by Burke Davis
The cavalry camped in a pine grove where men dried their clothing by roaring fires all night. There was a welcome surprise in the morning: Wade Hampton had come up from his picket duty below Richmond with a brigade of troopers from South Carolina and Mississippi. The new brigade took the lead in the day's pursuit of the enemy and there was light skirmishing around Fairfax Court House.
The action ended with the enemy driven from a ridge about two miles from the center of the village, but the enemy left a trail of burning houses and barns, and Stuart, looking down from a hilltop, told von Borcke, "Major, ride as quick as you can, and bring up some of Pelham's guns so I can salute those rascally incendiaries. At the gallop!" Von Borcke snatched the headquarters battle flag from the color bearer and planted it in the square of Fairfax. The town had been occupied by Northern troops for months, and there was a warm welcome for the gray horsemen.
Stuart visited the home of the Ford family, whose daughter Antonia had charmed from him an honorary commission the year before. Von Borcke noted mournfully that the pretty girl betrayed Stuart's trust by marrying a Yankee officer and taking the oath of allegiance to the Union.
There was a brief respite in Fairfax, for the cavalry had orders to push toward Washington, probing enemy positions. Stuart had the staff busy. Sam Sweeney left on some errand, and a young woman, riding a public coach in the Shenandoah Valley, had a vivid recollection of the musician: "Never shall I forget that moonlight stage ride to Harrisonburg. There were three ladies and four gentlemen on the inside and three on top of the stage, one of whom was General Stuart's banjoist. His music was so bright and gay, that I could not keep my feet still."14
Stuart took the troopers toward Dranesville, where he had been so soundly punished by Federal infantry the year before, and they went into a quiet camp. For a few hours headquarters rested.
A campaign had ended. In two months General Lee had driven two invading armies from Virginia, shifting the front from within five miles of Richmond to the gates of Washington. The fumbling army of Joseph Johnston had become daring, slashing, and was learning precision. There was already talk of invading the North to teach the Yankee aggressors a lesson. The end of the war seemed near in these first days of September, 1862.
The cavalry corps had more than doubled in size since the Seven Days, and was now at a peak of strength and morale. Horses were good and fairly plentiful. Unlike the enemy cavalry, Stuart's troopers had to furnish their own mounts, and until now the farm and plantation homes had sent superior stock. The enemy had to be content with horses from Government stables, often inferior.
On September fifth General Beverly Robertson finally went out of the corps to organize cavalry in North Carolina, and Colonel Munford took temporary command of his squadrons. Stuart wrote Flora on September fourth:
Long before this reaches you I will be in Maryland. I have not been able to keep the list of battles, much less give you any account of them. Our present position on the banks of the Potomac will tell you volumes ... all the officers on the other side speak kindly of me. May God bless you.
I send $200 in draft and $50 in notes. Can you pay my tailor bill?
The Horse Artillery has won imperishable laurels!
On the same day General Lee's infantry began fording the Potomac into Maryland, and the invasion was on. Deserters and stragglers had stripped Lee's strength of almost 30,000 men, and those who remained were often barefoot and in rags. There was a fear, the commander wrote President Davis, of running out of ammunition in the North. But the Virginia countryside was picked clean and the army must move to feed itself.
Lee had painfully injured himself just after Second Manassas. Traveller had been frightened, lunged, and the commander had small bones broken in one hand. He was jostled over a Potomac ford in an ambulance.
CHAPTER 11
Bloody Maryland
FOR three days Confederate columns crossed the river into Maryland. Bands blared ceaselessly at every ford, as if the lank-haired scarecrows needed stimulation. The musicians played "Dixie" and "Maryland, My Maryland," until the echoes might have carried downriver into Washington, where Pope's army hid in the trenches.
There was no one to stop them on the Northern shore; only wide-eyed civilians looked at the most ragged, dirty and profane men they could remember. Leighton Parks, a Maryland boy of twelve, saw them as "a hungry set of wolves," but he admired the horsemanship of Stuart's troopers; they rode like circus riders, he thought.
A gunner of the Horse Artillery, George Neese, was a diarist who found the passage was interminable. His battery was forever being stalled in the road behind the wagons. They had waited for three hours near Goose Creek, south of Leesburg, Virginia; when they did ford, water almost poured into the mouths of the cannon. They had halted at Leesburg on September fifth:
"Thousands of soldiers camped around Leesburg this evening, and all seem to be in joyous gayety, caused, I suppose, by bright anticipations of crossing the Potomac and entering Maryland. As I am writing I hear soldiers shouting, huzzahing all around us. Just now a brass band has struck up, which helps to swell the cheer of the merry throng."
They reached the Potomac before sunset of the next day, but Neese and his battery mates could not cross until late, and lay on the bank in dust so thick "as to make it impossible to discern a man three rods distant."
"It was midnight when we left the Southern Confederacy . . . forded the Potomac, and landed in the United States, Montgomery County, Maryland."1
The ford at this place was two and a half feet deep, the bottom smooth, and the river some four hundred yards wide. The artillery pressed north through the town of Frederick, and then turned back to the village of Urbana, seven miles to the southeast.
