One other of Longstreet’s staff officers must have mention—Dr. J. S. Dorsey Cullen, medical director of the Second Corps. Dorsey Cullen, who was thirty, had been born in Richmond and schooled at the University of Virginia and in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania. So promising was he that one of the most renowned of Southern surgeons, Dr. Charles Bell Gibson, took him into partnership. When war came, Cullen went to the front as surgeon of the 1st Virginia and soon attracted Longstreet’s attention. Soon he was as secure in the affection of Longstreet as Hunter McGuire was welcome in Jackson’s tent.
Because the cavalry under the energetic Stuart ranged far, his staff officers were widely known. For that matter, Stuart saw to it that everything connected with the cavalry was known. One of his staff officers, Heros von Borcke, lent himself admirably and willingly as an exhibit. Von Borcke was of vast bulk and appropriate height and had to ride a tall and powerful horse. He dressed in a fashion that emphasized his size at the same time it suggested the rainbow. Unquestioned valor was von Borcke’s, a contempt for danger and an unfeigned delight in combat. He possessed polish and much experience. His most provoking quality was not revealed till the struggle was over. Then, in his published Memoirs, where none of his service lost weight in the telling, he calmly credited himself with many feats that had been performed by other members of the staff.
The honor and the burden of Stuart’s chief of staff again were Major Norman FitzHugh’s. He had been exchanged at length after he fell into Federal hands at Verdiersville, and had been prompt to return to active duty. John Esten Cooke, the novelist, was ordnance officer and was sharing observantly, though not happily, all that Stuart was doing.
Two other of Stuart’s staff officers had qualities worthy of note. W. W. Blackford, chief engineer of the cavalry division, was one of four brothers in the Confederate army, all of them excellent soldiers. He had received sound, disciplinary training as a civil engineer, and as he helped to raise a volunteer cavalry company after the John Brown raid, he adhered to that arm and in 1861 rode off with this command. One of the obligations Blackford imposed upon himself was that of going over every battlefield he could examine after the battle closed. He explained that “… nothing cultivates the judgment of topography, in relation to the strategic strength of position, so well as to ride over the ground while the dead and wounded still remain as they fell. You see exactly where the best effects were produced, and what arm of the service produced them, for there lies the harvest they have reaped, each sheaf distinctly labeled with the name of the reaper in the wound received.” This was the viewpoint of a scientific but not of a cold-blooded soldier.8
Best loved of Stuart’s staff was the remarkable young A.A.G. that Jeb had found in his distant cousin R. Channing Price of Richmond. Channing Price had entered the war as a private in the Richmond Howitzers. In the summer of 1862, Stuart gave him a place on the staff, and as Channing quickly learned his duties, Jeb never had occasion to regret the appointment or to apologize for the selection of a kinsman. An exacting chief was Stuart. His aides had to justify their title at any hour and had always to be close at hand. Channing met the strain. At the “inside” work he was facile and unfailing. When he was acting as A.A.G. in the field he had no superior in the army. He would listen as Stuart dictated orders, said Blackford, “and without asking him to repeat a single thing, or taking a single note, he would ride out to one side of the road, dismount, take his little portfolio out of his haversack, and write the letters ready for the General’s signature; and it was rarely the case that any alteration was made….” This was attributed to Price’s development of a retentive memory by acting as secretary to his father who, in late life, lost his vision and carried on his correspondence by dictating to his son.9
Taylor for Lee, Pendleton for Jackson, Sorrel for Longstreet, Price for Stuart—these were not the only staff officers of outstanding capacity. Nor by any means did they carry all the burden of detailed staff work in winter quarters. Others of industry as great and ability almost as high labored patriotically, but these four, different in background though not in uprearing, were typical of the best of the army and of the South.
