The fourth raid was conducted by Stuart himself and was the most ambitious of the series. With 1,800 men and four guns, Stuart rode up the south bank of the Rappahannock the day after Christmas, crossed to Morrisville, and prepared, as he reported, “to take possession of the Telegraph Road, to capture all the trains that might be passing.” The plan was to descend on the road in three columns, under Fitz Lee, Wade Hampton, and Rooney Lee. For once Jeb, traveling with Rooney Lee, picked for himself the wrong road of adventure. Fitz Lee and his troopers had the good fortune to overtake nine sutlers’ wagons, while all Rooney caught were a few pickets and army wagons. Dumfries proved too well defended a position to risk storming, and regretfully Stuart led Rooney and Fitz Lee’s columns to an untroubled bivouac nine miles northwest of Dumfries. He met there Hampton, whose assault on Occoquan had misfired to the extent of capturing seven wagons only and ten or fifteen prisoners.16
So small was the recompense that Stuart was at first of a mind to end the raid, but he determined instead to cross the Occoquan and raid north of that stream. In the event the enemy tried to cut him off, he felt he could make a long detour in the direction of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad and rejoin the army on the Fredericksburg front. The column had ridden some five miles through the chill December morning when Union cavalry were reported ahead in a wood. Hasty reconnaissance disclosed two regiments and, so far as Stuart could see, no more. He decided promptly that his men could ride over this force. Let Fitz Lee charge. Put the 1st Virginia in front. Clear the woods and pursue.
Forward roared the 1st Virginia. It met scattered pistol fire and brief resistance and then it had the target of fleeing men. Some of the Federals were killed. Approximately 100 were captured. The pursuit continued across the Occoquan, where they found the Federal cavalry’s camps deserted and comfortably furnished, though reports mention no sutlers’ establishments. Everything of value that could not be carried off was burned.17
Stuart did not propose to take the desperate gamble of returning as he had come, by a route on which hostile troops might be collecting fast. As on the Chickahominy and Chambersburg raids, the bolder course seemed more prudent, the longer road the safer. So the column turned westward and pressed rapidly on and, after dark, approached Burke’s Station on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. There Jeb was deeper than ever in the Federal lines, but he was unshaken in his confidence that surprise and swift movement would get him safely out of any net the Union commanders might spread.
Terrain of the winter raids by Stuart’s cavalry.
He sent men ahead to pounce on the telegraph office before an alarm could be sent over the wire, then his own operator sat down at the sounder and read off the messages that excited Federal commanders were transmitting about ways and means of catching “the rebel raiders.” Thereupon Stuart drafted a telegram to the quartermaster general of the United States army and his operator sent it to Washington. A protest and remonstrance it was concerning the poor quality of the mules being supplied the Federal army. They were so inferior, said Stuart, that when put to captured wagons they scarcely could pull the vehicles within the Confederate lines. To this message Stuart attached his signature.
Approaching Fairfax Court House they encountered sharp fire from securely posted Federals. To this they sent not a shot in answer, and a flag of truce was sent out to inquire if they were friend or foe. A Southerner replied that the flag would be answered in the morning. The Confederates lighted enormous campfires to deceive the enemy and by morning were on their way to Frying Pan—which was neither warm nor full—and Middleburg. Stuart and his troopers made their leisurely way back to the Rappahannock, stopping where hospitality offered, and reached Fredericksburg on New Year’s Day.
Losses had not been large—one killed, thirteen wounded and the same number missing. To these casualties Major H. B. McClellan added, “The captured sutlers’ wagons proved capable of inflicting nearly as much damage as the rifles of the enemy.” Stuart, with high delight, counted about 200 prisoners, an equal number of horses, 20 wagons, 100 arms or more, and much miscellaneous loot. Of these gains Stuart made the utmost, reporting that he had destroyed Burnside’s direct line of communication with Washington and scattered the Union cavalry on the Occoquan.18
In the relaxing leisure of winter quarters Stuart cemented old friends and made new enemies. It always was that way with him. Women uniformly liked him. Men thought him an ideal soldier or an exhibitionist. There was no middle ground of opinion concerning him, no indifference to him. Of all his admirers, none was more fascinated than was Jackson. The affection of the Southern Cromwell was returned by the young Rupert in overflowing measure. Few dared joke with Jackson; Stuart did often and never received a rebuke. He had won the right to laugh sometimes because he supported always.
