by Burke Davis
As the bluecoats swept over the crest of a ridge they met an unexpected volley from Anderson's prone infantry. The blue wave fell back; the battle of Spotsylvania had fairly begun.
Stuart sat near the courthouse where Federal columns were concentrating. General Anderson asked his help once more, and Stuart put dismounted troopers into line, stretching the infantry ranks to the left. He remained for several hours, but as troops from other corps came down from The Wilderness and the infantry fighting assumed major proportions, the command passed from his hands.
Major McClellan was worried about Jeb during these hours: "He exposed himself to fire with more than his usual disregard of danger, in spite of the repeated and earnest remonstrances of several of the infantry officers."
Only McClellan of his staff was with him now, and Stuart kept him galloping with messages.
McClellan at last realized, after he had been sent on several unimportant missions, that Stuart was simply protecting him from danger. He protested:
"General, my horse is weary. You are exposing yourself, and you're alone. Please let me remain with you."
Stuart smiled, but he sent McClellan off to Anderson once more.
More and more bluecoats appeared in front. Night brought sporadic fire, and then quiet. May eighth drew to a close.
Stuart left the scene which General John B. Gordon would one day describe to audiences, holding his long arms horizontally from the shoulders: "My dead were piled that high, and three days after the battle I saw wounded men trying to pull themselves from under the mass of the dead above them, and the slopes were so slippery with blood that my soldiers could not stand until the ground had been carpeted with the bodies of their fallen comrades."4
U. S. Grant's unassailable calm had ended a squabble at Federal headquarters during the day. Little Phil Sheridan, scarcely taller than a musket, had been spilling over with fury, and let his temper flow into official dispatches: If he was to fight cavalry, let him fight it. George Meade would hobble them forever, with his everlasting nibbling away at the command, taking troopers to guard wagon trains, prisoners, picket lines. If this war was to be won on horseback, the cavalry corps must be concentrated to fall on the enemy flank and rear. He could take it to Richmond, now or any day. Meade made evasive replies. Grant overruled him, and sent his favorite horseman off on the first proper raid of Federal cavalry Virginia had seen.
"I directed Sheridan verbally to cut loose," Grant said, "pass around ... Lee's army and attack his cavalry; to cut the two roads - one running west through Gordonsville, Charlottesville and Lynchburg, the other to Richmond "
Phil Sheridan understood. He began at once to improve on Grant's intentions. There was dangerous country below, but Stuart's brigades were growing thin; he would cut around the Confederate fringes and go for Richmond. If Stuart came into his path, all the better.5
CHAPTER 20
Yellow Tavern
THE bluecoat riders were ready before dawn of May ninth. Sheridan found them with one day's rations in their knapsacks, and half rations, at that. But no matter; it was a trifling detail when stakes were so high. Merritt's division was put in the lead. It moved from camp at Silver's Plantation near Fredericksburg at four thirty A.M. Sheridan had the rest moving by five o'clock.
They wound southeast past Tabernacle Church and into the Telegraph Road, the main north-south artery from Fredericksburg to Richmond. The column went by Massaponax Church as it struck this road, and there was seen by Confederate pickets. The report that these riders took to Williams Wickham, at the nearest headquarters, almost defied belief:
The column seemed endless, from 12,000 to 15,000 troopers, with artillery and wagons. They stretched out over thirteen miles of road. And this time they were not galloping desperately. They walked, as if they meant to take their time, and feared nothing.
Coming down the Telegraph Road, the blue troopers crossed the Ny, the Po and the Ta, any of which would have made a good line of defense for Stuart. The Federal vanguard moved slowly at the streams until, near the village of Jarrald's Mill, the last of these three watercourses was crossed without a sign of the enemy. Then Sheridan thought: "Our ability to cross the North Anna was unquestionable." Once he crossed this river to the south, Richmond would be within his grasp. The pace quickened.
