Lee's Lieutenants

by Douglas Southall Freeman

  That must not be! To support and assist the new divisional commander, Allegheny Johnson, competent brigadiers must be provided, but from what source? The answer given was itself evidence of the army’s strait. In the first place, it was decided that Maryland Steuart, who had recovered from his Cross Keys wound, would be utilized as an old regular army man to take the Virginia-North Carolina brigade of Colston. Experience had indicated that where an officer well-schooled in the “old army” took a brigade that had regiments from more than one state, rivalries might be ended.

  Paxton’s brigade presented a second and more vexing problem. So famous a command deserved the best unattached brigadier who could be found. That man, in the judgment of Lee, was Colonel James A. Walker of the 13th Virginia, Early’s old brigade. During the Maryland operations Walker had been “loaned” to Trimble’s brigade, at the head of which he had done well, and he had been distinguished anew at Fredericksburg where he had been in charge of Early’s brigade. Qualified Walker was. Although he had no connection with the brigade or the division, he was made commander of the Stonewall Brigade.

  This was a choice doubly sensational because of previous relations between Walker and Jackson. In 1852, at the Virginia Military Institute, Walker, who was a senior, professed himself insulted by a remark made to him by Professor Jackson. The belligerent young Walker challenged the teacher to a duel. The matter was closed by the court-martial and dismissal of Walker from the institute. With the coming of war, each acquired respect for the other. Walker laid down his grievance; Jackson did what he could to advance Walker. Now the colonel of the 13th Virginia was to have the unusual honor of transfer to Jackson’s brigade, and of promotion over the heads of the senior officers of five of the most famous regiments in the army. A strident, echoing outcry was made by the field officers of the Stonewall Brigade. They were outraged, and in protest tendered their resignations. They named three whom they said they would have accepted cheerfully. The resignations were declined so quietly and with so much tact that no trace of the incident appears in the official records.14

  For J. R. Jones’s brigade, as for Paxton’s, choice of a new commander had to go beyond the brigade and the division. The man promoted was Lieutenant Colonel John M. Jones, inspector general of Early’s division. Jones was a West Point graduate of the class of 1841 and had served at the academy for seven years as assistant instructor of infantry tactics. When he resigned to defend Virginia, Jones was a captain of six years’ standing. McLaws also had been a captain, Cadmus Wilcox a lieutenant. McLaws had risen to divisional command and Wilcox long had been a brigadier; why Jones had mounted no further was suggested vaguely in Lee’s letter to Davis at the time of the appointment: “Should [Jones] fail in his duty, he will instantly resign.” If this meant that Jones’s enemy was strong drink, the new brigadier met and overcame that adversary.15

  Steuart for Colston’s brigade, Jim Walker for Paxton’s, John M. Jones for J. R.Jones’s command—this left the Louisiana brigade, but there, even when Lee looked through the other divisions, a suitable man could not be found at once. In the end, Nicholls’s brigade, as well as Rodes’s and Heth’s, had to be left without commanding officers of proper grade—an ominous admission that superior, developed material of high command had been exhausted temporarily.

  Such was the reorganization necessitated by the loss of Jackson, whom the army felt to be irreplaceable, and by the establishment of a Third Corps, which prudence, good organization, and justice to Ewell and A. P. Hill demanded. How those two officers would handle their enlarged commands it was impossible to foretell. The preliminaries were auspicious. When Ewell arrived with his bride on May 29, after an absence from the army of nine months, his and Jackson’s old divisions met him at the cars and gave him a cheering salute. “General Ewell is in fine health and fine spirits,” wrote Sandie Pendleton. “… I look for great things from him, and am glad to say that our troops have for him a good deal of the same feeling they had towards General Jackson.”

