The Class of 1846

by John Waugh

  “I believe,” he said, preaching to the preacher, “that it has been done according to God’s holy will, and I acquiesce entirely in it. You may think it strange; but you never saw me more perfectly contented than I am to-day; for I am sure that my Heavenly Father designs this affliction for my good. I am perfectly satisfied, that either in this life, or in that which is to come, I shall discover that what is now regarded as a calamity, is a blessing.”

  Jackson’s recalcitrant lieutenant, A. P. Hill, had once said that West Point was “that great panacea for impatience.”8 Jackson therefore had learned patience, as he had learned everything else thrown at him in the academy. It may have come hard, but once he had it he never let go of it. “I can wait, until God, in his own time, shall make known to me the object he has in thus afflicting me,” he now told Lacy. Meanwhile why should he not rather rejoice in it as a blessing, and not look on it as a calamity at all? He would go even further than that. “If it were in my power to replace my arm,” he told Lacy, “I would not dare to do it, unless I could know it was the will of my Heavenly Father.”

  Jackson confessed that when he fell from the litter he thought he would die on the field, and at that moment gave himself up into the hands of his Heavenly Father without a fear. But here he was still alive and it had all been a transforming experience: “I was brought face to face with death, and found all was well. I then learned an important lesson, that one who has been the subject of converting grace, and is the child of God, can, in the midst of the severest sufferings, fix the thoughts upon God and heavenly things, and derive great comfort and peace.”9

  At about 10:00 in the morning Jackson’s side began to pain him. This was something new. He hadn’t been hit in the side. But he had taken that tumble from the litter, and he believed he had struck it then against a stone or the stump of a sapling. McGuire examined him, but could find no sign of injury, no broken or bruised skin, and the lungs seemed to be performing normally. The doctor applied something simple; the pain soon disappeared.

  The sound of cannon and musketry from the front boomed on through the morning. Jackson ordered all of his aides but Smith back to the battlefield to resume their duties, and wrote a dispatch to Lee telling of the victory and the wound.

  Smith kept him abreast of the continuing battle and of the action of the troops engaged. He told him of the “magnificent onset” of the Stonewall Brigade, how Stuart had gone to them at the crisis of the battle and told them what must be done and commanded them to “charge and remember Jackson!” When Jackson then heard that his old brigade acted as it always had—with conspicuous courage—his eyes glowed and he fought back tears.

  “It was just like them to do so,” he said, “just like them. They are a noble body of men.” He told Smith that someday the men in it would be proud to tell their children, “I was one of the Stonewall Brigade.”

  A message arrived from Lee. “I have just received your note, informing me that you were wounded,” it said. “I cannot express my regret at the occurrence. Could I have directed events, I should have chosen, for the good of the country, to have been disabled in your stead.

  “I congratulate you upon the victory which is due to your skill and energy.”

  “General Lee should give the praise to God,” said Jackson.

  Another message arrived from Lee directing McGuire to remove Jackson to Guiney’s Station as soon as his condition justified it. There was some danger of capture yet by Union troops threatening to cross at Ely’s Ford. For Jackson’s safety he must be taken to the rear.

  Jackson objected to being moved if in McGuire’s opinion it would do him any injury. He said he didn’t mind staying in a tent and would prefer it if Anna, when she arrived, could find lodging in a neighboring house.

  “If the enemy does come,” he said, “I am not afraid of them; I have always been kind to their wounded, and I am sure they will be kind to me.”

  Further word came from Lee, with orders for McGuire to turn his duties as the Second Corps medical director over to the surgeon next in rank and remain with Jackson. This was necessary to override Jackson, who had earlier declined to permit McGuire to accompany him to Guiney’s, believing the doctor belonged with his command. Duty still came first with Jackson.

