Rebel Yell
Page 77
25. Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 3, p. 322.
26. Miller, “Such Men as Shields, Banks and Fremont,” essay in Gallagher, The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862, p. 69.
27. McHenry Howard, Recollections of a Maryland Confederate Soldier and Staff Officer Under Johnston, Jackson, and Lee, p. 117.
28. Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, p. 70.
29. Randolph H. McKim, A Soldier’s Recollections: Leaves from the Diary of a Young Confederate, p. 108.
30. Cited in Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862, p. 412.
CHAPTER THIRTY: A STRANGE FONDNESS FOR TRAPS
1. Shields to Carroll, June 1, 1862, Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 3, pp. 316–317.
2. Shields’s note to Carroll was sent at 8 p.m. on June 1, ordering him to leave at 4 a.m. on June 2 (Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 3, p. 316) on a fifty-mile trip that was expected to take two days. Though Shields ordered Carroll to impress horses if necessary, he also encumbered him with four pieces of artillery. Jackson gave orders on June 1 to Coyne and his cavalry to burn the bridges, and they reached them by dawn on June 2. Jackson not only thought of the idea first, but by dispatching cavalry he made it impossible for Carroll to win the race.
3. Jackson was casually brilliant at choosing defensive terrain, starting with the backside of Henry Hill at First Manassas, and continuing through Port Republic and Second Manassas.
4. James I. Robertson, Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Legend, the Soldier, p. 428.
5. James Dinwiddie of the Charlottesville Artillery, cited in Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862, p. 426.
6. Samuel V. Fulkerson to unknown addressee, June 14, 1862; cited in Robertson, Stonewall Jackson, pp. 451–452.
7. Henry Kyd Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, p. 75.
8. A. S. Pendleton to his mother, June 7, 1862, in W. G. Bean, Stonewall’s Man: Sandie Pen-dleton, p. 364.
9. Robert K. Krick, Conquering the Valley: Stonewall Jackson at Port Republic, pp. 69–71.
10. Robert K. Krick gives an insightful, detailed account of the question of the burning of the bridge, which became the subject of a huge controversy in which Carroll was pilloried for what looked like pure stupidity. A number of eyewitnesses said later that Union soldiers had attempted to burn the bridge. The truth, as Krick sorts it out, was that “The considerable, if conflicting, testimony suggests that the Truth About The Bridge is that: Shields ordered Carroll to save it; in case destruction became necessary, a detachment ready to attempt that went along; in the frenzied excitement as events unfolded, no one had much chance to think about burning, and surely no time to accomplish it.” Conquering the Valley, p. 62.
11. Peter Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign, p. 444.
12. Ibid., p. 445, citing Kimball’s postwar letter.
13. C. W. Rossiter, “Orders Disobeyed: Had the bridge been burned, Stonewall Jackson would have been annihilated,” National Tribune, September 2, 1915; Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862, p. 445.
14. James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 330.
15. Peter S. Carmichael, “Turner Ashby’s Appeal,” essay in Gary W. Gallagher, ed., The Shenandoah Campaign of 1862, pp. 155ff.
16. Krick, Conquering the Valley, p. 25, citing Parmeter diary.
17. Jackson’s battle report; Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 1, p. 712.
18. Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862, p. 467.
19. Bruce Catton, Mr. Lincoln’s War, p. 201; Catton has a nice meditation on this idea of how Civil War battles were won or lost on the front lines. Overwhelming firepower will almost always produce a retreat. But what happens with a single regiment against a single regiment, facing each other across 250 yards of open meadow? How does one side “win” the engagement? It’s a provocative question, not always easy to answer.
20. Robert L. Dabney, The Life and Campaigns of Lieutenant-General Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson, p. 415.
21. Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, p. 89.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: SLAUGHTER IN A SMALL PLACE
1. Jackson’s Official Report, Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 1, p. 714.
2. Jackson stated to Colonel John M. Patton that “I hope to be back [at Cross Keys] by ten o’clock.” He clearly believed he would be fully engaged in battle with Frémont before noon.
3. The story combines two accounts, both from Munford. One is from the Thomas T. Munford manuscript in the Munford-Ellis Papers at Duke University; the other is from General T. T. Munford, “Reminiscences of Jackson’s Valley Campaign,” Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 7, p. 530.
