Jeb Stuart, The Last Cavalier

by Burke Davis

  In the sharp engagement that crackled until nine P.M. the Confederates pushed back the enemy slightly, but sustained many casualties. Dick Ewell was lost to the army for months with an amputated leg; losses in officers were heavy, and many ranks were riddled. One who served Stonewall well was John Pelham. Jackson remembered him in his report: "Owing to the difficulty of getting artillery through the woods, I did not have as much of that arm as I desired at the opening of the engagement; but this want was met by Major Pelham, with the Stuart Horse Artillery, who dashed forward on my right and opened upon the enemy at a moment when his services were much needed." Stuart added: "Pelham is always in the right place at the right time."7

  In the night Jackson moved his men back to their original position, and placed one flank on the banks of an old railroad cut.

  His front was about half a mile long, with no more than 18,000 infantrymen left to guard it. Stuart's troopers patrolled the flanks. Stonewall's men heard the news that Longstreet had forced the mountain pass in their rear last night, and they craned anxiously to see if there were signs of his coming.

  Before nine A.M. Jackson sent Stuart rearward to bring Longstreet in on the flank. Jeb soon saw to the west a thick dust cloud and went into a gallop. Longstreet had come.

  Longstreet and General Lee were in advance of the column to avoid kicking dust in the eyes of the lead infantrymen. They rode for a mile or more with Stuart as he described the positions of Jackson and Pope, and when they were almost within sight of Jackson's line, turned to the roadside and dismounted. Stuart shook out a map of the country and pointed out the situation. Longstreet's veterans plodded by them, so covered with dust that they looked like clay men cast in one mold. The troops cheered as they recognized Lee, Longstreet and Stuart.

  There was soon cheering from the front, where Jackson's men could see the reinforcements. But there would be strange delays during the day, when some mysterious cbnflict between Lee and the stubborn Longstreet postponed the coming of the new corps to action.

  Blackford had only lately rejoined Stuart, to be hugged affectionately by the general and hailed by the staff as if risen from the dead, an ambulance having been ordered to bring his body from Bristoe Station. The engineer now rode with Stuart as he carried out Lee's orders.

  Stuart soon found a good gun position, and opened fire on Federals in a woodland. The enemy began to move.

  Jeb went forward for a look: At least half an army corps was moving against him, and if it kept its present line, would pass over the commanding knoll he held. Jeb's guns were still firing, but that was not enough. He sent several squadrons up and down the road, and into a field, where they dashed back and forth, dragging behind their horses branches hacked from pine trees. The dust they stirred up seemed to slow the enemy and convince them a large force was moving in the area. The bluecoats waited in the distance. In the end this Federal corps—under General Fitz John Porter—lay all afternoon in idleness, while Pope's attacks lashed against Jackson's line and were driven back in bloody remnants. This incident would grow into a court-martial and cost Porter his command; it was probably Long-street's presence that did most to halt Porter this hot afternoon, but Stuart's ruse also had its effect.

  Stonewall's regiments had been through desperate fighting, their lines broken by Federal assaults time after time. In some places men had used stones to drive off the enemy. It had been a near thing, with officers exhorting their men to die in their tracks rather than abandon the line. All the while Longstreet's big corps had been at hand, but had not joined, for Old Pete had opposed throwing his men into the battle so early and persuaded General Lee to allow Jackson to beat off Pope alone. Near the end of the day, however, Longstreet pushed his line forward and by nightfall the army was united at last, facing the enemy in a long, hinged line. Somehow, incredibly, General Pope was not yet convinced that Longstreet was on the field.

  During the day's uproar Stuart had taken part in a defense of Jackson's wagon train, which was assailed by enemy cavalry. Pelham's guns had broken up the attack with heavy casualties, but Major William Patrick, a promising young commander of six of Stuart's companies, was shot down. Stuart wrote: "He lived long enough to witness the triumph of our arms, and expired thus in the arms of victory. The sacrifice was noble, but the loss to us irreparable."

  Stuart moved over the field long after dark. Von Borcke wrote casually of a narrow escape: "Late in the night I was requested by General Stuart to bear him company in a little reconnaissance outside our lines, which came very near terminating disastrously, as on our return, in the thick darkness, we were received with a sharp but fortunately ill-aimed fire from our own men."