  Told of Lee’s countermanding order, Jackson of course acceded. “General Lee has always been very kind to me,” he murmured, “and I thank him.”10

  Early Monday morning, May 4, Jackson was placed in an ambulance for the ride to Guiney’s Station twenty-five miles away. Jed Hotchkiss and a party of engineers rode in front to clear the road. McGuire, Lacy, and Smith accompanied the general. There was traffic on the road and many of the campaign-tough teamsters at first refused to move their loaded wagons to make way for the ambulance. But when they were told who was inside—there was no longer reason to keep it secret—they hastily pulled off the road to let him pass, many of them standing with their hats off and tears in their eyes. Along the route men and women watched, and at Spotsylvania Court House they crowded about the ambulance with offerings, and to tell Jackson they were praying for his recovery.

  The day was warm, and at one point Jackson felt a wave of nausea sweep over him. McGuire put a wet towel over his stomach, and it seemed to help. Most of the way the general bore up well and was cheerful—even talkative. He spoke of the battle. He told his fellow travelers that his intention, had he not been wounded, was to cut the Federals off from the United States Ford, to take a position between them and the river and oblige them to attack him if they wanted across.

  “My men,” he said, smiling, “sometimes fail to drive the enemy from a position, but they always fail to drive us away.”11

  Jackson thought Hooker’s battle plan was sound. “It was, in the main, a good conception, sir; an excellent plan. But he should not have sent away his cavalry; that was his great blunder. It was that which enabled me to turn him, without his being aware of it, and to take him by his rear. Had he kept his cavalry with him, his plan would have been a very good one.”12

  On the porch at the Thomas Coleman Chandler house at Guiney’s Station, Mrs. Chandler was taking a break from attending the several wounded Confederates she had been nursing in her living rooms and bedrooms. Her twelve-year-old daughter, Lucy, a serious child often in her mother’s company, sat with her. As the two engaged in desultory conversation, a courier galloped into the yard and told them that the wounded Jackson was on his way.

  Jackson was no stranger to the Chandlers. They had urged him to stay in their big home when he was camped on their plantation before the battle of Fredericksburg, but Jackson had preferred to sleep out with his soldiers. It was different this time. Mrs. Chandler called two of her servants and they hurriedly prepared a bed in the parlor with clean linens.

  Chaplain Lacy was the first to arrive, riding ahead of the ambulance to make preliminary arrangements. He surveyed the quarters and decided they would be too public for Jackson’s well-being. Mrs. Chandler assured him it would be very quiet, but he was unconvinced. When McGuire arrived soon afterward and learned that a case or two of erysipelas had been reported in the house earlier, he also balked.

  There was a little frame house at the edge of the yard that the Chandlers had used as an office. What about that? It was empty except for some old furniture and odds and ends. It had recently been whitewashed and Mrs. Chandler always kept it clean. It looked private and safe. Mrs. Chandler and her servants went to work again, moving the four-poster bed into one of the two rooms that comprised the cottage, turning the other into a waiting room and a place to prepare medicines and roll bandages. By now the day had turned stormy, and a chill hung in the rooms. They kindled a fire, and Mrs. Chandler and Lucy went upstairs in the big house to watch for the ambulance.

  When it arrived, about 8:00 in the evening, Thomas Chandler met it at the gate as members of his family and the servants looked on. When Jackson was removed from the ambulance, Chandler deplored the occasion of the visit, but welcomed h
im warmly. Jackson nodded to his bandages and apologized for not shaking hands. They carried him into the room, now aglow with a blazing fire and overlooking the little terrace garden with its flowers and the railroad beyond. Jackson ate some bread and tea and was soon asleep.13

  The next morning he appeared to be doing remarkably well. He ate heartily for one in his condition and was uniformly cheerful. His wounds looked good, the arm stump seemed to be healthy, the wound in his hand gave him little pain, the discharge was normal. He was beginning to heal. McGuire applied simple lime and water dressings to both wounds and attached a light short splint to the hand. Jackson wanted to know how long his wounds would keep him from the field, and talked theology with Smith, who was an aspiring minister.14

  Wednesday, the sixth, came in cold, with a drenching rain. At McGuire’s request Lacy went to fetch Dr. Samuel B. Morrison, another of Anna’s kinsmen, who was the family doctor and a surgeon in Jubal Early’s division. Lacy went to Lee to report what had been happening at Guiney’s Station, brief him on Jackson’s condition, and request Dr. Morrison’s services. Lee cheerfully assented to the request and sent a message back to Jackson by Lacy.

