Lee's Lieutenants

by Douglas Southall Freeman

  Strange, strange the spirit of all this was in contrast to what had been happening at Jacksons quarters. Old Jack long had been planning to emulate the officers who got their wives through Richmond and found quarters for them in the spacious country homes around Fredericksburg. With Mrs. Jackson, of course, must come the baby he had never seen. Till his own baby visited him, he found such comfort as he could in Janie Corbin. She was the five-year-old daughter of his hostess at Moss Neck, and she came every day to his office, after work was done, and chatted with him. He grew proficient at cutting out paper dolls for her, many figures with hands joined, which always had the same name in their conversations—the Stonewall Brigade. Janie’s hair was long and golden and sometimes it tumbled into her blue eyes. One day with a smile he cut loose the gilt band of his gray cap, a present from his wife, and bound it around her hair. “Janie,” he said, “it suits a little girl like you better than it does an old soldier like me.” She was delighted, and thereafter, for any special event, she always wore her shining fillet.

  As pleasant as life had been at Moss Neck, Jackson’s military conscience began to prod him. The office afforded him too much worldly comfort; with the coming of spring he would move to a tented campsite not far from Lee’s near Hamilton’s Crossing. Before he left, Janie was stricken with scarlet fever. When he went to thank Mrs. Corbin for her kindness and to inquire after Janie, his little friend was better. Two days later, however, to the grief and dismay of Jackson, word was brought to him that Janie was dead. He who had gazed dry-eyed on the battlefield of Sharps-burg sat down and wept unabashed.43

  The thought of coming conflict and the surge of religious enthusiasm through the army made the days of early spring a season of prayer for Jackson. He shared the daily morning devotions that Chaplain Tucker Lacy held at headquarters, and unless army business demanded, never absented himself from the somewhat longer prayer service Mr. Lacy conducted on Wednesday and Sunday evenings. The members of Jackson’s military household were encouraged on Sunday afternoon to assemble and sing hymns. If he could not “raise the tune” or even join in the refrain, Jackson could “pray in public,” and when called upon, or when Chaplain Lacy was absent, he did so. At a prayer meeting on Sunday, March 29, Old Jack prayed fervently for peace and invoked the blessing of the Lord on his country’s enemy “in everything but the war.”44

  There Jackson drew the line, because he was seeking Divine guidance and favor for the South and for himself in defeating the enemy. In February he had told Jed Hotchkiss to make a map of the Shenandoah Valley and to extend it into Pennsylvania—proof enough of the direction of his military thought. The difficulties that lay ahead he did not minimize, yet he awaited avidly the next move of Hooker, and made ready to meet it. Never did he work harder to have the corps at its keenest fighting edge. Any day now the long roll might be sounded, the wagons started for the rear, and the lean gray infantry headed for the advancing enemy. A great battle was coming soon. Of that Jackson was confident. “We must do more than defeat their armies,” he told his staff; “we must destroy them.”45

  Instead of a new army, calm descended on the Rappahannock for the leafing of the trees. “I have hardly ever known the army so quiet as now,” said Frank Paxton. Through a soft, enriching rain Jackson rode on the twentieth of April to Guiney’s Station. It was his great hour, the hour for which he had been waiting since he had the first news of the baby’s birth: Mrs. Jackson and the little girl were coming, coming on the very train that was whistling now. No sooner had it stopped than he was on the crowded car. There she was and there the baby. He spoke to his wife and then, turning ever so little, for the first time gazed at his child. “She was at the lovely, smiling age; and catching his eager look of supreme interest in her, she beamed her brightest and sweetest smiles upon him.”

  A blissful season it was for the Southern Cromwell. He installed wife and child at William Yerby’s. While not neglecting any of his duties as a corps administrator, he spent every moment he could with them. For hours daily he studied with fascinated eyes the child’s face. While she slept he often would kneel by the cradle and tell Mrs. Jackson that the baby looked almost as if she were … well, yes, honestly, an angel! He found time to show his wife the presents given him. Among them was a new horse. She praised the steed, and he smiled and wheeled and galloped, because there was enough of the cavalier in this Cromwell to make him wish to exhibit his horsemanship.

