Jeb Stuart, The Last Cavalier

by Burke Davis

  There are many difficulties in the way of arming the cavalry thoroughly, and keeping it in that condition. Few cavalry arms are imported, and those manufactured in the Confederacy are generally rejected. I fear there is great carelessness, too, in the preservation of arms. . . . Where infantry arms have been issued to the cavalry, it is stated that they have either been turned in or thrown away in nine cases out of ten Recently 600 Enfield rifles and Mississippi rifles were sent to Culpeper for the cavalry division. The brigade ordnance officer declined to receive them, saying the men would not take them.

  From the nature of the cavalry service, it is almost impossible for the ordnance officers to enforce the rules of the Department. Regimental and company commanders should be held to rigid account.

  In short, Lee despaired of exercising proper discipline over the cavalry, and did not expect it to be properly armed. He added a final admonition bearing on the effectiveness of the cavalry under Stuart:

  I think your dismounted men should be speedily organized, and thoroughly drilled as infantry, and armed to be used as infantry, until they can be mounted.

  Stuart tried to account for guns used by his men, and sent stern orders to his generals. The experience of Thomas Rosser, attempting to trace the discarded rifles of Elijah White's wild Virginia riders, was typical. White's men simply refused to carry guns, for their kind of war was headlong charging with sabers, and spirited night rides to surprise the enemy. Rosser sent an officer to White's headquarters with orders to make out a detailed report.

  "Go ahead," White said. "Let's find out."

  The officer shuffled papers of the command and said at last, "Colonel, I see that 340 guns have been issued to your command. What report do you make of them?"

  White turned to his adjutant: "How many guns we got?"

  "Eighty, sir."

  "How do you account for the 260 missing?" the investigator asked.

  White was nonplussed. There was a silence, broken by a young Comanche lolling on the tent floor: "Cunnel, ain't them the guns that busted in Western Virginny?"

  "By golly, yes," White said. "They did bust. You sent us them drotted Richmond carbines, and they like to have killed all the men."

  The officer solemnly recorded: "260 guns bursted in Western Virginia."5

  And, as Lee wrote to President Davis, the whole state of the cavalry worried him, and prevented his putting the army into action against the waiting Meade:

  The cavalry also suffer, and I fear to set them at work. Some days we get a pound of corn per horse and some days more; some none. Our limit is 5 pounds per day per horse. You can judge of our prospects

  Everything is being done by me that can be to recruit the horses. I have been obliged to diminish the number of guns in the artillery, and fear I shall have to lose more.

  On September thirteenth, in this state of unpreparedness, the cavalry was called to action. General Meade moved at last, probably led on by news that Longstreet and his corps had been detached from Lee's army and sent into the West, where it was to join bitter fighting in Tennessee. The Union advance did not fall without warning from cavalry headquarters.

  Late in the night of September twelfth, a cavalry surgeon slipped through Union lines and gave Jeb a brief report: The Yankees will cross at daylight, in force.

  Stuart put the wagons and the sick and injured on the road southward and got his command into position.

  Private Hopkins was on the front line as the bluecoats swarmed across. He had a surprise in store: "They began a movement toward our front, but so considerate were they that they did not open fire on us until we had gotten beyond range of their guns. This fraternal condition perhaps never existed before between two contending armies."

  It was short-lived this morning. Stuart's middle division, commanded by Lunsford Lomax, fell back before a superior force under Judson Kilpatrick. Hopkins wrote:

  "When we had retreated about a mile, they began firing on us. The friendly sentiment was soon dissipated, we returned the fire, and began to dispute their passage. My part of the line carried me directly through the streets of Culpeper, and the fighting in and around the town was the heaviest that we encountered. Several of our men had their horses killed, and I saw the enemy's cavalry pick up the men as they ran."

  The retreat carried back to the Rapidan, and the Union army poured over the plains into its new position.