Stuart crossed the Potomac at White's Ford, where the banks soared sixty feet above the water, covered by huge vine-wrapped trees. The cavalry staff rested for a moment on a sandbank in midstream, and von Borcke gazed at the column of troopers: "A magnificent sight. ... The evening sun slanted upon clear placid waters, and burnished them with gold, while the arms of the soldiers glittered and blazed. There were few moments ... of the war of excitement more intense... than when we ascended the opposite bank to the familiar but now strangely thrilling music of 'Maryland, My Maryland.'"
Within two or three miles the cavalry reached the village of Poolesville, where they flushed a small Federal party and took thirty prisoners. A staff officer recorded: "The inhabitants of Maryland whom we met along the road ... did not greet us quite so cordially as we had expected. ... It was different, however, at Poolesville."
The cavalry was in the village for half an hour, beseiged by eager civilians with questions about the army. A few young men on horses insisted upon joining Stuart, and two merchants, swept up by war fever, enlisted in the corps and sold their stock on the spot—for Confederate money. Von Borcke wrote: "Our soldiers cleared out both establishments to the last pin. Soldiers, on such occasions, are like children. They buy everything." The German could not resist buying cigars, sugar, lemons and a pocketknif e.
Stuart's pickets soon spread from the Potomac to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad tracks, which were just south of Frederick. Fitz Lee held the northern end, at the settlement of New Market; Wade Hampton was posted in the center, around Hyattstown; and Munford commanded the lower section, including a signal station on the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain. Munford's pickets were strung southward to Poolesville and beyond. This screen was to protect the army's eastern flank.
At noon on September sixth Stuart entered Urbana, where he planned to make headquarters. He did not stop there, but sent von Borcke to establish camp while he rode into Frederick for a conference with the infantry commanders.
Jeb found acquaintances in the town. Dwight Dudley, a young Federal medical cadet left behind to nurse the wounded, saw several Confederate officers on a porch. One of the officers, "of noble and distinguished military bearing" beckoned to Dudley, and came from the porch to meet him. This Confederate
was talkative and anxious to impress: "I want you to tell your commanding general when he comes that we have treated his friends here with great kindness, and that we expect the same treatment for ours, and unless they receive it, I will doubly retaliate at each and every opportunity. ... I am General Stuart."2
Jeb also had a heated exchange with Captain Elijah White, of the 35th Battalion, Virginia cavalry, a troop of wild young riders styled "The Comanches." White drew Stuart's wrath, perhaps because of the behavior of some of his troops in Frederick or simply because they were as yet irregulars. Jeb ordered White to return to Virginia with his company.
White protested, "I've fought as hard as any man for the chance to come here and fight in my native state."
Stuart flushed. "Do you say you have done as much as any man for the South?"
"No, sir. I didn't say that. But I've done my duty to the best of my ability, as fully as anybody."
"You did say you had done as much as any man." "I said no such thing."
Stuart again ordered White back into Virginia. White refused. "I'll go see General Lee about it," the captain said.
"Come on," Stuart said. "I'll go with you."
At headquarters, Stuart disappeared into Lee's tent. Lee met White at the door and asked him to wait outside.
Stonewall Jackson emerged to find White in tears. White explained that he did not want to be sent back to Virginia.
Jackson seemed surprised. "Why, I just heard General Stuart tell General Lee that you wanted to be sent back, and recommend that you be sent."
White was so choked with emotion that he could not speak. Jackson told him he should obey orders no matter how unjust they seemed.
Stuart came out and called to White, "Did you say you were a Marylander?" "Yes, sir."
"Ah. I didn't know it. General Lee wants to see you. Go in."
White entered, and got orders to scout with his company toward Harpers Ferry, and report to Lee in person; for the time, he was free of Stuart's orders, and though he was forced to return to Virginia, the commander had salved his feelings with his customary diplomacy.3
There was a holiday air about headquarters. The army had learned that General Pope had been removed from his command, replaced by McClellan. But there was as yet no Federal movement. The big army of the enemy was still around Washington.
General Lee was hopeful that Maryland would join the Confederate cause, and issued a proclamation urging her to aid the army, promising that there would be no depredations. Enoch Lowe, a former governor of the state, was expected to come to Frederick and cast his lot with the Confederates; he had not arrived.
Visitors thronged about them, for Frederick, though it offered no support, seemed strongly Confederate. Von Borcke noted that doors of Union sympathizers were barred, but otherwise: "The greater number of citizens had thrown wide open their doors and welcomed our troops with the liveliest enthusiasm. Flags were floating from the houses, and garlands of flowers were hung across the streets. Everywhere a dense multitude was moving up and down, singing and shouting in a paroxysm of joy and patriotic emotion, in many cases partly superinduced by an abundant flow of strong liquors."
All officers with plumes in their hats were mistaken for Jackson or Stuart, and von Borcke was soon followed by a mob, insisting that he was Stonewall Jackson, cheering and pressing bouquets on him. The Prussian left the town and returned to the country quiet of Urbana.
Stuart was soon in the village, busy with orders to his outposts.