2
ARTILLERISTS GET THEIR STARS
Along with the developing young staff officers, some of the ablest of the artillerists received one star or two during the months the army was in winter quarters. The reorganization of the “long arm” had been undertaken immediately after Sharpsburg. Small and inefficient batteries then were demanding far more horses than the quartermasters were able to supply. On the roster were batteries that had won the plaudits of the entire army, and certain others that were an encumbrance of road and camp and battlefield. Eighteen of the latter were stricken from the list. Their personnel was divided among other units; their guns were given to better batteries or were turned back to the army chief of ordnance.10 In the process, where so many sensibilities were exposed, not a few were bruised; among ambitions so numerous some were trodden upon.
This reduction in the number of batteries was followed in February 1863 by a historic, long-needed change in the organization of the artillery as a combat arm. From the time the brigades and divisions had been formed in 1861, designated batteries had been assigned to each of these units. A brigade had one battery; normally a division had four. Soon the batteries were so habituated to service with particular brigades that any attempt to send the guns elsewhere was regarded as the darkest injustice to the gunners and to the brigade—an act far worse than the detachment of an infantry regiment for temporary service with another brigade.
By the autumn of 1862 the artillery of most divisions had come under the command of a divisional chief of artillery, who exercised a measure of discretion, but the permanence of the relations between certain batteries and one specific division continued to be taken for granted. If a massing of guns or the reinforcement of an artillery position was necessary, the added units were expected to come from the general reserve, which consisted of fifteen or twenty batteries, rather than from the adjoining division, even though that division might be idle.
This system patently was bad beyond defense. The employment of large forces of artillery was almost impossible. Field officers of artillery had little practice training. Batteries in isolated camps behind the lines often were neglected by supply officers who could not, to quote General Pendleton, “devote to one or more batteries the time and attention they imperatively needed.” Lee and Pendleton both had concluded that battalions of four batteries, a total of sixteen guns, each battalion with two field officers, would be an organization far preferable. The chief of artillery went over with Porter Alexander and Stapleton Crutchfield the details of a plan of this character and, on February 11,1863, presented it, complete even to the assignment of batteries, for the consideration of Lee.11
When Lee sent to the corps commanders the proposed organization and the contemplated assignments for their commands, Longstreet made no objection. The shifting of batteries and the few necessary advancements in rank seem to have been satisfactory to him. His old friend Colonel J. B. Walton of the Washington Artillery battalion was to be retained. Porter Alexander was to be made a full colonel. The other promoted officers were meritorious and acceptable.
Jackson was not so ready to accept the men Pendleton proposed for him. He had objections of principle to the assignment to his artillery of field officers who had not served with it, when he had good men of his own batteries whom he felt worthy of promotion. In addition, Crutchfield felt that one major of artillery did not deserve promotion. Besides, Captain David G. McIntosh, whom Crutchfield considered one of the best of his artillerists, was not assigned a battalion. These considerations Old Jack set forth earnestly in a letter to Lee, and in so doing advanced the claims of one of his “boys” of the old Army of the Valley, Captain R. P. Chew, who had commanded the famous battery that always was barking where Ashby was slashing. Complaint Jackson also made, probably at the instance of Crutchfie
ld, on the subject of the comparative armament of the two corps.
