CHAPTER 20
In Winter Quarters
1
AFTER FREDERICKSBURG—LAMENT AND LAURELS
From Prospect Hill on the morning of December 14, Jackson could see the blue troops spread line on line for a front of one mile, but he could discern no activity. A little later, when he reconnoitered with Lee and Hood, not one Federal flag was visible. All the standards had been lowered—a circumstance that led Hood to assert that the Unionists would not give battle that day. Occasionally the sharpshooters skirmished. At intervals the Union batteries opened. To Jackson, as he rode up and down the lines, the enemy appeared to be awaiting attack instead of preparing for it.
On Longstreet’s sector that fourteenth of December there was some spitting of the indignant batteries at one another, and some outburst of the chronic contention between pickets. The most gruesome scene on the front of the First Corps was the field across which the assaults of the previous afternoon had been made. The sweep of ground was covered with distorted corpses and with wounded men who writhed in misery or dragged themselves inch by inch toward the rear. “Water, water,” they were calling as always the wounded do. Amid discordant screams and groans and oaths and the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield that pathetic cry ceaselessly was audible.1
That night word was passed that the enemy was preparing a great assault for the next day, December 15. D. H. Hills division was brought up to the front line by Jackson to replace Early and Taliaferro. The second line was put in Powell Hill’s care. Longstreet kept a detail at work steadily on gun pits. Ransom was instructed to strengthen his position with rifle trenches. Expectancy was high everywhere. But no attack was there on the fifteenth, right, center, or left. During the afternoon the Federals asked a truce on Jackson’s front for the removal of the dead who lay unburied nearer the Confederate lines than the Federal burial squads had been willing to venture at night. Jackson granted the truce. For a few hours, butternut and bluecoats were mingled on the field. Still the Confederates could not believe the Federals would abandon the offensive; still Lee refused to throw away his defensive advantage and launch an attack where his troops would come under the fire of those powerful batteries on the farther side of the Rappahannock.2
Late, blusterous dawn on the sixteenth disclosed the retreat of the Federals. Covered by a nighttime storm and muffled by the wind, the movement had been completed without the knowledge of the Confederates. Even the pontoon bridges had been removed or, when first seen that morning, were swinging inshore on the Federal side of the river. A more complete and humiliating failure the Army of the Potomac had not made since First Manassas.
Quickly the facts came to light at the demand of an indignant North. Burnside had planned a swift drive on Richmond, but the pontoon train he had ordered from Washington arrived too late for a surprise crossing at Fredericksburg or at any other point. A singular and unsubstantial plan of action finally was adopted and reluctantly accepted by the commanders of the three “Grand Divisions” into which he had divided his army. He had been brought by some process of reasoning to conclude that the Southerners would be more surprised by his crossing at Fredericksburg than elsewhere. Tactical arrangements were not quite so vague as the strategic plan. Enough troops had been put on the Federal left, Burnside believed, to have pressed home the attack of George Gordon Meade, whose division entered the gap between Lane and Archer. The fault, in Burnside’s judgment, was with William B. Franklin, commanding the left Grand Division, who did not support vigorously the attack of Meade.