  “Give him my affectionate regards,” Lee told Lacy, “and tell him to make haste and get well, and come back to me as soon as he can. He has lost his left arm; but I have lost my right arm.”15

  That night Hunter McGuire himself was about ready for a doctor. He had not slept for three nights and was exhausted. Instructing Jim Lewis, Jackson’s personal slave, to watch the general, he collapsed on the lounge in the sickroom. In the early morning hours as McGuire slept, Jackson became nauseous again and ordered Lewis to apply a wet towel to his stomach. The worried Lewis wanted to wake McGuire, but Jackson wouldn’t hear of it.16

  At about daylight on Thursday, the seventh, McGuire found Jackson in great pain. His pulse had quickened and his breathing was labored. McGuire quickly recognized the symptoms of pneumonia. It wasn’t serious, yet, but it was there. The fall from the litter had probably done it, creating contusion of the lung, forcing blood into the chest. The nausea was probably the result of the inflammation that had already started. McGuire began applying heated glass cups to the chest, and mercury with antimony and opium, in an effort to beat back this new threat. Toward evening his condition had improved, and McGuire was hopefully optimistic.17

  The Sunday that Joseph Morrison left the field infirmary to go to Richmond to bring his sister to Jackson’s side, he ran into a problem. He caught the train at Guiney’s Station early that morning, but at Ashland, about half way to Richmond, the cars were intercepted by Stoneman’s troopers. As the train pulled into Ashland, it was hailed by pistol fire and met by a company of Union cavalry galloping up through the side streets. The engineer of the train quit his job and abandoned the cab as the troopers took possession. To his horror, Morrison found himself a prisoner.

  He looked for every means to escape, and that evening succeeded, spending most of the rest of that night hurrying toward Richmond on foot. He was delayed throughout the next day, and it wasn’t until early Tuesday evening that he finally reached the capital and Anna.18

  In the last days of April and the first days of May, Anna had been in Richmond. She had not heard from her husband since the twenty-ninth, when he had sent her and Julia to the rear. Dispatches, however, had been coming in telling them that all was going well with the army and that a victory was confidently expected. On Sunday morning, the third, she had just risen from family worship at Reverend Moses D. Hoge’s home, where she was staying, when her friend, Dr. William Brown, took her aside.

  Sadly and with great feeling, he told her that Jackson had been wounded at Chancellorsville. The wound was apparently severe, but it was hoped not fatal.

  Anna had never, since the war began, ceased to worry for his safety. He was not the most careful man on a battlefield. But God had so often before protected him and brought him through so many dangers, that she had held tightly to the thought that his precious life would always be spared. But now what she greatly dreaded had happened.

  She ached to be at his side. But Stoneman was now raiding throughout the intervening country. All passenger trains were stopped. To go in a private conveyance was to court capture; she couldn’t risk that. For three days she waited, hearing nothing more. On Tuesday night, the fifth, Joseph arrived. It had taken him three days to pick his way through Stoneman’s raiding parties. He could tell her something. But not even he could get her to her husband’s side. They still must wait for the rails to clear.

  Not until Thursday morning was the blockade lifted. After five days of torturing suspense and distress of mind, the way was finally open. She, Joseph, Julia, and Julia’s nurse, Hetty, were put on an armed train for Guiney’s Station. A few hours later they arrived, and she was soon on the way to the Chandler house.

  There she met still more frustration, more agonized waiting. She couldn’t get in to see Jackson immediately; McGuire was dressing his wounds. One of the general’s staff, answering her anxious questions, told her he was doing “pretty well.” Pretty well? Her heart sank. She could tell from his tone and manner that something was wrong.

  But still she had to wait. She felt she must do something to calm her distraught impatience, so she walked out into the piazza. But what she saw there was no more reassuring. Soldiers were exhuming a coffin. When they had placed it above ground she learned, to her horror, that it contained the body of Brigadier General Elisha F. Paxton.