Within two hours after Sheridan had cleared Massaponax Church, Wickham's pursuit was well under way. Stuart soon had the news himself. He advised headquarters at eight A.M.:
General R. E. Lee:
General—There is a demonstration of the enemy's cavalry on the Fredericksburg road about one mile and a half from Spotsylvania Courthouse. If it amounts to anything serious I will be sure to inform you in time to change your dispositions. I have sent a regiment down to engage them and see what it means.
Stuart was then off across country eastward to strike the Telegraph Road. He could take only Fitz Lee and the brigades of Lomax and James B. Gordon, for Rosser must be left to guard Lee's infantry. Even when Stuart joined Wickham and combined forces, he would have no more than 4,000 riders, but he pressed on as if he gave no thought to the odds. The force approached the Telegraph Road as darkness came.
Stuart by now had news that Sheridan's vanguard had left this main road and turned southwest through the villages of Mitchell's Shop and Chilesburg toward Beaver Dam Station. The word must have spurred the chase, for not only was the greatest remaining store of food and medicine for Lee's army at Beaver Dam; Flora and the children were there, too, in Sheridan's path. She was visiting with Colonel Edmund Fontaine at his plantation house, in what had seemed yesterday a place of safety.
Sheridan's men kept to a methodical pace as Stuart pounded after them. At four P.M. Wickham fell upon the Federal rear.
The little skirmish at Mitchell's Shop was gallant enough, but Wickham's men were pawing at a massive force. The big blue regiments, the 6th Ohio and the ist New Jersey, stood firm on a hill near Mitchell's Shop as Wickham dashed his squadrons against them one after another—he had only 1,000 men.
Major McClellan recorded that, when one or two attacks had recoiled, Wickham called Captain George H. Matthews of the 3rd Virginia, a veteran up from the ranks, saying, "I know Matthews will go through."
Matthews formed a column of fours and led the handful of troopers into the Federal line, bowled over riders until he forced the head of his column through—and was lost to sight. The blue ranks
STUART BLOCKS SHERIDAN'S RICHMOND RAID
May 9-11, 1864
closed behind him, and the Federals captured ten, killed five and wounded three of his band. Matthews went to the ground as his horse fell, but scrambled up with a saber drawn, and was laying about him with the ringing blade when he was shot, "from behind," McClellan reported. The admiring Federals carried him, mortally wounded, to a nearby farmhouse and made him as comfortable as possible. The skirmish was over; there was little to report to Stuart when he arrived.
Jeb joined Wickham just after this brush. Such strength as he had was now concentrated. A young staff lieutenant reported Jeb's rather somber manner when he arrived after his hard ride of sixteen miles:
"General Stuart rode up quietly, no one suspecting he was there, until a soldier crossed the road, stopped, peered through the darkness into his face and shouted out, 'Old Jeb has come!' In an instant the air was rent with huzzas."
Stuart waved his plumed hat to the troopers, but he said in a voice sounding "sad" to his officers: "My friends, we won't halloo until we get out of the woods."1
Stuart hurriedly organized the chase. He split his force, sending Fitz Lee with three brigades on Sheridan's trail. He took James Gordon's command with him westward, toward Davenport's Bridge of the North Anna. From there he would be able to move in any direction. It seemed probable that the Federal objective was Richmond itself.
By this time Sheridan's leading corps, under Merritt, had crossed the North Anna at Anderson's Ford, just northeast of Beaver Dam, and while the other two corps lay on the
north bank of the river, Merritt detached George Custer for a raid on Beaver Dam Station.
The Michigan men swept in on the depot like Indians, and their yells frightened the few Rebel guards, who began firing the sheds housing the priceless stores. Custer gave his men all the food and supplies they could carry and, he said, "ordered the remainder to be burnt." The bonfire was enormous, and the fragrant odor of burning bacon drifted over the landscape for days.
Custer's men destroyed about 1,000,000 rations of bacon and more than 500,000 of bread. He listed the staples on hand in railroad cars and depots: bacon, flour, sugar, meal, molasses, liquor, medical stores, small arms, hospital tents. All went up in the night. Yellow light glowed from the clouds.