  For a few more days the armies watched each other across a stream. There was little action even at cavalry headquarters. Stuart devoted some time to writing a humorous report. He had gone after the Federal General Joseph Bartlett and looted his headquarters in a night raid. He had missed the general, Stuart wrote, because that officer "fled precipitately in his nether garments."

  He also added a colorful but migratory character to headquarters in St. Leger Grenfell, a Britisher who had been in the Crimean War, fought Riff pirates from his own yacht, and seen action in the Sepoy Mutiny and South American wars. He had run the Federal blockade to fight with the Confederacy. Stuart was cool toward the elderly eccentric, who affected side whiskers and stalked about with an air of icy reserve.

  There was brief action on September twenty-second from which Jeb was lucky to emerge with his skin. General Buford's troopers advanced from Madison Court House and Stuart clashed with them at Jack's Shop, a tiny settlement. Confederate charges did not bend the blue lines. Jeb ordered the men to charge dismounted, and just as they were flung back, learned that a big Federal force had taken the road in his rear. Stuart was surrounded, and evidently could not handle even the force in his front.

  When he tried to extricate his men in front, Buford threw in heavy attacks. There was a ford to the rear by which the Rebels might have escaped, but the flanking party, under Judson Kilpatrick, already held the crossing. Stuart moved backward, and the battle flowed into an open field. Stuart sent his artillery to a knoll and began to fight for life. Major McCellan wrote:

  "Stuart's artillery was firing in both directions from the hill, and in sight of each other his regiments were charging in opposite directions. If Kilpatrick could have maintained his position Stuart must at least have lost his guns."

  But Jeb was not done. He charged Kilpatrick with a regiment and when the front ranks reached the rail fence shielding the enemy, the men dismounted and pulled it down. The whole command had soon galloped through, brushing past Kilpatrick's band. They recrossed the Rapidan at Liberty Mills and when an infantry division came up, were safe. Stuart considered the action so minor he did not report on it.

  Grenfell had an embarrassing day: In the midst of action, when affairs seemed hopeless, the Englishman fled, swam the river under fire, and went back to headquarters, reporting Stuart and his command captured. He could not again show his face in camp.

  October opened with a new move by Robert Lee. He planned an offensive like that of the year before, when he had turned John Pope's flank. This time he intended a quick march to Culpeper to take Meade's army in a vulnerable position. By October seventh the enemy was aware that something was up. Federal signalmen intercepted Stuart's message:

  General R. E. Lee:

  Send me some good guides for country between Madison Courthouse and Woodville.

  Stuart

  On October ninth, Stuart's third child was born, a girl, whom he advised his wife to adorn with a patriotic name, Virginia Pelham. And on that very day he led off Lee's new maneuver. The cavalry went to Madison Court House and the infantry moved after it the next day. Stuart led his regiments in a series of minor engagements, and fought without Fitz Lee, who held the position vacated by Lee's army, and was busy beating off cavalry attacks himself.

  Stuart camped at Madison Court House on October ninth, and for two days skirmished toward Culpeper, where he found that Meade's infantry had crossed the Rappahannock to the north. But in this neighborhood Kilpatrick had massed bluecoat cavalry for a head-on clash.

  Stuart had only five regiments, some 1,500 men, to pit against the Federa
l 4,000. He encountered Kilpatrick's main force on October tenth and waited several hours, fending off major action until he heard Fitz Lee's guns approaching from the Rapidan. Stuart immediately swung away from the enemy, going by farm roads for the enemy rear, planning to take Fleetwood Hill, where he had come so near disaster in the spring.

  Kilpatrick saw Stuart's column moving across the open country and outraced him to the heights, placing guns there and striking in column at the Confederates.

  Fitz Lee was slow in coming up, but when his regiments approached, Colonel Rosser turned the moment to his advantage by charging Kilpatrick's main body as it galloped against Stuart. Rosser wrote: "Never in my life did I reap such a rich harvest in horses and prisoners."