The costly attack on Longstreet’s front had been ordered by Burnside in the belief that Franklin already had attacked heavily on the Confederate right and had caused Lee to weaken his left to support the right. Mistaken in this, Burnside had continued the attack on Longstreet because, apparently, he could not think of anything else to do, and would not break off the fight. He intended to renew the action the next morning, but suspended the attack when his generals expressed unanimous opposition to it. “I felt that I could not take the responsibility of ordering the attack,” General Burnside wrote, “notwithstanding my own belief at the time that the works of the enemy could be carried.”3
Although the Confederate commanders were chagrined that the enemy had escaped with no more punishment than that of a costly repulse, the South was jubilant. The Richmond Examiner proclaimed the battle a “stunning defeat to the invader, a splendid victory to the defender of the sacred soil.” In the eyes of the Richmond Dispatch Fredericksburg was the greatest battle ever waged on this continent and a complete Confederate victory. The Charleston Mercury reflected confidently, “General Lee knows his business and that army has yet known no such word as fail.” Burnside’s return to the left bank of the Rappahannock spiced the newspaper rejoicing with somewhat confused speculation, but ended in the declaration that the Federal commander had admitted defeat and could do little further harm during the winter. In the whole of this discussion there was no shadow of disappointment that Lee had not been able to follow up his success.4
Along with celebration was lament. Total casualties were 4,201, though the dead numbered 458 only. Many who were reported “wounded” were seeking a Christmas holiday. A remarkable fact—unique in the major battles of the Army of Northern Virginia—was that not a single colonel was killed. Sorrow was widespread for Maxcy Gregg—Gregg remembered now as the soldier, not as the extremist of state’s rights, the advocate of a re-opened slave trade. South Carolina and all the South mourned him. Of Gregg and Tom Cobb, Lee wrote, “the Confederacy has lost two of its noblest citizens, and the army two of its bravest and most distinguished officers. The country consents to the sacrifice of such men as these, and the gallant soldiers who fell with them, only to secure the inestimable blessing they died to obtain.” Although Tom Cobb’s name was linked with Maxcy Gregg’s in many like tributes, the Georgian did not lack distinctive honors of his own. Longstreet wrote, “… we have lost one of our most promising officers and statesmen.” McLaws added, “Our country has lost a pure and able defender of her rights both in council and the field.”5
Laurels followed laments. Officers most praised in official reports were Barksdale for his defense of the waterfront on the eleventh, Pelham for his artillery duel on the right in the first stage of the battle, Alexander for his dash under fire to the crest of Marye’s Heights, and Archer for his quick change of front after the breakthrough on his left. Most of the men from whom the South had become accustomed to expect fine service sustained at Fredericksburg their reputation. Lee did no more than equal justice when he said in his final report: “To Generals Longstreet and Jackson great praise is due for the disposition and management of their respective corps.” This was tribute to the new organization as surely as to the men who directed it. Staff organization had not been perfect, to be sure, but the authority of the lieutenant generals had been adequate. The contrast with conditions during the Seven Days had been marked at Second Manassas and Sharpsburg. Now that the system of corps command was legalized as well as tested, it was vindicated. One question only, in this connection, began to trouble Lee: Were the corps too large?6
Had Lee’s tribute to his corps commanders been reduced to comparisons, Longstreet would have been entitled to somewhat more distinction at Fredericksburg than Jackson. During the whole of the day of battle Old Pete kept his hand on every unit of his corps. Though he had no tasks of especial difficulty, he did not make a faulty move. Jackson had done nothing amiss and had done several things admirably; but there remains a question concerning the vigilance of his examination of his front before the battle opened. Stonewall himself was far from satisfied with the outcome. As he looked glumly across the fields on the morning of the sixteenth, he spoke gravely, almost bitterly: “I did not think that a little red earth would have frightened them. I am sorry that they are gone. I am sorry I fortified.”7
If the most notable of Lee’s lieutenants vindicated at Fredericksburg the reputation won by wise administration and
hard fighting, at least one divisional commander regained standing that had been impaired. This man was Lafayette McLaws. In contrast to his course during the Maryland campaign, McLaws’s handling of his troops had been sagacious. Reports both of his corps commander and of the commanding general praised him. Privately he wrote his wounded friend Dick Ewell a letter that reveals the fineness of his character. Said McLaws: “Three brigades of my division were active participants and I can say with perfect conviction that never in the world has there been more determined devotion and dauntless courage than they exhibited.”8
Some of the new brigade commanders had been distinguished. General Lee’s report made plain the substantial service rendered by Robert Ransom in the defense of Willis’s Hill. John R. Cooke’s serious wound in the head—from which he would make recovery—had not been received until he had shown that he could handle a brigade with ability. Jim Lane had the misfortune to lose more than 500 men in this, his first fight as a general officer, but he was not held responsible for the gap on his right, and officially was praised by A. P. Hill for his firm defense.9
Several colonels attracted the notice that usually marked a man for promotion. In the absence of A. R. Lawton, who still was suffering from wounds, his brigade had been under its senior colonel, E. N. Atkinson of the 26th Georgia. When Atkinson fell, Colonel Clement A. Evans of the 31st Georgia had taken command and done admirably. Trimble’s brigade, in the same manner, had been under a tall, magnificent North Carolinian, Colonel Robert F Hoke of the 21st, who had fought gallantly in every battle of his regiment. Hoke had perfect self-confidence and a certain ferocious quality of leadership, which was tempered with discretion. Sent forward by Early to help mend the gap between Lane and Archer, he aided in driving out the Federals and rushed on headlong; but he soon saw his danger and carefully withdrew and established a strong outpost. This was the work of a man who manifestly knew how to fight.