Lee satisfied Jackson quickly regarding guns, but Old Jack’s other arguments did not pass unscrutinized. Lee did not think it right, he said, “at any time to pass over worthy men who have done good service, unless you can get better.” As for Chew, was he not with the artillery of the cavalry rather than of the Second Corps? Jackson did not take any of this in good part, and the conclusion of his reply lacked little of being rude. Said Jackson: “I have had much trouble resulting from incompetent officers having been assigned to duty with me regardless of my wishes. Those who have assigned them have never taken the responsibility of incurring the odium which results from such incompetency.” With his lieutenant in this temper, Lee argued no more, but sought, as best he could, to reconcile Pendleton’s suggestions and Jackson’s objections to them.12
The assignments were announced on April 16. Four battalions were attached directly to each corps. In a deliberate effort to provide greater mobility and increased firepower, the two best battalions of Longstreet’s command—the Washington Artillery and Alexander’s battalion—were designated as corps reserve for the First Corps. Two battalions that included some batteries not quite of the same level of distinction constituted the reserve of the Second Corps. The general reserve was reduced to two battalions.13 Jackson got all he had asked except in two cases: Chew was not assigned a battalion; the major whose promotion had been disapproved by Crutchfield was advanced to the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Although it disappointed these and other ambitions, the battalion organization was to justify itself many times over. Whatever objection there was to the new system in February was to disappear on the third of May. Some superb young men were given higher rank because of heavier responsibility. Tom Carter became a colonel—he who had equaled on many fields, though he never could excel, his performance at Seven Pines. Snowden Andrews, though still unfit for active duty because of a wound received at Cedar Mountain, had the stimulus of promotion to lieutenant colonel. Willie Pegram, promoted major, was made second in command of Lindsay Walker’s battalion. David McIntosh stepped up to major and head of a battalion that was thereafter to bear his name. W. T. Poague became a major and second in command to McIntosh. In the Second Corps Major J. W. Latimer, who had handled Ewell’s artillery with much skill at Cedar Mountain, was named as the junior field officer of Snowden Andrews’s battalion. Second in command to Porter Alexander was Major Frank Huger, son of General Benjamin Huger and an officer whose judgment matched his heroism.
Older men of higher rank and of outstanding service there already were in the artillery; but as it chanced, most of the young men who appeared as battalion field officers for the first time in the order of April 16, 1863, were those who added most to the luster of the long arm. Alexander, Huger, Tom Carter, Latimer, Pegram, McIntosh, Poague—take these from the roll of Lee’s artillery and half its glory is gone. They won their new rank by merit and they had the endorsement of Longstreet and Jackson. Perhaps some of the aggressive battalion commanders would have been loath to admit it, but they owed something, also, to General Pendleton. Individual performance he had observed faithfully and, with a few exceptions, had appraised soundly.
On a footing different from any of the artillerists who fought with the infantry units was the recognition of John Pelham. His performance on the right at Fredericksburg had underscored all his achievements from First Manassas onward. In an army that did not lack brave men, he was “the gallant Pelham.” It was asked if he were not something of a military genius who was developing new artillery tactics. It might not be daring or sheer combativeness that inspired Pelham to dash with his guns ahead of all infantry support, to pursue as if he led cavalry, to withdraw swiftly but with so many halts on good ground that he delayed pursuit. Together these might be tactical devices that would give a new function to artillery.14
No praise seemed in any way to affect Pelham. His manner remained simple and unspoiled; he never spoke of himself or his exploits. If he was commended, he blushed. Apparently he gave no thought to death. He told John Esten Cooke once that he had never felt he was destined to be killed in the war. His friends ranged from the humblest to the most exalted. A man’s man he was by every act and impulse; yet he drew many a sigh and gentle glance from the young ladies of every town where he halted. How could it be otherwise? He was blond enough to match his dazzling blue eyes, and was “tall, slender, beautifully proportioned and very graceful.” He was, one of his closest friends had to admit, “as grand a flirt as ever lived,” though scandal never touched his name. Stuart had for his chief of artillery the same sort of older-brother affection that Longstreet had for Pickett, and Pelham consequently lived with the cavalry staff and, to all intents, was one of them.15
With either of “the Lees,” Fitz or Rooney, with almost anyone else, and above all with the chief of cavalry, Pelham wished to ride on every raid, but during the worst mud of the wintry months the horse artillerist had to content himself officially with inspections. At length came March, the month of mystery in Virginia. Often when the air is cold, the wind is searching, and the whole aspect of nature is blusterous. On the highways, deep in mud when they are not snow-covered, winter seems unrelenting. In the woods the buds are swelling confidently. Spring was coming for John Pelham; spring and, his friends predicted, advancement to a lieutenant colonelcy.