  There was a fierce cavalry fight around Brandy Station for the rest of the afternoon. Private Hopkins saw it from the front ranks:

  "After a good deal of maneuvering and waiting we saw the long lines of Union cavalry coming over the ridge and moving toward us in line of battle . . . when they got within 200 yards of us, their leader ordered a charge, and it looked as if the whole column was

  coming right into our ranks

  "I noticed that quite a number of them, perhaps every third man, was reining in his horse, which meant, 'I have gone as far as I mean to go.' Of course ... we knew by this action they were whipped, but the others came on, dashing right into our ranks, firing as they came. The dust and smoke from the guns made it almost impossible to distinguish friend from foe."

  After this there was a lull, when Hopkins and his commanders wondered what lay behind the ridge in front. Their curiosity was soon satisfied, for they saw the first onslaught of Fitz Lee's men:

  "Presently we saw a magnificent sight. The Colonel of the 5th Virginia regiment, mounted on a beautiful black horse, moved forward, calling upon his regiment to follow him. It was Colonel Rosser.

  "As the regiment moved toward the enemy's lines at a gallop, the cry went up and down the ranks, 'Look at Rosser! Look at Rosser!' Everybody expected to see him tumble from his horse, shot to death, but he went forward, leading his men, and when the enemy discovered that we were coming in earnest, they turned on their heels and fled.... When we reached the top of the ridge we found that the enemy were disappearing in the distance as fast as their flying horses would carry them."

  These affairs had a very different look from the saddle of Willard Glazier, the brave diarist in Kilpatrick's New York Light

  Regiment, who described the heavy fighting at Brandy Station on October eleventh, where Kilpatrick was all but surrounded:

  "Nothing daunted, Kilpatrick proved himself worthy of the brave men

  Forming his division into three lines of battle ... he advanced. ... He ordered his band to strike up a national air. . . .

  "Custer, the daring, terrible demon that he is in battle, pulled off his cap and handed it to his orderly, then dashed madly forward in the charge, while his yellow locks floated like pennants on the breeze....

  "Fired to an almost divine potency, and with a majestic madness, this band of heroic troopers shook the air with their battle cry, and dashed forward to meet the hitherto exultant foe. Ambulances, forges, and cannon, with pack horses and mules, all joined to swell the mighty tide. ... The Rebel lines broke in wild dismay. . . . No one who ever looked upon that wonderful panorama can ever forget it. On the great field were riderless horses and dying men; clouds of dust from solid shot and bursting shell occasionally obscured the sky; broken caissons and upturned ambulances obstructed the way,

  while long lines of cavalry were pressing forward in the charge, with their drawn sabers glistening.

  "The Rebel cavalry, undoubtedly ashamed . . . reorganized their broken ranks, and again advanced. . . . For at least two long hours of slaughter these opposing squadrons dashed upon one another over these historic fields... and at times the blue and gray were so confusedly commingled together that it was difficult to conjecture how they could regain their appropriate places. ... It was a scene of wild commotion and blood. This carnival continued until late at night, when the exhausted and beaten foe sank back upon safer grounds to rest, while our victorious braves . . . gathered up their wounded and dead companions, and, unmolested, recrossed the Rappahannock."8

  In any event, it had been a bloody day for cavalry, and it ended with the last of the Federals north of the Rappahannock. General Lee pressed on, still trying to flank Meade; Stuart led the way upstream on October twelfth, and fought General Gregg's cavalry near Warrenton Springs. Rosser and his men, who had been left behind, spent a hectic day trying to stem the onrush of the Federal infantry, as Meade pushed southward, trying to puzzle out Lee's intentions. After nightfall, some of the cavalry bands were moved about in the woods near Brandy Station, playing loudly to deceive the enemy as to the size of the Confederate force. The musicians need not have troubled, for during the night Meade learned that Stuart was on his flank and retreated to the open country around Manassas. Stuart led the chase, and on October thirteenth took his men into a trap which provided laughter for the army for months.