Jackson’s staff and his admirers were quite ready to admit what Stuart maintained in praise of their chief. Others doubtless rallied the more heartily to Lee because Stuart was a “Jackson man.” Lafayette McLaws, for example, himself honest, sincere, and not overcritical, had undisguised contempt for Stuart’s showmanship. The Georgian wrote Dick Ewell, “Stuart carries around with him a banjo player and a special correspondent. This claptrap is noticed and lauded as a peculiarity of genius when, in fact, it is nothing else but the act of a buffoon to attract attention.”19
Still other officers disliked Stuart without reference to any division into Jackson or Lee factions. No Stuart foe could match the flaming hatred of Grumble Jones. That strange man had become a more conspicuous figure because of his promotion in the autumn at Jackson’s instance to the rank of brigadier. At year’s end Jones had been assigned, again on Jackson’s recommendation, to command the Valley District. It is possible that one reason for the assignment was the wish of General Lee to utilize Jones’s capacity for command to a more effective degree than was possible when Jones was under Stuart.
The differences between Grumble and Jeb ran back to the beginning of the war. Jones, who was thirty-seven at the time of the secession of Virginia, had graduated from West Point in 1848 and afterward served in the Mounted Rifles. In 1852, in a shipwreck, his young bride was swept from his arms and drowned. Jones never recovered in spirit. Embittered, complaining, suspicious, he resigned from the army. In 1861, answering the call to Virginia’s service, he was assigned to Jeb Stuart’s regiment. Although promoted colonel when Stuart became brigadier, Jones, in the judgment of Jeb’s friends, was jealous from the first of Stuart. This feeling, W. W. Blackford wrote, “ripened afterwards into as genuine a hatred as I ever remember to have seen.” Jones widened his animosity to include his lieutenant colonel, Fitz Lee, one of Stuart’s closest friends. As Jones was unpopular with the regiment and Fitz much admired, an ugly situation developed. In the spring elections of 1862, Jones was displaced, but then was assigned to the 7th Virginia.20
The Laurel Brigade, placed under him later, had as its nucleus Ashby’s famous command, which lacked nothing in valor though its discipline out of action was defiantly low. Grumble had gone to work to correct this. He kept his men as busy as he could on raids, and in camp drilled them daily and made them obey the letter of regulations. In his reports he described all his trials in a manner to justify his nomme de guerre. Lee commended and encouraged him, but the people of the Valley emulated him in grumbling. Ere long the secretary of war went so far as to ask Lee to replace Jones with Fitz Lee. In answer the patient commanding general defended Jones, and continued to support him. But Jones’s state of mind respecting Stuart and Fitz Lee, and the state of mind of the Valley people concerning him, promised trouble for the spring of 1863.21
With division in the ranks of the cavalry, with horses dying and fodder scarce, pessimists might question whether the mounted arm could keep safe the wings of the army, guard the outposts, and bring back promptly accurate news of the enemy’s movements. The grayjackets themselves never doubted. Nor did Lee, nor Stuart nor Hampton. When the time for field operations approached in the spring of 1
863, they sought more cavalry but they did not lack faith in what they had.
3
PROMOTION AND A FIERY RESIGNATION
One question endlessly was asked in camps around Fredericksburg: Would Burnside renew the attack? Against the background of the wintry sky his campfires seemed to cover Stafford Heights and to gleam northward, division by division, mile on mile. It seemed so improbable that the commander of that great army would be content with a single blow that the cavalry were spread on a wide front to watch for any secret march. The infantry fortified heavily the Fredericksburg heights. If the numerically superior Federals made a feint there while preparing to attack at another point, a small Confederate force could hold the key position near the town. The remainder of the army could start after the enemy.