4. In addition to describing Jackson’s eyes, “Old Blue Light” may also have been a reference to “Blue Light Presbyterians,” notable as conservatives in the church.
5. Peter Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign, p. 488.
6. Robert K. Krick, Conquering the Valley, p. 407; see also Jackson’s battle report (Official Records, Series 1, vol. 9, p. 293); one of the best primary source accounts of this battle is Henry B. Kelly, Port Republic (New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1886).
7. Richard Taylor, Destruction and Reconstruction, p. 81.
8. Cited from Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862, p. 493.
9. Taylor, Destruction and Reconstruction, p. 81.
10. J. William Jones, “Reminiscences of the Army of Northern Virginia,” Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 9, p. 362.
11. Cited in William J. Miller, “Such Men as Shields, Banks, and Frémont,” essay in Gary W. Gallagher, ed., The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862, p. 79.
12. Jedediah Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map of the Valley, p. 57.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: ACCLAIM, AND A NEW MISSION
1. Gary Ecelbarger notes that even the nickname Stonewall was not much known before Kernstown, and that one Northern soldier wrote home that he had fought “members of the famous Stone Fence Brigade.” Presented at the Valley Campaign Conference, March 3, 2012, in Winchester, Virginia; Robert G. Tanner in his book Stonewall in the Valley also cites a story of a drunk who asked the general, “Are you the stone, stone, the stone, are you Stone Fence Jackson?” (p. 39).
2. “A Great General,” Richmond Dispatch, June 13, 1862.
3. “The Achievements of Stonewall Jackson,” Richmond Whig, June 18, 1862 (story also appeared in the Charleston Mercury); it is noteworthy that at least one Southern general, Lafayette McLaws, believed that Richmond papers reserved most of their praise for Virginians, and only grudgingly wrote nice things about people from other states (Charles Royster, The Destructive War, p. 69).
4. New Era, June 4, 1862.
5. “What Is Thought in Washington,” New York Times, May 27, 1862; and “What Stonewall Jackson has done for the Union,” New York Times, May 30, 1862, in Harold Holzer and Craig Symonds, eds., The New York Times Complete Civil War, 1861–1865, pp. 160–161.
6. Robert K. Krick, “The Metamorphosis of Stonewall Jackson’s Public Image,” essay in Gary W. Gallagher, ed., Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862, p. 24.
7. Ibid., pp. 28–30; Robert K. Krick analyzed extensive correspondence from Northern and Southern soldiers, cited here.
8. Edward Porter Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 94.
9. The estimate of one-third of the force gone comes from Peter Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign, p. 508.
10. D. H. Hill, “The Real Stonewall Jackson,” Century Magazine (February 1894), pp. 623–627.
11. William S. White Statement, Dabney Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina.
12. Robert L. Dabney, Life and Campaigns of Lieutenant-General Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson, p. 739.
13. Hunter McGuire, “Career and Character of General T. J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson,” Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 25, p. 91.
14. William B. Taliaferro, “Some Personal Reminiscences of Lt.-Gen. Thos. J. (Stonewall) Jackson,” essay in Mary Anna Jackson, Memoirs of Stonewall Ja
ckson, p. 513.
15. Allan Nevins, The War for the Union, vol. 2, 1862–1863, p. 132.
16. D. H. Hill, “Lee’s Attacks North of the Chickahominy,” in Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel, eds., Battles and Leaders, vol. 2, pp. 347–362.
17. Armistead Lindsay Long and Marcus Joseph Wright, Memoirs of Robert E. Lee, p. 283.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: THE HILLJACK AND THE SOCIETY BOY
1. Though the idea of fame is a highly relativistic concept, especially as it applies to Civil War generals, at this point in the war the better-known generals had fought in the eastern theater. Grant’s star was certainly rising in the west and his “unconditional surrender” demand at Fort Donelson had made him that theater’s first big hero. But his stock had fallen somewhat after Shiloh, when he was criticized for the heavy Union casualties. (See Allan Nevins, War for the Union, 1862–1863, vol. 2, pp. 109–111.) David Farragut, in a daring maneuver for which he was promoted to rear admiral, had taken New Orleans, but his larger fame was yet to come. In any case, it would take some time before the western battles began to rival the likes of First and Second Manassas, Seven Days, Antietam, etc., in the public imagination. As noted earlier, Beauregard, the biggest star of the early war, was already in eclipse. Joe Johnston, now wounded, and having won no victories since July 1861, was not nearly the hero, at this moment, that Jackson was. Lee had just been given command of the Army of Northern Virginia.