The next morning a delegation of citizens invited Stuart and his staff to dine at the home of the Cockey family. Jeb and his young men spent the afternoon at the house, laughing, talking and singing with several young women. The most attractive and most fervently Confederate of them was a kinswoman of the Cockeys from the North, and a favorite of Stuart's. He called her "the New York Rebel." Von Borcke remembered: "In the agreeable conversation of these ladies, in mirth and song, the afternoon of our dinner party passed lightly and rapidly away; and then came night . . . with a round moon, whose beams penetrating the windows suggested to our debonair commander a promenade."
Stuart proposed a walk, and several couples strolled through the little town to a deserted academy building, walked through its empty rooms, and watched the moonlit landscape from its galleries. Stuart called to von Borcke:
"Major, what a capital place for us to give a ball in honor of our arrival in Maryland! Don't you think we could manage it?"
There were yelps of delight, and the party scattered to make ready for the dance. Stuart agreed to furnish the music; von Borcke would decorate the hall, light it and send cards of invitation. There must be no delay. The ball would be held the next night, before military duties could interfere.
Cavalry headquarters devoted the next day to the frolic. Couriers took invitations to families for miles around Urbana. Von Borcke directed troopers as they aired out the big hall of the academy, swept its floors, and decorated it with roses and battle flags. The place literally glowed at dusk with hundreds of borrowed candles.
The streets of Urbana filled with carriages and buggies, as the Maryland community joined the cavalrymen at play. Captain Blackford noted a grim detail—every horseman picketed his mount near the academy, and the troopers were fully armed. Just before the huge moon rose there was music, and the crack band of the 18th Mississippi Infantry came, loudly playing "Dixie." The applauding crowd followed into the ballroom.
Von Borcke was master of ceremonies. He announced a polka, and reached for "the New York Rebel" to dance with him as queen of the festival. The young woman refused, giving the German a lesson in provincial American manners: Ladies could "round dance" only with their brothers and cousins. Von Borcke quickly changed the program, and the band played for a quadrille. The officers hung their sabers on the walls and joined, and the ballroom shuddered to the music and dancing. Von Borcke and Blackford thought all the women lovely, and were captivated by the gaiety of the spectacle.
An orderly pushed roughly through the crowd. Those nearby heard him report to Stuart: "The enemy, sir. They've driven the pickets and are coming on. They're in camp, lots of them."
Pistol shots outside sounded dangerously near. Music scraped to a halt, and the ballroom soon cleared of men; horses pounded off in the moonlight. Women screamed, and some families collected their children to go home. Most of them waited. Firing outside the village grew louder. Artillery roared.
Stuart found that the 1st North Carolina had broken the enemy attack. A few of Pelham's guns barked until the Federals were out of sight. Pursuit lasted for several miles, and the column straggled back with prisoners. By midnight all was quiet once more.
By one A.M. Stuart and his officers were back at the academy, where candles still burned and most of the young women were waiting. The band struck up again and volunteers scattered to the homes of women who had left in their absence and brought them back, laughing happily.
A woman with whom Blackford was dancing screamed in his ear. She had seen loaded stretchers passing in the hallway—casualties of the night's skirmish. The women left the dance floor to work with the wounded.
"The New York Rebel" leaned over a boy with a bullet in his shoulder, but fainted at sight of so much blood. When she revived, Blackford and von Borcke begged her to go home, but she refused, and continued nursing, saying, "First I must do my duty."
One wounded soldier said, "I'd get hit any day to have such surgeons dress my wounds." It was daylight when officers took the last of the young women home and turned to their camp for a few hours of sleep.
In the late afternoon Stuart heard cannon fire from the east, and got a report from Fitz Lee of a lively skirmish at the village of Barnesville. But there was no serious threat, and Stuart remained for the evening at the home where "the New York Rebel" entertained him. There was a cavalry serenade, probably with Sweeney's banjo, Bob's bones, the fiddlers and chorus. It was September eighth, the last gay evening in Maryland for the troopers.4
The bluecoats had driven them through Poolesville on September seventh, and the next day two huge Federal cavalry regiments, the 8th Illinois and 3rd Indiana, took Poolesville. Munford tried, but the decimated 12th Virginia broke and ran, and the front fell back to Barnesville, some seven miles north. The next day, September ninth, was no better; the enemy defeated the 12th Virginia once more and took the regimental colors. The blue tide surged around the signal post on Sugar Loaf Mountain, but did not take it until the eleventh, when Federal infantry came in. Stuart's line in this sector fell back to Frederick. The enemy was beginning to stir.
General Lee had already launched another of his audacious moves. An estimated 90,000 Federal troops confronted him. He had less than half that number. Yet he was once more dividing his army, this time into five parts.
Lee had thought enemy garrisons at Harpers Ferry and Martins-burg would be evacuated when he crossed the Potomac, but after almost a week these Federal strongholds remained defiantly in the rear. They must be reduced before invasion could proceed, and Lee calmly detached his strength in the face of McClellan's advance. He sent Jackson southward across the Potomac with three divisions to strike the garrisons; Lafayette McLaws took a division across rough country to the river, north of Harpers Ferry, with J. G. Walker's division on a nearby course. D. H. Hill would guard the rear of