Flora Stuart watched the glare, and with her friends and children waited fearfully for the Federal troopers to descend upon the Fontaine house.
Custer's wreckers spread along the tracks of the Virginia Central Railroad and tore them up for ten miles. They burned three trains of cars—100 cars in all—and two locomotives. The telegraph wires were pulled down for miles, and culverts and bridges along the railroad were ruined. One of the most heartening coups to the Federals was the liberation of 400 of their men lost to the Rebels in The Wilderness; in the liberated throng were two colonels, a major and other officers. There was a hilarious reunion.
General Merritt had only one regret, that through "a misconception of orders or some other cause," the fires were lighted, betraying their position to the enemy and destroying needed supplies.
Stuart, however, had no need of the pillar of fire to guide him. He galloped south to Davenport's Bridge, where his vanguard sighted the enemy. General Merritt had sent his 5th Michigan Cavalry there to guard the flank of his Reserve Brigade as it crossed the river farther to the east.
Stuart's troopers made the 5th the victims of their intimate knowledge of the country. The memory of the affair remained only in Merritt's formal report of the day's work: "In withdrawing, this gallant regiment, with its accomplished commander, Captain Arnold, at its head, charged and made its way through a very superior force of the enemy which, by crossing blind fords on the river, had interposed between him and the main command. Of necessity some few officers and men were lost as prisoners."2
Stuart had nothing else to detain him, and early on May tenth, through increasingly humid heat, he trotted into Beaver Dam, at a moment when the enemy rear guard was pulling out of the ruined village.
With only Major Reid Venable of the staff at his side Jeb rode to the Fontaine house, up a drive which wound for a mile and a half from the station, bordering the railroad of which Colonel Fontaine was president.
Flora greeted them at the house. Venable recorded the scene in sparse words:
"Mrs. Stuart came out, and after a few words of private conversation, the General (riot dismounting) bade her a most affectionate farewell."
Then, having done no more than lean from his saddle to kiss Flora for the last time, Stuart wheeled his horse—he was riding the stout gray General today—and with Venable behind him went swiftly down the drive.3 In her final glimpse Jeb's wife undoubtedly saw him as Esten Cooke had pictured him, magnificent on horseback, with none of the awkward long-leggedness of his walk, wearing tall black boots now mud-spattered from hard riding, and, though dressed to the nines, "looking like work," as usual.
At some point nearby, Stuart wrote his first dispatch of the day to General Lee:
May 10,1864—8:45 A.M.
One of the 4th Virginia Cavalry reports the enemy at 7:30 o'clock this morning had reached a point on the road to Trinity Church [in Richmond], about one mile below Beaver Dam, going toward Richmond. . . . Fitz Lee is now crossing [at Anderson's Ford]. The other brigades, Gordon's and Lo-max's, will... sweep down on the south side.
Stuart began a conversation in a tone his companion thought strange. Venable wrote:
"After riding some distance in silence, he told me he never expected to live through the war, and that if we were to be conquered, he did not want to live."
Stuart gave no hint of this frame of mind when he met Fitz Lee near Beaver Dam; instead he gave orders for the continuing chase. Stuart found that the main body of the enemy had gone south into the Old Mountain Road, running a general east-west course parallel to the South Anna River. Jeb once more divided his command: Fitz Lee would go with him, with the brigades of Lomax and Wickham. Gordon's North Carolinians would follow Sheridan's rear. Stuart would move to Hanover Junction in an effort to get between the enemy and Richmond.
He sent a dispatch to General Braxton Bragg in Richmond, the chief of staff to President Davis. There was little of the ornamental rhetoric here:
General: A large body of the enemy's cavalry reached Beaver Dam yesterday at 5 P.M. and is now advancing in the direction of Richmond My cavalry have been fighting them all day yesterday and are still in his rear pushing on. Their rear left Anderson's Bridge at 8 A.M., where they camped last night.