  Old Bald Head was glad to take over Jackson’s competent staff, and he was overjoyed to be again with his troops. On June 1, 1863, Ewell assumed direction of a reconstituted Second Corps—his old division under Early, Jackson’s former division under Edward Johnson, arid Harvey Hill’s under Rodes. Simultaneously, Ambrose Powell Hill became the first commander of a new Third Corps. In it were part of his own division with Dorsey Pender as its chief, Heth’s division, half of which had been Hill’s own division, and third, Dick Anderson’s brigades transferred from the First Corps.16

  The adjustment of the artillery to this organization of three infantry corps proved a matter of no difficulty. To each of the corps three battalions were assigned. Instead of a general reserve, provision was made for a reserve of two battalions for each corps. To suffice for this organization, a fifteenth battalion was created, with Major William T. Poague, long-time captain of Jackson’s own Rockbridge Artillery, as its head. In these assignments Longstreet’s artillery organization remained intact. That of the Second Corps was unchanged except that Nelson’s Battalion, previously of the general reserve, became one of its corps reserve battalions. The new Third Corps was not stinted. Every one of its five battalions was good. Quick as Hill was to take offense at any alleged slight, he seems to have been entirely satisfied with the batteries allotted to him.

  Under this organization Pendleton ceased to be chief of the reserve artillery, for the reason that there no longer was any general reserve. He reverted to his one-time status as chief of artillery for the army. His corps chiefs of artillery—who were they to be? Colonel J. B. Walton was the titular and undisputed chief of the First Corps’ guns, as for months he had been. This was a proper assignment. Walton embodied the spirit of the Washington Artillery, but he was no longer young nor alertly active. Much as Longstreet admired and respected Walton, he soon was to look to the sober-faced and scientific Porter Alexander to handle the artillery in the field.

  The Second Corps inevitably would suffer much from the absence of Stapleton Crutchfield during the long months he would require to adjust himself to the loss of a leg. In his stead would serve the senior battalion commander—J. Thompson Brown, an able and conscientious soldier, patient and diligent in administration but not brilliant. For the Third Corps, Powell Hill nominated and Lee approved Colonel R. Lindsay Walker. This officer, thirty-six years of age and a Virginian of high connections, had been graduated from V.M.I, in 1845. First as commander of the Purcell Battery of Richmond and then as chief of artillery of Hill’s division, he had shared, always with honor, the fortunes of Hill’s men on nearly all their fields of battle after the Seven Days. Walker was not the theatrical type whom soldiers cheer on the road and deride affectionately around the campfire, but he was the skillful leader that men are glad to have in battle. Careful and free of recklessness, he knew when the artillerist could afford to be bold.

  Reorganization of the cavalry was another part of the endless task of promoting the worthy, replacing the incompetent, and making good the losses due to attrition. After Chancellorsville the need was, first, to increase the mounted troops for offensive operations. In southwest Virginia was a large force under Brigadier General A. G. Jenkins. These troops had not been well schooled in cavalry tactics or in hard fighting at close quarters. Some had the complex of home guards, and some preferred the life of a guerrilla to that of a trooper, but many were good raw material. They were badly needed by Stuart. After much diplomatic correspondence, Lee procured three regiments and one battalion. With that force Jenkins himself came, a man of oft-proved daring and gallantry but of untested administrative qualities.

  Besides Jenkins’s men, there was the prospect of getting from North Carolina some of the curious brigade of Beverly Robertson, who had quietly been transferred after Lee’s army entered Maryland in September 1862. Inasmuch as Harvey Hill in the North State had denounced Robertson’s men in every tone of vehemence, he could not object to ridding himself of them. Hill agreed to send Lee
two of Robertson’s regiments, and Robertson offered to return to Virginia with them. This was acceptable to Lee, who never had lost his good opinion of Robertson as an organizer and instructor. Stuart’s judgment in not recorded, but before the end of May his roster included Robertson and the 4th and 5th North Carolina.

  W. E. Jones and his regiments that had been in the Shenandoah Valley were also added to Stuart’s immediate command. Jeb had been anxious not to have Grumble Jones with him again and was active in trying to get him transferred to the command of the Stonewall Brigade after Paxton’s death. In this he had met with no encouragement from headquarters. Said Lee: “I am perfectly willing to transfer [Jones] to Paxton’s brigade if he desires it; but if he does not, I know of no act of his to justify my doing so. Do not let your judgment be warped.”17 That, of course, silenced Jeb but it did not satisfy him. The commanding general could make the two men work together. He could not make them like each other.