  On the fourth day of the visit, Jackson arranged for Mr. Lacy to baptize the child, and in an expansive mood, invited the staff to attend. So, in their gray coats and with their youthful, strangely grim faces, the staff officers arrived at Yerby’s for the baptism. They could not fail to observe that when there was some delay in bringing the child into the room for the ordinance, the father suddenly became the impatient general. He stalked out of the room, made short settlement of what had held Mrs. Jackson, and came back with the infant in his arms. That was Stonewall Jackson’s way—there must be punctuality!

  Perhaps the greatest event of all was the service of Sunday, April 26—an outdoor religious assembly with a full-length discourse in the noblest style of Chaplain Lacy. Mrs. Jackson rode in an ambulance to the meeting place and went to the tent that had been spread to shade the pulpit and the general officers and their guests. General Lee was there and greeted her with flawless courtesy; Jubal Early, looking not at all out of place at church, paid her homage. In front of the tent were some 1,500 to 2,000 of her husband’s soldiers. They sang the songs of Zion lustily; with reverence they listened as Chaplain Lacy expounded the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.46

  That Sunday afternoon the general and his beloved spent together, without interruption or reception of guests. Wrote Mrs. Jackson later:“… his conversation was more spiritual than I had ever observed before. He seemed to be giving utterance to those religious meditations in which he so much delighted.” Several times that winter he had opened his heart in much the same way. “Nothing earthly can mar my happiness,” he told a friend. “I know that heaven is in store for me; and I should rejoice in the prospect of going there tomorrow…. And I would not agree to the slightest diminution of one shade of my glory there—no, not for all the fame I have acquired or shall ever win in this world.” In that same spirit he talked to her till the Sabbath shadows fell.

  The twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth, Monday and Tuesday, he was with her every hour he was not at headquarters. Reports had come that the enemy on the other side of the Rappahannock had brought up troops from the rear; Stuart placed Stoneman and the Federal cavalry at Warrenton Springs. Lee had called on Longstreet to expedite the commissary operations in North Carolina because the two detached divisions of the First Corps might be recalled at any moment.

  Dawn on the twenty-ninth of April in the great bedroom at William Yerby’s. Suddenly a stamping on the stairs, a knock at the door: “General Early’s adjutant wishes to see General Jackson.” Jackson got out of bed. “That looks as if Hooker is crossing,” he said to Mrs. Jackson, and then tumbled quickly into his clothes. Down the steps he went to hear what the waiting officer had to say.

  After a few minutes he came hurriedly back—the general now. It was as he had expected. Hooker had launched the spring offensive. A battle would be fought. Mrs. Jackson must prepare at once to start for Richmond. If Jackson could, he would return to see her off; if not, he would send her brother Joseph Morrison to escort her to the train at Guiney’s. One last kiss; a long, long look at the baby…. Good-bye, good-bye!47

  CHAPTER 22

  Jackson Gets His Greatest Orders

  1

  “HOW CAN WE GET AT THESE PEOPLE?”

  A mild and cloudy morning it was, that twenty-ninth of April, but rich in the promise of spring. The leaves of the oaks were beginning to open; the peach and cherry trees were in full bloom. In the woods and on the hillsides the anemone could be seen; the houstonia added its color. But Old Jack’s eyes were toward the Rappahannock, whence battery-smoke al
ready was rising. He found that Jubal Early had deployed the veterans of Ewell’s division, now Early’s own, along the R.F. & P. Railroad and forward to the old Stage Road. Under the bank of the river were the Federals, who had crossed in pontoon boats and were laying bridges but as yet showed no disposition to attack.1