  Stuart and his staff slept near an artillery battery. They did not unsaddle the horses, and most of them used empty cartridge boxes for pillows.

  Morning was hazy and sultry. There was an occasional shell burst, and dry grasses burned whitely across the fields. For some reason the Federals waited. Stuart pushed forward early in the day to a farmhouse, where he had a trooper climb a tree and inspect the Federal lines. The distant fields were covered with blue masses, slowly moving toward the Confederate left, which was held by Jackson, but there were many halts, and the hours dragged.

  At two thirty P.M., when Federal attack was obviously near, Stuart was called to headquarters, and sat with Lee, Longstreet and Jackson. They talked briefly and then separated. A few minutes later the Federal guns opened; the Confederate lines lay out of sight during this storm and soon the bluecoats moved up, three lines of them, straight as if on parade, under bright flags and hedgerows of bayonets. Almost at once, it seemed to the watching Captain Blackford, gray puffs broke over the rows of toy soldiers, and figures went down in heaps. Confederate artillery had seldom been more effective. On Jackson's flank Colonel Stephen D. Lee, of Stuart's West Point class, commanded twenty-two guns which fired directly down the oncoming files. The gunners could hardly miss their targets.

  From Longstreet's wing a far greater chorus of guns soon opened. When Jackson asked for reinforcements, Longstreet replied that the guns would break up the assault before support could arrive. He was right. When Jackson's infantry fired point-blank at the charging Federals, and the enemy line was staggered, Long-street's artillery blazed in cross fire. There was chaos on the dusty field.

  At some interval during the roaring of battle Stuart fell asleep, while Longstreet watched in amazement.

  Stuart had ridden to report to General Lee the coming of Federal reinforcements in the front.

  "Any further orders, sir?" Stuart asked.

  "None. Wait awhile, if you will, General."

  And then, by Longstreet's account: "Stuart turned round in his tracks, lay down on the ground, put a stone under his head and fell instantly asleep."

  General Lee rode away. He was back in an hour and Stuart was still asleep. Lee asked for him, and Jeb, as if he had heard every word, scrambled to his feet.

  "Here I am, General," he said.

  "I want you to get a message to your troops on the left to send a few more cavalry to the right."

  "I'd better go myself," Jeb said, and went off at a gallop. Long-street noted with amusement that he sang at the top of his voice, " 'Jine the Cavalry! If you want to see the Devil . . . have a good time, Jine the Cavalry!' "8

  But the battle was to be brief, and when the climax came Stuart was stirred by the spectacle. He wrote of it:

  "About 3 P.M. our right wing advanced to the attack. I directed Robertson's brigade and Rosser's regiment to push forward on the extreme right, and at the same time all the batteries that I could get hold of were advanced at a gallop to take position to enfilade the enemy in front of our lines. This was done with splendid effect, Colonel Rosser, a splendid artillerist as well as a bold cavalier, having the immediate direction of the batteries.

  "The fight was of remarkably short duration. The Lord of Hosts was plainly fighting on our side, and the solid walls of Federal infantry melted away before the straggling b
ut determined onset of our infantry columns."

  Robertson's cavalry now looked down on the retreat from a ridge above Bull Run. Stuart rode there, saw no enemy threat, and was galloping back toward his artillery position when a courier overtook him: Robertson was now fighting desperately at Bull Run against Federal cavalry, which had swept suddenly upon him. Stuart hurried back with two reserve regiments, but when he arrived on a lathered horse, the last bluecoat riders were splashing over Bull Run in retreat. It had been, in Stuart's words, "a brilliant affair." Colonel T. T. Munford and his 2nd Virginia won most of the glory. Robertson's brigade had lost but three dead and thirty-two badly wounded. Colonel Munford had a saber wound.

  This brush seemed grand to Stuart: "Nothing could have equalled the splendor with which Robertson's regiments swept down upon a force greatly outnumbering them . . . indicating a claim for courage and discipline equal to any cavalry in the world."