Later in the day he sent another message into Richmond: The road to Richmond was barricaded with trees felled by Yankee raiders, and he was forced into a parallel route. He intended to spend the night at Taylorsville, just below Hanover Junction. He expressed only optimism to Bragg, as if this were only one of the ineffectual hit-and-run Yankee cavalry raids of the old days:
Should he attack Richmond I will certainly move in his rear and do what I can; at the same time I hope to be able to strike him if he endeavors to escape. His force is large, and if attack is made on Richmond it will be principally as dismounted cavalry, which fight better than the enemy's infantry.
Stuart reached Hanover Junction long after dark. Here he learned that Sheridan's advance was on the South Anna by mid-afternoon, no more than twenty miles from Richmond.
Fitz Lee insisted that the troopers could no longer bear the punishment, but the weary column plodded a bit longer before Stuart gave in and allowed a halt.
He had wired Bragg at nine P.M. from Hanover of the Yankee position around Ground Squirrel Bridge on the South Anna, adding:
There is none of our cavalry from this direction between the enemy and Richmond. Has the enemy made any demonstration upon Richmond? Please answer tonight, if practicable, as I am very anxious to give my command a night's rest, if compatible with duty.
His men already fell asleep in their saddles and at the roadside.
He got Bragg's reply to his query about the enemy and sent a message in return: He had just learned that Sheridan had gone into camp and would not menace Richmond further tonight. His scouts reported that the Federals were to have moved at midnight, however, and Jeb added in the message to Bragg:
I am moving to Ashland. If I reach that point before the enemy, I will move down the Telegraph Road.4
The Richmond in which the anxious General Bragg dealt with Stuart's dispatches was in something of a state. Colonel Josiah Gorgas, the ordnance chief, wrote in his diary of the disaster at Beaver Dam, and of a fight to the east at Drewry's Bluff, where the infantry of Generals Butler and Beauregard had clashed. Gorgas could see from his window:
"The affair was done to attract the enemy from Petersburg....
The woods are on fire where the fight took place today and the hori-
zon is lined with fires tonight in that direction "
Even if Stuart's cavalry saved the city from Sheridan, there was always the menace of Butler on the James, below the city. And Gorgas, in position to know the Confederate weaknesses, confided to his diary almost in the same moment:
"Hoke has, it is said, relieved Pickett at Petersburg. Pickett is very dissipated, it is said."
He was unable to give undivided attention to the journal, however, for as he wrote:
"I slept but a few hours ... having been called up by messages, and kept awake by the ringing of alarm bells and the blowing of alarm whistles the most of the night. At five this morning I went to Mr. Seddon's office and found him laboring under the impression that the last hours of Richmond were at
length numbered."
The city's militia, Gorgas recorded, had been shifted in the trenches, to the side now threatened by Sheridan; they were reinforced by a brigade of old men in uniform. The high Confederate official complained:
"As all my officers and clerks are in the field I am obliged to attend to details myself and have trudged about the streets until I am thoroughly tired."
There was another diarist in the city, Mrs. Alexander Lawton, wife of the Confederate Quartermaster General:
"There was a great alarm in the city. Many ladies sat up all night, dressed in all their best clothes with their jewelry on. Congressmen besieged the War Department all night—so that General Bragg was called out of bed to go down to them after midnight."
In the darkness, some twenty miles north of the troubled capital, Stuart and his command slept at last. Jeb took precautions. He called Major McClellan:
"Go with Fitz Lee's men. I've told them we must move at 1 o'clock. Go to Lee's bivouac, and don't close your eyes until you have seen them mounted and on the march, and on the dot of 1 o'clock."
Stuart went to sleep near Taylorsville. He crawled under a blanket with Reid Venable and was soon snoring, evidently as worn as his men.
Colonel Bradley Johnson, detailed to guard bridges, was nearby with a small band of Maryland cavalry. Stuart had sent a courier to him with a request for some guns, since he had so few himself, and probably must face Sheridan tomorrow. Stuart promised to return the battery promptly, if Johnson would part with it.