As much was to be said of James A. Walker of the 13th Virginia, who was commanding Early’s brigade while Old Jube was acting for Ewell. The difference was that Walker had been tried frequently enough to make it clear that he was qualified already for brigade command. Still another colonel who had his first opportunity, though a brief one, in brigade command was Alfred M. Scales of the 13th North Carolina, whose career from the Peninsula campaign onward had been one of consistent stout service in Pender’s hard-fighting brigade. During the short time Pender required to go to the rear and have his wound dressed, Scales was in command of the brigade. He met the test.10
The improved morale of the army and the absence of straggling were commended in numerous reports. Lee for the first time was able to say that “the calmness and steadiness with which orders were obeyed and maneuvers executed in the midst of battle, evinced the discipline of a veteran army.”11 Those final words represented the ideal toward which Johnston before him, and then he and Jackson and Longstreet and Stuart and the Hills and others less renowned, had been working.
“A veteran army”—twenty months had been required to make it that, but now all the arms of the service had earned the title. The infantry spoke for itself through its volleys and its movements; the cavalry had caught the spirit of Stuart. At Fredericksburg the artillery, though still outgunned and outranged by the Federals, gave a good account of itself. After Pelham and his men, the greatest honor went with the worst danger on Jackson’s right, where Colonel R. Lindsay Walker kept A. P. Hill’s artillery calm and resolute under concentrated fire for a long time before it could reply. As usual, where the fire was furious, there was Willie Pegram. By his side fought David McIntosh.
The men with the long-range guns had a hard if not an encouraging day. At army headquarters two 30-pounder Parrotts exploded, though without injuring anyone. Artillerists were dissatisfied with the performance of their 20-pounder Parrotts. The only long-range gun that won special praise was an English Whitworth, which was under the command of Captain R. A. Hardaway, a marksman of special skill. Harvey Hill, who always found artillery very good or very bad, credited Hardaway and this Whitworth with killing Brigadier General George D. Bayard, because Hill did not believe any other Confederate gun could reach Franklin’s field headquarters, where Bayard was struck fatally by a fragment of shell. Similarly, General Lee was pleased to observe that Colonel Armistead L. Long of his staff, who had been trained as an artillerist, had forgotten none of his art. Before and during the battle, Lee stated, Colonel Long was “particularly useful … in posting and securing the artillery.”12
The long, ugly quarrel between Jackson and A. P. Hill probably explained the tone of part of the discussion of responsibility for the gap between Archer and Lane. In Hill’s report he mentioned an “interval” there, but he spoke of Gregg, in reserve, as “crossing the interval.” There was no inaccuracy in anything Hill said about the gap, but there was no statement of the distances involved, nor was there any admission of negligence or error in permitting the gap to remain. In Lee’s report there was no praise for Hill or for any other division commander; consequently there was no implication of censure for Hill even by Lee’s usual device of omitting reference to those he could not commend.