  When the opportunity of another offensive came, there was still another prospect of adding to the cavalry of the army. John D. Imboden and his mounted units had been campaigning in western Virginia and now might assist Stuart temporarily, but whether they would help stoutly was another question. Imboden had lost by desertion 200 men from a single battalion after he had forbidden them to seize citizens’ horses for private use. A command that would do this scarcely would respond with the spur to Stuart’s bugles, but undisciplined as were Imboden’s rangers, they could ride, they could shoot, they could drive cattle, and they could guard a countryside. They must be employed.

  While this third major reorganization of the army was being effected, the First Corps was reunited by the return of Longstreet from the Black-water. The corps did not seem quite itself without Dick Anderson’s men, but its other divisions had undergone no change in leadership and were little diminished in number.

  Besides these returning veterans, the army received during May three new brigades. The first of these was Julius Daniels large if raw North Carolina brigade, which Harvey Hill exchanged for Colquitt’s depleted command. Daniel was unknown to most officers of the Army of Northern Virginia, but he was of high standing in North Carolina. His brigade was assigned to Rodes’s division, which Colquitt had left. The other accessions, which went to Heth’s division, were the North Carolina brigade of Johnston Pettigrew and the Mississippi brigade of Joseph R. Davis. Pettigrew had the good will of many officers who had known him on the Peninsula in 1862. Joe Davis, a nephew of the President, on whose staff he had served for some months, was entirely without combat experience.

  The bargaining that produced these latter troops would have appeared more appropriate among jealously cautious allies than among the officials of a Confederacy engaged in a life-and-death revolution. In the end, Pettigrew and Davis were sent to northern Virginia on condition that, temporarily, Micah Jenkins’s and Robert Ransom’s brigades were left in southern Virginia and North Carolina. This exchange, like that involving Daniel, was not wholly acceptable, and for the same reason: In the place of tested veterans it gave the Army of Northern Virginia troops of little experience in combat, and some officers whom Lee tactfully styled “uninstructed.”

  The Army of Northern Virginia now made ready to embark on the adventure of operating without Stonewall Jackson. The First Corps, though reduced to three divisions, had its command well organized. Its divisional and brigade leadership was more uniform and seasoned than that of either of the other corps. Ewell was the greatest question mark of the Second Corps. Under him, Early had able brigade commanders with the possible exception of the valiant but unmilitary Extra Billy Smith. The famous division of Jackson had a new chief in Allegheny Johnson and four new brigade leaders, three of whom were strangers to the men. Rodes’s division, less sharply organized, was under a man whose recent promotion had come after a clear demonstration of his capacity for command. The weakness of Second Corps command could be stated explicitly: Of the seventeen corps positions of rank, seven only were filled by men who, at the rank prescribed by regulations, had led the same or corresponding units at Chancellorsville.

  In Hill’s Third Corps there was a new lieutenant general, one major general, Pender, whose insignia was fresh, and one, Heth, whose divisional experience was of the shortest. Of thirteen brigades, eight were under experienced general officers of appropriate rank, two were led by brigadiers without combat experience at their grade, and three were in the care of senior colonels.

  To summarize the army as a whole, as of June 6, two of the three corps commanders, Ewell and Hill, had to prove their ability to handle the larger forces entrusted to them. Of the nine divisional chiefs, four could be counted as definitely experienced—McLaws, Anderson, Hood, and Early. Two, Johnson and Pender, were new in their posts; two, Rodes and Heth, had been briefly in acting command of divisions; and one, Pickett, though administering a division for some months, had never led it in combat. Among the thirty-seven brigadier generals of infantry, twenty-five had a measure of experience at their grade, though neither in experience nor in ability were they uniform. Six brigades had new leaders; six others were in charge of colonels. Even with these men of inexperience or doubtful capacity, it was an army command of much prowess under a superlative general-in-chief … but it lacked Jackson.