  Stuart thought there was still time for attack, for some Federal infantry had not retreated over Bull Run. He asked Colonel Lewis Armistead, the nearest infantry commander, to join him in an assault. Armistead declined. Stuart sent a courier to Lee, explaining the opportunity. Lee did not respond. Stuart wrote for the record only: "The attack was not made."

  In the dusk the army was licking wounds as severe as any of those of the Seven Days. The field was blanketed with dead and wounded. Though the Federals had been driven from the field, many a Confederate brigade was wrecked.

  Stuart found that one among the dead infantrymen was his young cousin, Hardeman Stuart, for whom he grieved: "No young man was more universally beloved or will be more universally mourned. He was a young man of fine attainments and bright promise." Hardeman died in the last moments of the fighting.

  John Esten Cooke had met Hardeman Stuart in the Seven Days, a twenty-one-year-old with "a laughing face ... exquisite frankness ... large honest eyes ... the model of an aide-de-camp ... exposing himself to the heaviest fire, in the thickest portion of the fight... gay, laughing, and unharmed." Cooke caught a glimpse of him early in today's fight, recognizing one of the tattered infantry figures as Hardeman Stuart: "But what a change! He had always been the neatest person imaginable ... his brown hair had always been carefully parted and brushed, his boots polished ... his new uniform coat, with its gay braid, had been almost too nice and unwrinkled for a soldier."

  No more. Captain Hardeman Stuart, turned infantry rifleman, was a strange contrast to the staff officer who had so lately lost his horse on an errand for Jeb: "Coatless, unwashed, his boots covered with dust, and his clothes had the dingy look of the real soldier. His hair was unbrushed, and hung disordered around his face." But the smile was the same, as he told Cooke the story of the loss of his horse.

  "Well, Hardeman," Cooke said, "you've had bad luck. But get another horse and come on."

  "I intend to. Tell the General I'll soon be there."

  Cooke left him, and within a few minutes Hardeman Stuart died in a charge of Mississippi infantry. A short time afterward Jeb's cavalrymen swept upon Federal troopers in a tavern near Manassas and found a captive with Hardeman's coat. There was no mistaking it. Young Stuart's captain's commission was in a pocket.9

  At ten P.M. firing died out around Manassas, and a rainstorm broke on the armies, making more miserable the fields of wounded among whom men moved with ambulances and stretchers by lantern light.

  Stuart had only praise for the cavalry corps and his staff. Mun-ford had shown "resolute bravery" in face of superior numbers. Pelham had been as valuable as ever, and Stonewall Jackson had said, "Stuart, if you have another Pelham, give him to me."10

  Captain W. D. Farley of the staff had carried a dispatch near the climax of battle at the Chinn House "under circumstances of great personal danger." Farley's horse was killed beneath him.

  The division surgeon, Dr. Talcott Eliason, "besides being an adept in his profession, exhibited on this, as on former occasions, the attributes of a cavalry commander." In the heat of battle the doctor had led charges, as some of Jeb's chaplains were prone to do.

  There was also praise for Captain Blackford, "quick and indefatigable in his efforts to detect the designs of the enemy and improve the positions within our reach." There was mention for von Borcke, for Lieutenant Channing Price, Chiswell Dabney, and others of the staff.

  Stuart also had complaints:

  "Twenty or thirty ambulances were captured and sent back, with orders to go to work removing our dead and wounded from the battlefield . . . those ambulances were seized as fresh captures by a Texas brigade... a large number of prisoners I sent to the rear were fired upon by our infantry."

  And General Trimble's report raised his ire:

  [This report] "does the cavalry injustice.

  There seems to be a growing tendency to abuse and underrate the services of that arm by a few officers of infantry, among whom I regret to find General Trimble. Troops should be taught to take pride in other branches of the service than their own."

  The fighting around Manassas had been much more bloody than that of the previous summer. Federal losses were about 15,000, and Confederate at least 9,000. Stuart's share of these casualties had been trifling. Most regiments had not reported, but the three nearest at hand had losses of six dead and 48 wounded.

  Stuart's staff spent most of the night carrying water to the wounded and bringing men to cover from the rain. Von Borcke had but a few hours of sleep before Jeb shook him awake "at peep of day" and sent him to Jackson with dispatches, and to Fitz Lee with orders to march toward Fairfax Court House. Stuart would meet Fitz's troopers in the afternoon.