2. Dabney Herndon Maury, Recollections of a Virginian in the Mexican, Indian, and Civil Wars, pp. 22–23.
3. Dabney Herndon Maury, “General T. J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson: Incidents in the Remarkable Career of a Great Soldier,” Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 25, pp. 309–310.
4. Stephen W. Sears, George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon, p. 2.
5. Ibid., p. 4.
6. Ibid., p. 3.
7. Maury, Recollections of a Virginian, p. 22.
8. James I. Robertson, Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Legend, the Soldier, p. 32.
9. Thomas Jackson Arnold, The Early Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson, p. 66.
10. Ulysses S. Grant, Memoirs and Selected Letters, pp. 166–167.
11. John C. Waugh, Class of 1846, p. 65; Robertson, Stonewall Jackson, pp. 42–43.
12. G.F.R. Henderson, Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War, vol. 1, p. 20.
13. Eugene C. Tidball, No Disgrace to My Country: The Life of John C. Tidball, pp. 29–30.
14. Ibid.
15. Robertson, Stonewall Jackson, p. 37.
16. Waugh, The Class of 1846, p. 35.
17. Robertson, Stonewall Jackson, p. 44, citing Maury and others.
18. Maury, “General T. J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson,” p. 310.
19. Henderson, Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War, vol. 1, p. 19.
20. Sears, George B. McClellan, p. 8.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid., p. 7.
23. Robertson, Stonewall Jackson, p. 92.
24. Letter from Jackson to Laura, January 28, 1844; Arnold, The Early Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson, p. 64.
25. John Gibbon, “Stonewall Jackson,” manuscript in Hotchkiss Papers at the Library of Congress, letter to Hotchkiss dated November 10, 1893.
26. Waugh, The Class of 1846, p. 46.
27. Ibid., p. 50.
28. Cited in ibid., p. 67.
29. Ibid., p. 54.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: THE DEFENSE OF RICHMOND
1. Alexander Hunter, Johnny Reb and Billy Yank, p. 170; the moment comes from the afternoon at Gaines’s Mill, when word came that Jackson had arrived. Kyd Douglas describes it thus: “A staff officer dashed along Longstreet’s wearied lines, crying out ‘Stonewall’s at them!’ and was answered with yell after yell of joy, which added a strange sound to the din of battle.” (I Rode with Stonewall, p. 103); I have taken this slightly out of sequence here but the sentiments are all correct.
2. Brian K. Burton, Extraordinary Circumstances: The Seven Days Battles, p. 31.
3. This simple but revealing notion comes from William J. Miller’s 2013 essay in Civil War Trust, “The Seven Days Battles.”
4. Clifford Dowdey, The Seven Days: The Emergence of Robert E. Lee, p. 77.
5. Allan Nevins, The War for the Union, vol. 2, 1862–1863, p. 119.
6. Robert L. Dabney, The Life and Campaigns of Lieutenant-General Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson, p. 436; Nevins, The War for the Union, vol. 2, pp. 118–199.
7. This included a division under General George McCall that had been detached from Irvin McDowell.
8. Edward Porter Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 95.
9. Letter from McClellan to Stanton, June 25; Stephen W. Sears, ed., The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan, p. 309.
10. Burton, Extraordinary Circumstances, pp. 15 and 56.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid., p. 51.
13. Letter from George McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Sears, The Civil War Papers, p. 306.
14. Lee to Jackson, June 25, cited in James I. Robertson, Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Legend, the Soldier, p. 469.
15. Robert Dabney to Jedediah Hotchkiss, September 12, 1896, Hotchkiss Papers, Library of Congress.
16. Dabney, Life and Campaigns of Lieutenant-General Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson, p. 440.
17. After the Battle of Malvern Hill, Jackson wrote Anna: “During the past week I have not been well, have suffered from fever and debility, but through the blessing of an ever kind Providence am better today.” Thus he was ill, though we don’t know exactly which day he first fell sick. It could well have been as early as June 26, when he was already clearly in a state of exhaustion; his physical condition had everything to do with the events of the week; Mary Anna Jackson, Memoirs of Stonewall Jackson, p. 302.