  Lee's infantry lay around the town of Warrenton, with Meade's advance some nine miles east, at Warrenton Junction. Between the two was the village of Auburn, no more than a post office, a blacksmith's shop, and a house. The country was rough, forested and hilly, and near the village was Cedar Run, a steep-banked creek.

  Stuart went through Auburn, where he dropped off Lomax and his brigade, and with two brigades and seven guns advanced toward the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. He sent William Blackford ahead to scout.

  Some three miles outside Auburn the road dropped into the open plain, across which ran the railroad. Blackford went no farther. Below him was Meade's wagon train, thousands of wagons parked together under heavy guard. Blackford lay in a clump of brush and sent a courier back for Stuart, who soon arrived.

  Blue divisions marched along the tracks as the horsemen watched, a major movement, Stuart thought. He called Major Reid Venable:

  "Go through Auburn, where Lomax will be holding the road open. Tell General Lee the enemy is going north along the railroad, and in a big hurry. The army could hit him in the flank."

  Venable left them. Stuart continued to study the tempting park of wagons, but concluded that the main Federal army was much too near to risk an attack. A courier galloped up.

  "Enemy back of you!" he said. "A whole damned army!"

  When Stuart, Blackford and their little party reached the brigades, they saw two Federal corps marching through Auburn. Lomax and his command had already been driven off. Venable had been forced far around the village, through the hills.

  Stuart and his two brigades were cut off from Lee's infantry by an entire wing of Meade's force—with the rest of the enemy just to the east. Jeb looked about for means of escape.

  North of them broken and wooded ground tumbled to the horizon. To the south, beside the road he held, was a deep millrace, too wide to cross. Stuart instantly found a simple means of saving himself.

  Virtually within sight of the Federals in Auburn a small wooded valley opened on the road. He herded the command into this hidden pocket, and with the enemy marching all about, had the men lie quietly the rest of the day. He placed pickets in two bodies twenty yards apart, with orders to remain in hiding when large troop formations came by—but to allow single horsemen to pass and trap them between posts. This stratagem caught several Federal couriers in the night, and told Stuart some of Meade's plans.

  It was an anxious night. Most of the men lay in a grassy field atop their ridge, looking down on the Federal army, which marched past no more than 150 yards below. Stuart and his staff heard talk of Union soldiers. Blackford recorded the night watch:

  "General Stuart threw himself down by my side and laid his head on me and in an instant was fast asleep. Hour after hour passed and the General's head on my middle became rather heavy for comfort, but I was reluctant to disturb him. It got so bad at last that I was compelled to move it gently
to another part of my body, but this awoke him and I then snatched a few hours' sleep."

  Most of them did not sleep. Since they were so near the enemy, Jeb had each ambulance mule guarded by a soldier; when the animals brayed they were beaten into silence with saber scabbards.

  Late in the night Jeb sent five men off with word of his plight, told them to try and break through the enemy lines, reach General Lee, and ask for a diversion of artillery fire on the village of Auburn. All of them got through by the ruse of falling into the Federal column, marching for a time, and dropping out on the far side. Stuart's command waited for rescue in the midst of the enemy infantry.

  Officers proposed plans of escape. One said:

  "We can leave the guns and wagons, mass the squadrons, and ride over the Yanks. We'd be gone before they knew what hit 'em."

  Jeb shook his head. "I won't leave 'em a gun or a wagon," he

  said.

  He proposed a scheme of his own: "We could stop one of their wagon trains, and turn it off to the west, as if some superior officer had ordered it—and then fall in behind it with the whole command, and march off to safety."

  The staff laughed over the plan, but it was abandoned. Daylight came.

  The Federals in their front turned to the opposite side of the road to cook breakfast. Stuart was forced to wait.

  Anticipating the attack by General Lee, he had his gunners load all the artillery pieces, ready to be pulled to the roadside by hand. The sun was almost an hour high before the cavalrymen heard from the Army of Northern Virginia, a rattling of musketry sweeping up the road.