  Jackson could ascertain little concerning their numbers or their disposition, but he concluded a fight was certain and that Mrs. Jackson and the baby must leave at once. He wrote his wife a little note to that effect and summoned his brother-in-law, Lieutenant Joseph Morrison. Would Morrison take an ambulance and go immediately to Yerby’s, get Mrs. Jackson and the child, and put them aboard the cars? Morrison was disciplined and not disposed to argue with a lieutenant general, but he could talk plainly to his sister’s husband. The general, said Morrison, would have need of all the staff officers. He would prefer to remain on duty and send Chaplain Lacy in his place. Jackson acquiesced; Lacy got the summons and went forthwith to Yerby’s. He hurried Mrs. Jackson and her maid and the baby to Guiney’s in time for the southbound morning train. Their safe departure he duly reported to his chief.2

  Jackson ere that had seen the commanding general and learned of reports that indicated the Federals might be crossing the Rappahannock west of Fredericksburg either for a movement against Lee’s rear or for a drive against Gordonsville and the Virginia Central Railroad. Upon Lee, not upon Jackson, rested the burden of sifting these reports and of deciding whether to start a column immediately up the river or to await further development of the situation. Jackson’s task was to watch the enemy in his front and to bring up his other divisions. Rodes was putting D. H. Hill’s division into position on the extreme right. A. P. Hill was ordered to place his brigades on the military road above the railway and on the ridge where Maxcy Gregg had fallen. Trimble’s division, at Moss Neck and Skinker’s Neck, was called up to Hamilton’s Crossing.3

  One circumstance might have disturbed a man less resolute than Jackson: Neither Allegheny Johnson, who was to take Harvey Hill’s division, nor Trimble, who was to lead Jackson’s old division, was with the troops. In place of Johnson, who had not yet reported for duty, Robert Rodes, the senior brigadier, well might act. He had experience and in every battle he had fought, from Seven Pines onward, he had distinguished himself. In Jackson’s own division, which Trimble still was too crippled to direct in the field, the senior of the brigadiers, the man who now must assume responsibility for the command, was Raleigh Colston. He had been with the division less than a month and never had fought in it.

  While Colston was marching up the Rappahannock, the Federals threw another pontoon bridge opposite Smithfield, the Pratt homestead, but they did not move from the riverbank. Every hour deepened Lee’s belief that the major effort of the enemy would be elsewhere. By evening he was so well persuaded the principal attack would be directed against his left, upstream, that he started in that direction Dick Anderson, who already had four of his brigades widely extended on that flank. Anderson was to bring up the fifth, Wright’s, and take command. On the Fredericksburg front remained Jackson’s entire corps, McLaws’s division of Longstreet, and part of the reserve artillery.4

  Dawn of April 30 found Jackson awake early and from the first hour full of fight. Together with Lee he observed the Federal dispositions and discussed proper tactics. The commanding general was quite clear in his own mind: It was better to await the enemy’s attack, if one was to be delivered. The artillery on Stafford Heights imposed the same conditions that had prevailed in December. The Confederates would find it difficult to get at the enemy and still harder to get back across the flats after driving the Federals. Jackson had abundant reason for knowing this, in the light of what had happened to his batteries on the evening of December 13, but he could not bring himself to forgo the chance of striking an enemy who was hugging the riverbank. As he stood unconvinced, Lee spoke again: “If you think it can be done, I will give orders for it.”

  That put the onus on Jackson. Willing as always he was to make decisions, he was loath to go against the judgment of the man, as he had told Boteler, he was “willing to follow blindfolded.” Jackson asked for more time in which to examine the terrain. At length and most regretfully he had to own to himself that an advance would be costly and that withdrawal would have to be under a devastating fire. Back he rode to army headquarters. Lee was correct, he said: “It would be inexpedient to attack here.” What should he do instead? Lee was waiting with the answer. He was entirely convinced that the Federals below Fredericksburg were no more than a holding force, and that Hooker was striking through the Wilderness of Spotsylvania to turn the Confederate left. “Move then,” said Lee to Jackson, “at dawn tomorrow up to Anderson.” He went on to explain that McLaws with three brigades would precede Jackson and that Early, with his division, Barksdale’s brigade, and part of the reserve artillery would be left to face the Federals on the river.5