  The troops were pleased with the prospect of maneuver. They had enjoyed their weeks of rest after Chancellorsville, and believed themselves stronger than before battle. They had defeated Hooker at his strongest when two of their divisions under Longstreet were absent. Even though the fighting in the tangled Wilderness had cost them Jackson, they had added so spectacular a victory to so long a record of success that they now considered themselves invincible. Their commanding general, appreciative of valor but usually conservative, was of his soldiers’ sanguine mind.

  All the spring there had been talk of another offensive north of the Potomac to feed the army and to wrest the initiative from the Federals. The strategical problem was difficult, but nearly all the Confederates were convinced that Lee would find a way of carrying the war into the enemy’s country. Said the new major general, Dorsey Pender: “All feel that something is brewing and that Gen. Lee is not going to wait all the time for them to come to him.”18

  The first days of June brought confirmation of these predictions. On the morning of June 3, McLaws’s division quietly left its camps and started for Culpeper; that night, Heth’s men got orders to take the place of Rodes’s pickets; by mid-morning of the fourth, Rodes’s camps were deserted; then on the fifth, Early and Johnson started up the Rappahannock. Soon the new Third Corps alone was left. Culpeper, men whispered, was the immediate objective, and after that—Maryland? Pennsylvania? A victory that would decide the war? Another and worse Sharpsburg? Dorsey Pender answered for the army—“Have no fear we shall not beat them …!”19

  2

  MUCH POMP ENDS IN HUMILIATION

  Jeb Stuart was to blame. All his enemies said that. The advance of the Army of Northern Virginia in June would not have met that humiliating initial check if the chief of cavalry had not been so intent on displaying his increased force. He now had five cavalry brigades of 9,536 officers and men—more than ever he had commanded. Lee must see them, Lee and all the young ladies of the Piedmont region of Virginia.

  When Stuart moved his headquarters from Orange to Culpeper, he set his staff to work on plans for such a pageant as the continent never had witnessed. The stage for it fairly thrust itself upon him: It was a long wide field in the vicinity of Brandy Station, between Culpeper and the Rappahannock. A hillock would excel as a reviewing stand. The field was so close to the Orange and Alexandria Railroad that a halted train would offer seats for spectators. Stuart pitched his tents on Fleetwood Hill, overlooking Brandy Station, and set June 5 as the date. Each staff officer must provide himself a new uniform and must see to it that mounts were flawless. A ball must be arranged in Culpeper the night before the review and, perhaps, another after the cavalry had shown its magnifice
nce.20

  From Charlottesville and nearer towns on the O. & A. came streams of guests. Wagons and ambulances distributed beauty at every hospitable gate. All preliminaries were auspicious; the ball on the evening of the fourth was praised by a newspaper reporter as a “gay and dazzling scene.” One disappointment there was, one only, but it was serious: The commanding general of the army was concerned with some difficult matters of logistics and would not be present for the grand review.

  On the bright morning of June 5, Stuart and his staff started for Brandy Station. Heralded by buglers and welcomed by throngs, the cavalcade rode triumphantly upon the field and started down the front of a line of horses that extended for a mile and a half. On its flank were twenty-four of Beckham’s guns. As the reviewing party reached each brigadier, he and his staff fell in behind. The cavalcade swept to the left flank and then, in regulation manner, rode the length of the line in rear. Stuart then took his position on the knoll, beneath a gallantly flying Confederate flag. Again the bugles sounded, and the troopers moved out in columns of squadrons. During the second “march past,” a hundred yards from the reviewing stand the men spurred to a gallop, drew sabers, raised the “rebel yell,” and dashed by the admiring Jeb at a furious gait. Beckham opened with blank charges as if to repel attack. For the ladies the gallop, the excitement, the foxhunters’ call from nearly 10,000 throats were overwhelming. Everyone went home to praise the cavalry and its commander. That night there was another ball, danced on the greensward to the crackling of great fires.