Jackson’s handling of the episode was different. Nothing directly was said of the interval until he described the main assault of the Federals: “they continued …,” he wrote, “still to press forward and before General A. P. Hill closed the interval which he had left between Archer and Lane, it was penetrated, and the enemy, pressing forward in overwhelming numbers through that interval, turned Lane’s right and Archer’s left.” That was all, but it was unmistakable censure and deserved censure. Hill had left a somewhat similar gap in his front at Groveton. A second offense of the same character was not to be overlooked by Hill’s corps commander. Jackson did not stop to ask the reasons for not occupying the gap. The gap was there; Hill was responsible for it; that was the fact set down—that and no more. Who can say whether Jackson introduced this censure of Hill merely because he felt it was his duty to do so, or because, in their continuing controversy, he intended to add new evidence of Hill’s carelessness?13
2
CAVALRY RAIDS AND QUARRELS
In the mind of the soldier, the winter of 1862-63 was dull and purposeless; in the history of the army the season was one of anxiety and alarms. It was marked by six developments. First came a series of cavalry raids that culminated, March 17, in the sharp and costly action at Kelly’s Ford. Second were two sets of promotions and a marked change in the status of Gustavus W. Smith. Third, the army acquired a better knowledge of its components, and more particularly of its staff, during the closer relationship of winter quarters. Fourth, a basic and vital reorganization of the artillery was effected. Fifth was a period of semi-independent command for James Longstreet. Last of all was the climax of the quarrel between Jackson and Powell Hill at a time when Jackson was being prepared spiritually for his supreme achievement.
Through all this were the cohesives of sustained morale of the men in the ranks and the leadership of Lee. Usually, if the soldier despaired, it was because he did not get letters from home. When, as more often happened, he endured cold without compliant and short rations without grumbling, he had in his pocket a courageous message from wife or mother or sweetheart. While the women kept high the spirit of the men who carried the rifles, the commanding general resolved the problems and smoothed the ruffled sensibilities and settled the contention of those who bore the insignia of rank.
Of this care on the part of Lee, the cavalry needed little. Stuart was abundantly able to direct operations. At the instance of Lee, even before the Battle of Fredericksburg, Stuart had bedeviled Burnside by raids north of the Rappahannock. Virtually all the supplies and munitions for the Union army were dispatched by water to the base on Aquia Creek; but cavalry reinforcements, sutlers’ wagons, and occasional supply trains used the Telegraph Road. That old highway ran south from Alexandria and parallel to the Potomac. Along the road were two small towns only that the Confe
derates could hope to reach—Dumfries and Occoquan. Guards of some proportion were known to be at both places, and these troops and their provisions and stores, together with the telegraph line from Burnside’s headquarters to Washington, were avowed objects of the raids Stuart ordered. He must be credited also with a desire to keep his regiments alert by field exercises. Stuart must be suspected, moreover, of cherishing the troopers’ familiar hope of picking up a well-furnished sutlers’ train.
Not one raid was there, but four, and in rising strength or deeper objective. On November 27, Wade Hampton took 158 men from the Carolina and Georgia mounted units and crossed the Rappahannock. Under the very noses of nodding Federals he captured about 100 horses and 92 officers and men. This affair of Hartwood Church, as it was styled in reports, won high praise for the men and their leader, and started an angry hue-and-cry among the Federals. So successful was the foray that Stuart permitted Hampton on December 10 to march on Dumfries. This time with 520 troopers, Hampton readily enough captured the guard of some 50 men at Dumfries, caught a wagon train, and cut the telegraph line. When he turned back, along with his prisoners he brought 17 wagons across the Rappahannock, and for his raid he did not have to pay with so much as a scratch to any of his men. Three nights in the snow did not daunt them.14
As soon as his adventurers were rested, Hampton tried on December 17-18 to reach Occoquan. He ran into a green New Jersey cavalry regiment which put up some show of a fight, but managed to get off with about 150 prisoners and 20 wagons. The finest feat of this raid was the capture of all 41 of the pickets on eight miles of guarded road. To take each picket post without alarming the next was a tribute to the stalking skill of the troopers. Extensive sutlers’ supplies were captured though nothing was said of them in official reports. The booty included 300 pairs of excellent boots, numerous baskets of champagne and claret, and some toothsome cheeses.15
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