18. McClellan to Stanton, June 25, 1862, Sears, The Civil War Papers, p. 312.
19. Stephen W. Sears, To the Gates of Richmond, p. 199.
20. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 99.
21. Allen C. Redwood, “The Confederate in the Field,” chapter in The Photographic History of the Civil War in Ten Volumes, vol. 8, p. 155.
22. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 100.
23. Judkin Browning, The Seven Days’ Battles, p. 53; Burton, Extraordinary Circumstances, p. 74.
24. McClellan to Stanton, June 26, 1862; Sears, The Civil War Papers, p. 317.
25. Richard Taylor, Destruction and Reconstruction, p. 93.
26. The definitive study of Jackson’s role in the Seven Days is to be found in Brian K. Burton’s superb 2001 book Extraordinary Circumstances: The Seven Days Battles. His analysis of Jackson’s actions has largely been adopted as my framework here. James I. Robertson Jr. also offers a well-researched and highly readable analysis in his 1997 biography, Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend. Its conclusions comport largely with those in Burton’s book.
27. Sears, To the Gates of Richmond, p. 210.
28. Ibid.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: VICTORY BY ANY OTHER NAME
1. Stephen W. Sears, To the Gates of Richmond, p. 214.
2. Robert L. Dabney, The Life and Campaigns of Lieutenant-General Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson, p. 443.
3. Ibid., p. 444.
4. Cited in Sears, To the Gates of Richmond, p. 233.
5. Chasseur is French for “hunter.”
6. John Esten Cooke, Outlines from the Outpost, pp. 50–51.
7. Interview with Bobby Krick, “The Battle of Gaines’s Mill: Then and Now,” Civil War Trust.
8. Cited in Brian K. Burton, Extraordinary Circumstances, p. 154.
9. Cited in Judkin Browning, The Seven Days’ Battles: The War Begins Anew, p. 78.
10. Heros Von Borcke, Memoirs of the Confederate War for Independence, vol. 1, p. 60.
11. Edwin K. Gould, Major-General Hiram Berry: His career as a contractor, bank president, politician, and major-general of volunteers in the Civi
l War, p. 172.
12. Browning, The Seven Days’ Battles, p. 86.
13. McClellan to Stanton, June 28, 1862, 12:20 a.m., Stephen W. Sears,, ed., The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan, p. 323.
14. Burton, Extraordinay Circumstances, pp. 206–207.
15. James I. Robertson, Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Legend, the Soldier, p. 488; Robertson first uncovered the communiqué, which changed historians’ views of Jackson’s behavior.
16. D. H. Hill, “McClellan’s Change of Base and Malvern Hill,” in Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel, eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, vol. 2, pp. 383–395.
17. Dabney, The Life and Campaigns of Lieutenant-General Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson, p. 460.
18. John Overton Casler, Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade, p. 94.
19. Letter to Anna, June 30, “Near White Oak Swamp Bridge,” Mary Anna Jackson, Memoirs of Stonewall Jackson, p. 297.
20. W. W. Blackford MS. Memoir cited in Douglas Southall Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants, vol. 1, p. 656.
21. Sears, To the Gates of Richmond, p. 280.
22. Testimony of Samuel Heintzelman before the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, cited in William Swinton, ed., The “Times” Review of McClellan: His Military Career Reviewed and Exposed, p. 24.
23. Robert Stiles, Address at the Dedication of the Monument of Confederate Dead, University of Virginia, June 7, 1893.
24. Ibid.; the other account was from John Wallace McCreery, one of Jackson’s couriers; Burton, Extraordinary Circumstances, p. 231.
25. Note that Jackson biographer James I. Robertson believes that Stiles’s account is a fabrication, for various reasons, including that Jackson’s uniform would have been rain-drenched and not dusty, that there would have been no dust on the ground to mark on, etc. Brian K. Burton says that the McCreery account corroborates the Stiles account except in the identification of the drawer of the diagram.