Burnside’s next move was not the sole strategical perplexity. At the time of his attack in December, the Federals took the offensive in North Carolina and pushed from New Bern to Kinston and Goldsborough. The government and the people of the North State were much alarmed. Reinforcements had to be snatched up wherever they could be found in lower Virginia and South Carolina and hurried to the threatened quarter. The competence of the command there was brought into question and forthwith was entangled with rank and promotion in the Army of Northern Virginia. The odd personalities involved generated controversies and vexations, and illustrated the difficulties of organizing effective army command in an individualistic democracy. Grimly amusing, too, at least in retrospect, some of the complications appear.
Much that Lee had planned for command in the army in October was set at naught by the President’s strict construction of military law. Mr. Davis would not promote officers who were unable physically to exercise immediate command, and, at the same time, he refused to retire some of those who seemed to be invalided. In application, this meant deferment of the promotion of I. R. Trimble because he still was crippled by the wound received at Groveton. Conversely, it postponed the advancement of Jube Early because Ewell might resume command.
Neither Ewell nor Trimble had been doing any too well. Trimble had been dogged by camp erysipelas and later by what probably was osteomyelitis of the leg bone that had sustained a compound fracture. His temper was not one of sweet reasonableness. Dick Ewell was in a healthier state of mind but not of body. In November 1862 the great marcher had been moved to Richmond to the home of Dr. F. W. Hancock. Despite the care Dr. Hancock had given, Old Bald Head had lost his temper because he had not recovered faster, and then one day had lost his balance, too, and had fallen. His amputated leg hemorrhaged badly and put Ewell flat on his back for weeks. Still chivalrous he showed himself to be in answer to a letter Jubal Early wrote in complaint over delayed promotion: “… what ought to be most gratifying to you is that the injustice in your case is almost universally recognized. An officer of high rank in your division”—Ewell did not say my—“told me the other day they had just discovered they had a trump and the country is fast arriving at the same conclusion.”22
This was not flattery on the part of Ewell. Although Early had won no popularity, he had earned increasing respect as a soldier. Trimble had affection as well as respect. The promotion of these two to permanent divisional command seems to have been regarded as a continuing probability. In addition, General Lee had been watching Harry Heth. Nor had the commanding general forgotten Arnold Elzey, who had been wounded in the head at Gaines’ Mill, and Allegheny Johnson, still limping badly from the bullet he had received at McDowell. Doubtless on Jackson’s endorsement, when Allegheny began to recover Lee recommended a major general’s commission.
Of these five men marked for promotion to the grade of major general—Early, Trimble, Heth, Elzey, and Johnson—circumstance gave the first step-up to Arnold Elzey. Although the injury to his face and tongue was such that he scarcely could speak, he was thought physically able to administer a district. On December 4 he was commissioned at the new rank, and on December 12 placed in command of the Richmond defenses and adjacent areas to the south.
This assignment infuriated Trimble. He believed Elzey had discredited him, and he suspected also that he missed promotion because Jackson, in endorsing him, had stated, “I do not regard him as a good disciplinarian.” In a raging letter to Adjutant General Cooper, whom he knew well, Trimble spoke bluntly of Elzey’s love of liquor. In his own behalf Trimble defended himself against Jackson’s charge. Said he,“… the General knew but little of any brigade, but his old one. It is well known to all, that I was most particular in my enforcement of discipline. My brigade had fewer stragglers; burnt no rails, committed no thefts in the country, was more often drilled … than any other in the Army of Jackson…. If I am to have promotion I want it at once and I particularly request, that my date may be from 26th August, the date of the capture of Manassas—which General Jackson was pleased to say he considered ‘the most brilliant exploit of the war.’”