It was in mid-March that Pelham contrived a scheme to confound the boredom of camp by slipping away to call on a young lady in Orange. His visit was interrupted by sudden news of the enemy advancing in some force. Before night on the sixteenth Pelham had hastened to Culpeper and found Stuart there as a witness at a court-martial. The next morning, March 17, on borrowed horses, Stuart and Pelham began a hurried ride toward the quarters of Fitz Lee, who by that time had received fairly accurate and somewhat alarming intelligence of the enemy’s movements. Scouts reported the arrival of the Federals at Morrisville, in the southeastern part of Fauquier County, about nine miles east of the familiar crossing of the Rappahannock at Kelly’s Ford. Whatever their intentions, should they strike for any point south of the Rappahannock they probably would cross at Kelly’s. Fitz had reinforced the picket post there. His brigade was placed to the north of Culpeper. By these dispositions he seemed to be protected against surprise and in position to meet a Federal advance on either side of the river.16
At 7:30 on the morning of March 17, Fitz Lee was confronted with news that Union cavalry had forced the crossing at Kelly’s Ford. The bluecoats might be riding straight for the Orange and Alexandria Railroad south of the Rappahannock. They must be met and defeated before they could reach the track. His regiments—1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Virginia—moved out promptly. Eagerly Pelham rode with Stuart till they reached the cavalry’s field headquarters. There Pelham had to wait. James Breathed’s battery, attached to Fitz Lee’s service, had not yet come up. If an onslaught came before the artillery arrived, Pelham could carry messages, perhaps, or he might have a hand in the clash of horses and the crossing of sabers.
This Kelly’s Ford country was familiar to Pelham from the campaigning in the summer and autumn of 1862. At that time he already had shared the actions at First Manassas and Williamsburg, the ride around McClellan, the bloody battle of Gaines’ Mill, the raid on White House, and the amusing chase of the gunboat. Then, in August, began the pulse-raising days around Groveton, the Maryland expedition, Sharpsburg, the Chambersburg raid, and Fredericksburg when the eyes of the army had been home. Yes, this Kelly’s Ford country had been the halfway bivouac in the rise of John Pelham. Ahead of him now, as in August, was … the promise of an exciting battle.
The advance guard located the enemy Fitz Lee turned to Stuart: “Hadn’t we better take the bulge on them at once?” Stuart was always agreeable to a fight that held any promise of advantage. Pelham watched as the 3rd Virginia, in a column of fours, charged straight for a stone fence sheltering the Federals. The men were firing at the blue line be
hind the fence, but had not been able to get over the barrier. Now they were making for farm buildings on the left where, surely, there would be a gate or a gap in the fence. This at a glance was plain to Pelham. Instantly he drew saber and put spurs to his horse. He would share that charge, help as he could. The joy of battle was in the boy’s shining eyes. As he waved his sword, he smiled and shouted “Forward!”
“Forward!” he continued to shout as he reached the farm buildings where the troopers were streaming through an opening in the fence. Pelham drew rein at the gate and yelled encouragement to the men as they passed. In the high ecstasy of conflict he stood in his stirrups, sword uplifted, battle shout on his lips. Overhead a roar, a flash, the loud explosion of a shell. The horse leaped. Pelham fell. He lay on his back. His eyes remained open; his face was not marred. He looked as if at the next moment he would rise and shake off the dirt and shout again, “Forward!”; but in the back of his head, just at the hair-line, there was a small bleeding wound where a fragment of shell had entered. Comrades got the wounded boy across the withers of a horse and carried him to the rear.17
Almost from the time of Pelham’s fall the action lost its menacing character. Soon it degenerated into demonstrations. At nightfall it ended in the withdrawal of the Federals by the road of their advance. Confederate casualties numbered 133, those of the Federals little more than half as numerous.
Most of all was there lament for the famous young artillerist. Surgeons examining Pelham found that the fragment of shell, no larger than the tip of the little finger, had crashed through the back of the skull for two inches. The steel had done fatal hurt to nerves. About 1:00 P.M. Pelham opened his eyes, drew a long breath, and, without so much as a whisper, died. When Stuart heard this he bowed his head on his horse’s neck and wept. “Our loss is irreparable,” he said.18
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