  For these instructions Jackson was not unprepared. During the afternoon he had called Jed Hotchkiss to him and told the topographical engineer to strike off eight maps of the country between the Rappahannock and the Rapidan. His own copy, said Jackson, should be extended westward to Stevensburg. He gave no explanation, but the fact was, Jackson had crossed the Rapidan on the road to Stevensburg the previous August en route to meet Pope, and he knew what a trap to a retreating army was the famous “V” between the Rappahannock and the Rapidan. Perhaps Hooker might be caught where Pope had escaped.6

  Soon after midnight Jackson ordered the troops awakened. Rodes must proceed to the Orange Plank Road and head westward. Hill would follow; Colston, with Trimble’s division, which had marched all day on the twenty-ninth, would close the rear. As the men confidently tramped on, the setting moon was lost in a dense mist at dawn; but the morning proved pleasant—a “genuine May day,” wrote Jed Hotchkiss.

  Jackson rode ahead of the infantry and, at 8 o’clock, about five and a half miles from Fredericksburg, came upon Anderson’s division entrenching on a front more than a mile in length. Anderson had a report to make of vigilant and prompt action. He told it modestly, because that was his nature, but it was a report to belie the persistent yarn that he was indolent and that only under the spur of Longstreet could he be made to exert himself. On the twenty-ninth, as directed by Lee, Anderson had advanced to the crossroads where, in the gloomy tangle of the Wilderness of Spotsylvania, stood the Chancellor house, a large brick structure used often as a tavern. At the crossroads, which bore the pretentious name Chancellorsville, were the brigades of Billy Mahone and Carnot Posey. These officers had withdrawn from United States Ford on the Rappahannock on receipt of news that the Federals in large numbers were at Germanna and Ely’s fords, on the Rapidan to the west.

  Anderson’s position, April 30, 1863, and the roads and terrain on the Fredericksburg-Chancellorsville front.

  To oppose the Union army converging on Chancellorsville Anderson would have but three brigades when Rans Wright overtook him on the morning of the thirtieth. With that small force it would be foolish and worse to make a stand in that thickly wooded country where they might be surrounded before they were aware of the proximity of the bluecoats. Anderson decided that he would get out of the Wilderness, withdraw toward Fredericksburg, and take as strong and open a defensive position as he could find there. Near Tabernacle Church he found Lieutenant Colonel William P. Smith, Lee’s acting chief engineer, who had been sent out to run a line of entrenchments on the best ground thereabouts. At this point the old Turnpike and the Orange Plank Road were not more than 1,300 yards apart and could be covered by even so small a command as Anderson’s. In front and on both flanks was forest, but the elevation was sufficient to afford a fair field of fire.7

  In the afternoon the 3rd Virginia cavalry arrived and threw out pickets. Their reconnaissance gave abundant evidence that a mighty force was moving through the Wilderness toward Anderson’s front. What was Anderson to do? When someone asked him, his answer was as firm as brief—“Fight, G
eneral Lee says so.” He kept detachments laboring on field fortifications all night. Shortly before sunrise on May 1 he had the satisfaction of welcoming Lafayette McLaws, who arrived from Fredericksburg with three of his brigades. Wright, Mahone, and Posey of Anderson’s division, then, and Kershaw, Wofford, and Semmes of McLaws’s—these six brigades were in a defensible position at 8:00 A.M. when Jackson arrived. As soon as he studied the ground and got word that his own corps was approaching from Fredericksburg, Old Jack began in his convinced, staccato manner to issue his orders.8

  Stop work on the entrenchments. The column was going to advance on the enemy. Send for Wilcox and Perry, still on the river, to rejoin Anderson at once. Start Mahone toward Chancellorsville over the old Turnpike; he knew the road. Give him a battery. Behind him could move McLaws. On the Plank Road, which Posey and Wright had traversed the previous day, Wright could lead the way. Let part of Alexander’s battalion go with him. When the Second Corps arrived it must take the Plank Road behind Anderson. There was room for maneuver on that flank; the other was too close to the Rappahannock. Nothing was to be gained by standing on the defensive. Instead of waiting for Hooker to strike, hit him.