Although Jackson inquired whether Trimble was well enough to direct a division in camp and Lee did his utmost to smooth ruffled feelings, the Marylander did not improve rapidly. He did find one outlet for his energies and imagination in planning a paper campaign against the Federal advanced base at Aquia Creek, a plan the ever-patient Lee examined and praised but could not apply. Trimble’s promotion was not delayed as long as he feared it would be. On January 19,1863, Lee announced the promotion of Trimble and Early to the coveted rank of major general. The only recorded opposition came from W. B. Taliaferro. As senior brigadier in Jackson’s division, he felt he should have had the divisional command, and when he did not get it, he told friends he would seek transfer to some other theater of operations.23
The vacancies at the grade of brigadier general were not difficult to fill. The man to lead Gregg’s famous command was Colonel Samuel McGowan of the 14th North Carolina, who already was distinguished for quick perception and prompt, energetic action. For Tom Cobb’s brigade the choice manifestly should be Colonel W. T. Wofford of the 18th Georgia, able and experienced. As Trimble was to be promoted, his regiments well might go to the hard-hitting Colonel R. F. Hoke of the 21st North Carolina, who had ably commanded the brigade at Fredericksburg. To succeed Paul Semmes temporarily at the head of Georgia troops no colonel was so well qualified or so well known to the army as “Old Rock” Benning, who had won fame with Toombs’s brigade and most notably at Sharpsburg. Finally, as W. S. Featherston decided he would prefer duty in the Gulf States, he was relieved. The delayed appointment of Colonel Carnot Posey became effective.
Such, then, were the promotions and changes in January—Trimble to take Jackson’s division when strong enough to do so, Early to continue in temporary command of Ewell’s division at appropriate grade, McGowan to have Gregg’s men, Wofford to lead Cobb’s, Hoke to take Trimble’s former brigade, Benning temporarily to have Semmes’s, and Posey to be assigned Featherston’s.
As these changes came little more than two months after the reorganization necessitated by the losses of the late summer, an optimist might have hoped that the army would have stable command in the spring of 1863. It was not to be. Resignations as well as casualties were in prospect. For the future as in the past the two dominant jealousies were to complicate and mar the promotions: Some of the officers who had entered the army from civil life carped always at the West Pointers; others maintained that Virginians always were preferred.
It was over competence in command, however, that a situation of gravity was developing in North Carolina. Gustavus W. Smith had been able in August to report for duty after the so-called paralysis that had overwhelmed him on the second day at Seven Pines. Lee tactfully assigned to Smith the “right wing of the army,” which included Richmond and departmental command as far south as the Cape Fear River. His duties were chiefly those of watching an inactive enemy along the Virginia and North Carolina coast.
Nothing of large moment had arisen to disturb Smith until the seven lieutenant generals were appointed under the act of September 18, 1862. As all those officers, wit
h the exception of Leonidas Polk, had been Smith’s juniors at the grade of major general, the offended officer promptly inquired of the secretary of war why he had been passed over. Secretary Randolph told Smith that the departmental command he was then exercising was not considered one that rated the high grade within the intent of the law. This explanation did not satisfy Smith. On October 21 he wrote a long protest at being overslaughed and closed with formal tender of his resignation, but at Randolph’s instance he agreed to continue in a post the secretary said he did not then know how to fill.24
In December Federal forces under John G. Foster made the raid on Kinston and Goldsborough in North Carolina. With scarcely more than 2,000 Confederates at the outset, Shanks Evans put up the best fight he could, but he lost by capture over 400 of his men and six of his guns. During the closing days of this affair Smith was on the scene and in general command. Beverly Robertson with his cavalry, Samuel G. French from the Suffolk-Petersburg district, Johnston Pettigrew—all these had some part in the affair. In the end, the Federals burned the main bridge on the Weldon-Wilmington Railroad, paroled 496 Confederates, and carried off the captured guns. “Our troops,” wrote French, “were not properly handled at Goldsborough.” That was a moderate statement of the fact.25
So serious was the prospect of a renewed Federal invasion that North Carolina manifestly must be reinforced substantially and at once. On January 3, General Lee started Ransom’s demi-division southward. Consideration had also to be given to command in North Carolina. Harvey Hill, the most conspicuous soldier from the state in the Army of Northern Virginia, was sick and depressed: Would it help him and North Carolina also, to detach him for service there? Despite misgivings of Hill’s administrative capacity, Lee put the question to the President and the now secretary of war, James A. Seddon. Both of them concluded that the suggestion was worth canvassing, and on January 14, Harvey Hill was ordered to proceed to Richmond and to report to the adjutant general. Hill by that time must have been in serious plight physically. He sought relief from all service and talked of resigning, though he agreed, at length, to go home to Charlotte and to withhold formal resignation. There the matter rested. In the meantime, circumstances forced a decision of another sort.26
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