  Von Borcke had a rain-swept ride of five miles or more along the Confederate line, wrapped in a black oilcloth coat with his hat brim turned down over his face. He was dry, but his bizarre appearance brought him an adventure with alert Rebel patrols.

  One of Jackson's quartermasters was made suspicious by the German's accent and curious costume. Two horsemen soon caught up with von Borcke, and pressing him on either side, asked him "impertinently inquisitive questions." Other horsemen came up and demanded his surrender. Von Borcke threw open his raincoat to expose his gray uniform.

  "If you still doubt me, ride to Jackson's headquarters with me and learn your mistake. But you will not see my papers. They were entrusted to me, and I will die to defend them."

  "Any Yankee can tell the same story. It's an old trick."

  Von Borcke spurred his horse past these sentries into the open, but his tormentors followed with drawn pistols a few yards to the rear until von Borcke met an officer of his acquaintance, who identified him and set him free. The German sent his card as summons to a duel to the suspicious quartermaster—but the culprit never appeared at Stuart's headquarters to face the giant and his avenging Damascus blade.

  Von Borcke found Jackson with Robert E. Lee as the commanders returned from a scout across Bull Run. They laughed at his tale of mistaken identity, and the Prussian delivered his dispatch and rode to Fitz Lee's camp.11

  Stuart joined them in the afternoon and the cavalry force walked through the rain parallel to the route of the enemy on a nearby turnpike. By ten P.M. of August thirty-first Jeb had them in camp near the settlement of Chantilly. He had friends in the neighborhood whom he had not seen since the early weeks of the war, and took his staff six miles through the countryside for a visit.

  A dozen or more bedraggled horsemen rode into the dooryard about midnight, von Borcke recalled. Two big and "ferocious" hounds howled. The family of the place was asleep.

  "Let's try 'em with a serenade," Stuart said.

  The staff gathered on horseback beneath a window. Sam Sweeney swung his banjo from under cover and opened the song. Von Borcke wrote: "The discordant voices that joined in the effort sounded so very like the voices of the wild Indians in their war whoop, that the proprietor, at once awakened, and fully persuaded that his peaceful residence was surrounded by a party of marauding Yankees, carefully opened a window."

&
nbsp; The plantation owner begged "most anxiously" that the lives of the household be spared, and promised to do anything demanded of him.

  When Stuart spoke, the man recognized his voice, roused his family and took Stuart and the staff into the house. Von Borcke wrote: "We remained talking with our kind friends until the morning sun, stealing through the curtains of the drawing room, reminded us that it was time to be off." They had breakfast and rode back to camp.

  They found the army had halted. Late in the morning Jeb was sent with Jackson down Little River Turnpike and in a downpour of rain the vanguard ran into ambush. Von Borcke and Colonel Rosser were in front when firing ripped the woodlands about them, but the enemy had sprung the trap too soon, and casualties were few. Stonewall brought up several regiments, threw them into line and pushed against the enemy. They met stiff resistance, and despite the driving rain a sharp battle blazed in the late afternoon.12

  Stuart's staff became anxious, for the fire grew into an ominous chorus at dusk, and in case Jackson met defeat the cavalry would be dangerously exposed. But Jeb's riders in front reported withdrawal of Pope's army toward Alexandria, and after dark it was obvious that the enemy was in full flight.

  The action between Jackson and a wing of the Federal army-was known as Chantilly or Ox Hill, and in its few moments had been spirited and bloody. One of the enemy casualties, found in Confederate lines that night, was a one-armed general.

  "It must be Phil Kearny," someone said.

  Stuart rode with a small escort to identify the body, since he had known the Federal for years. Stuart and Blackford found the body in a farmhouse in a plain undress uniform. It was Kearny. His death was reported to General Lee, who ordered the body sent into Federal lines.

  Blackford had suffered a casualty during the day. His fine horse, Comet, had been wounded in the neck by a shellburst and Blackford had left him on a nearby farm. Stuart was saddened, for, as Blackford said, "next to having a staff composed of handsome men about him, he liked to see them mounted on fine horses."13