees had been cut to feed a nearby iron furnace. Well-clad pines were elbowed by scrub oaks and stubborn little hickories. On Jackson’s mind, so far as the record shows, the Wilderness made no special impression. He merely sent back word that for the best road the wagons and artillery should proceed via Chancellorsville.

  At nightfall the party reached army headquarters in the vicinity of Fredericksburg and was welcomed most heartily by the commanding general. The near-by estate home of Muscoe Garnett was thrown open to General Jackson. “Stonewall Jackson? Is he here?” exclaimed his host. “Go and tell him to come at once; all my home is his, sir!” Jackson had a good supper, a pleasant evening, and then a warm bed in which to think of his own home and his new daughter.8

  2

  THE BATTLE OF THE PONTOONS

  Jackson’s corps had been brought to the vicinity of Fredericksburg because Burnside had decided to attempt from the mid-Rappahannock a new drive on Richmond. The Federal commanding general had arrived at Falmouth, opposite Fredericksburg, on November 19; Longstreet the same day had taken position on the hills behind the city. Lee reached the scene on the twentieth. His defensive plan was firm. He was determined, if the enemy advanced overwhelmingly, to retire toward Richmond and tear up both the R.F. & P. Railroad southward from Fredericksburg and the Orange and Alexandria to Gordonsville.9

  Once Burnside found himself resolutely opposed, he appeared to lose all zeal for rapid movement. The Army of Northern Virginia, in consequence, had a period of rest, during which headquarters undertook to improve its organization. One change only seemed to be imperative—the removal of Thomas F. Drayton from command of his South Carolina-Georgia brigade. The division commander, Lafayette McLaws, despaired of results: Drayton’s colonels were absent; he could not so much as keep his staff together. Longstreet considered that the service of potentially good soldiers was lost to the army.

  The most direct procedure was to assign Drayton’s regiments to other brigades and, as the general would be without command, to give him leave of absence. This course was followed. The 50th and 51st Georgia were transferred to Paul Semmes’s brigade; the 15th South Carolina was placed with Kershaw; the Phillips Legion went to Cobb. Drayton left the Army of Northern Virginia to return no more. The whole unpleasant affair was handled with the least possible disturbance and publicity. Addition of the two Georgia regiments to Semmes released two Virginia regiments which, with one from Kemper and one from Cooke, were formed into a new brigade for Monty Corse. That officer thereupon was relieved of command of Pickett’s old brigade, which was placed under Dick Garnett. Nothing further was done in the hearing of Jackson’s charges against Garnett.10

  Longstreet was entirely willing to have Garnett in the First Corps, which the new lieutenant general industriously was preparing for the next battles. He was active and efficient; the administration of his corps was smooth. Dick Anderson had recovered quickly from his wound at Sharps-burg and found that to his four experienced brigade commanders, a fifth of less experience had been added—E. A. Perry with a small Florida brigade. Pickett of the curly locks had reported himself cured of the wound suffered at Gaines’ Mill and, for the first time, was directing a division in the field. Its five brigadiers, with the exception of Monty Corse, all were seasoned and all, without excepting Corse, were capable. As much could be said for John B. Hood and his four brigades.

  The most interesting accession to Longstreet’s divisional commanders was Robert Ransom, Jr. He had served in the Seven Days and at Sharps-burg, was senior brigadier under the departed John G. Walker, and now was in command of his own and John R. Cooke’s North Carolina regiments. In the old army Ransom had been known as a capable junior officer in the 1st Dragoons and the 1st Cavalry. Immediately upon secession in his native North Carolina he had organized the first cavalry of that state, then, after an early introduction to combat, had transferred to infantry command.

  A gallant spirit was Ransom’s, but he was not altogether popular with his men. He was too much the regular, the West Pointer, in handling troops. “If he had understood volunteer soldiers,” one of his veterans said of Ransom, and realized they were “as anxious for the success of the cause as he, he would have been one of the greatest generals in Lee’s army….” In action he was cool, and in judging ground sure. In the heat of battle his bald pate shown above the abundant hair on his temples; his eyes flashed; every inch of him was soldier. Then, if then only, his men ceased to grumble about his discipl
ine and told themselves that when the shells were bursting and the minié balls whining, they had rather have Robert Ransom than any other man as their commander because he knew how to move them swiftly and with minimum losses.11

  Among the promising new brigadiers Thomas R. R. Cobb, in particular, gave fully to his new brigade the high abilities with which he was credited. Cobb was thirty-nine and had behind him in Georgia and in the Confederate Congress a reputation for legal acumen and vast industry. He left Congress to organize Cobb’s Legion. Without previous military training, he learned fast. Initially he was annoyed by professional soldiers. “Let me but get away from these ‘West Pointers,’” he wrote his wife. “… Never have I seen men who had so little appreciation of merit in others. Self-sufficiency and self-aggrandizement are their great controlling characteristics.” From this state of mind he had been won by the tact of the commanding general, and now, as he approached the first battle in which he was to command a brigade, he wrote reassuringly to Mrs. Cobb: “Do not be uneasy about my being ‘rash.’ The bubble reputation cannot drag me into folly. God helping me, I will do my duty when called upon, trusting the consequences to Him.”12

  This was the spirit of the army. Lee was so confident of that spirit that he became impatient of Burnside’s delays. “Gen. Lee is very anxiously waiting for a fight,” Dorsey Pender wrote his wife. “He told me today he would be willing to fall back and let them cross for the sake of a fight. All accounts are to the effect that they will not fight, and their numbers are not so terrible as might be supposed.” This confidence was heightened by the strength of the ground the Confederates, especially Longstreet’s corps, held in rear of Fredericksburg. “We have a magnificent position, perhaps the best on the line,” said Cobb. McLaws’s division was upon Marye’s Heights immediately behind the city; Anderson was on McLaws’s left; Pickett on McLaws’s right; beyond Pickett was Hood.