  Frank (Bull) Paxton! Anna was horrified. My god, she thought, the commander of the Stonewall Brigade, her husband’s own dear neighbor and friend from Lexington! She was then told he had been killed at Chancellorsville in the fighting on May 3, and was being taken home for final interment. His poor young wife, Anna thought.

  Paxton and Jackson had left Lexington for the Confederate service the same week in the spring of 1861. Paxton had served on Jackson’s staff for a time and just before the battle of Fredericksburg had been elevated to command of the Stonewall Brigade. He had been its fourth commander, and now he too was dead.

  Anna remembered how bitterly Paxton’s wife had wept as Paxton had marched away to the war. It had been so early in the conflict, and all their hearts were nearly bursting with foreboding and dread. Now, Anna thought, this cruel war had done its worst for Elizabeth Paxton, left a widow and her children fatherless. The coffin in the piazza was an unfitting preparation for her entrance into the presence of her own stricken husband.

  The first sight of him sent a shudder through her. The change in him from only ten days before, when she had last seen him, was fearful. It took all of her effort to maintain self-control. He had been so happy, so handsome, so noble in those final joy-filled days in April. Now there were the wounds, the mutilated stump, the lacerated face, and now, she was told, the pneumonia, which was flushing his cheeks, oppressing his breathing, and numbing his senses.

  When he saw her, Jackson’s haggard face lit up with a joy and thankfulness that only further wrenched her heart. He instantly saw the anxiety and sadness in her face; she couldn’t hide it.

  “My darling,” he told her, “you must cheer up, and not wear a long face. I love cheerfulness and brightness in a sickroom.”

  He asked her to speak distinctly. He was a little deaf in his right ear, as she knew, and he wanted to hear every word she said. But it was an effort for him to listen. He was heavily sedated with morphine and soon slipped back into a stupor and lost consciousness of her presence except when she spoke or ministered to him, which she began immediately to do.

  As he drifted in and out of his stupor he spoke to her endearingly. “My darling, you are very much loved …,” he would wake and say and drift away again. Then he would return and say, “You are one of the most precious little wives in the world.…”

  He told her he knew she would gladly take his place and suffer in his stead, but that God knew what was best for them. Knowing that the sight of his infant daughter would cheer hi
m more than anything else, Anna proposed several times to bring the baby to his bedside.

  “Not yet,” he murmured, “wait till I feel better.”

  Through all his suffering, Anna saw resurgent glimpses of the old Stonewall. The grit that was such a part of him was still there. He was invariably patient, not uttering a cry or complaining in any way. Even in pain he was doing his duty.19

  Thursday afternoon Dr. Morrison also arrived at Guiney’s Station, and Jackson looked up and said, “That’s an old, familiar face.”

  Jackson was now thoroughly examined, and his condition was found to be so critical that Smith was sent to Richmond to bring Mrs. Hoge. It was believed that with her bright, affectionate, and sympathetic nature she could comfort Anna and help Hetty care for Julia. Anna’s whole time must now be concentrated on caring for her husband. Other doctors were sent for. While in Richmond Smith was ordered to find David Tucker, a pulmonary specialist, and bring him to Guiney’s for consultation.

  In the night Dr. Morrison roused Jackson from sleep to give him a drink.

  “Will you take this, General?”

  Jackson who had continued to slip in and out of delirium all through the evening, looked steadily into Morrison’s face.

  “Do your duty,” he told him. Then again: “Do your duty.”

  On Friday morning, the eighth, McGuire dressed Jackson’s wounds. The pain in his side had eased, but he still breathed with difficulty and complained of exhaustion. Dr. Morrison was worried. For the first time, he suggested to Jackson that the pneumonia might prove fatal.

  Jackson was resigned, but he wasn’t buying it. “I am not afraid to die; I am willing to abide by the will of my Heavenly Father. But I do not believe that I shall die at this time; I am persuaded the almighty has yet a work for me to perform.”