Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
The hazard was great, but the stake was greater. To achieve decisive
success in war some risk must be run. “It is impossible,” says Moltke,
“to forecast the result of a pitched battle;” but this is no reason
that pitched battles, if there is a fair prospect of success, should be
shirked. And in the Sharpsburg campaign the Confederates had
undoubtedly fair prospects of success. If the lost order had not fallen
into McClellan’s hands, Lee in all probability would have had ample
time to select his battlefield and concentrate his army; there would
have been no need of forced marches, and consequently much less
straggling. Both Lee and Jackson counted on the caution of their
opponent. Both were surprised by the unwonted vigour be displayed,
especially at South Mountain and in the march to Sharpsburg. Such
resolution in action, they were aware, was foreign to his nature. “I
cannot understand this move of McClellan’s,” was Jackson’s remark, when
it was reported that the Federal general had boldly advanced against
the strong position on South Mountain. But neither Lee
nor Jackson was aware that McClellan had exact information of their
dispositions, and that the carelessness of a Confederate staff officer
had done more for the Union than all the Northern scouts and spies in
Maryland. Jackson had been disposed to leave a larger margin for
accidents than his commander. He would have left Harper’s Ferry alone,
and have fought the Federals in the mountains;[37] and he was probably
right, for in the Gettysburg campaign of the following year, when Lee
again crossed the Potomac, Harper’s Ferry was ignored, although
occupied by a strong garrison, and neither in advance nor retreat were
the Confederate communications troubled. But as to the wisdom of giving
battle on the Antietam, after the fall of Harper’s Ferry, there was no
divergence of opinion between Lee and his lieutenant. They had no
reason to respect the Union army as a weapon of offence, and very great
reason to believe that McClellan was incapable of wielding it. Their
anticipations were well founded. The Federal attack was badly designed
and badly executed. If it be compared with the German attack at Worth,
the defects of McClellan, the defects of his subordinates, the want of
sound training throughout the whole army, become at once apparent. On
August 6, 1870, there was certainly, early in the day, much disjointed
fighting, due in great part to the difficulties of the country, the
absence of the Crown Prince, and the anxiety of the generals to render
each other loyal support. But when once the Commander-in-Chief appeared
upon the field, and, assuming direction of the battle, infused harmony
into the operations, the strength and unity of the attack could hardly
have been surpassed. Almost at the same moment 30,000 men were launched
against McMahon’s front, 25,000 against his right, and 10,000 against
his left. Every battalion within sound of the cannon participated in
the forward movement; and numerous batteries, crossing the stream which
corresponds with the Antietam, supported the infantry at the closest
range. No general hesitated to act on his own responsibility.
Everywhere there was
co-operation, between infantry and artillery, between division and
division, between army corps and army corps; and such co-operation, due
to a sound system of command, is the characteristic mark of a
well-trained army and a wise leader. At Sharpsburg, on the other hand,
there was no combination whatever, and even the army corps commanders
dared not act without specific orders. There was nothing like the close
concert and the aggressive energy which had carried the Southerners to
victory at Gaines’ Mill and the Second Manassas. The principle of
mutual support was utterly ignored. The army corps attacked in
succession and not simultaneously, and in succession they were
defeated. McClellan fought three separate battles, from dawn to 10 a.m.
against Lee’s left; from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. against his centre; from 1
to 4 p.m. against his right. The subordinate generals, although, with a
few exceptions, they handled their commands skilfully, showed no
initiative, and waited for orders instead of improving the opportunity.
Only two-thirds of the army was engaged; 25,000 men hardly fired a
shot, and from first to last there was not the slightest attempt at
co-operation. McClellan was made aware by his signallers on the Red
Hill of every movement that took place in his opponent’s lines, and yet
he was unable to take advantage of Lee’s weakness. He had still to
grasp the elementary rule that the combination of superior numbers and
of all arms against a single point is necessary to win battles.
The Northern infantry, indeed, had not fought like troops who own their
opponents as the better men. Rather had they displayed an elasticity of
spirit unsuspected by their enemies; and the Confederate soldiers, who
knew with what fierce courage the attack had been sustained, looked on
the battle of Sharpsburg as the most splendid of their achievements. No
small share of the glory fell to Jackson. Since the victory of Cedar
Run, his fame, somewhat obscured by Frayser’s Farm and Malvern Hill,
had increased by leaps and bounds, and the defence of the West Wood was
classed with the march to Manassas Junction, the three days’ battle
about Groveton,
and the swift seizure of Harper’s Ferry. On October 2, Lee proposed to
the President that the Army of Northern Virginia should be organised in
two army corps, for the command of which he recommended Longstreet and
Jackson. “My opinion,” wrote Lee, “of General Jackson has been greatly
enhanced during this expedition. He is true, honest, and brave; has a
single eye to the good of the service, and spares no exertion to
accomplish his object.”[38] On October 11, Jackson received his
promotion as Lieutenant-General, and was appointed to the Second Army
Corps, consisting at that date of his own division, the Light Division,
Ewell’s, and D. H. Hill’s, together with Colonel Brown’s battalion of
artillery; a force of 1,917 officers, 25,000 men, and 126 guns.
Jackson does not appear to have been unduly elated by his promotion,
for two days after his appointment he wrote to his wife that there was
no position in the world equal to that of a minister of the Gospel, and
his letter was principally concerned with the lessons he had learned
from the sermon of the previous Sunday.[39]The soldiers of
the Second Army Corps, however, did not allow him to forget his
greatness. In their bivouacs by the clear waters of the Opequon, with
abundance of supplies and with ample leisure for recuperation, the
troops rapidly regained their strength and spirit. The reaction found
vent in the most extravagant gaiety. No circumstance that promised
entertainment was permitted to pass without attention, and the jest
started at the expense of some unfortunate wight, conspicuous for
peculiarity of dress or demeanour, was taken up by a hundred voices.
None were spared. A trim staff officer was horrified at the irreverent
reception of his nicely twisted moustache, as he heard from behind
innumerable trees: “Take them mice out o’ your mouth! take ’em out—no
use to say they ain’t there, see their tails hanging out! Another,
sporting immense whiskers, was urged “to come out o’ that bunch of
hair! I know you’re in there! I see your ears a-working!” So the
soldiers chaffed the dandies, and the camp rang with laughter; fun and
frolic were always in the air, and the fierce fighters of Sharpsburg
behaved like schoolboys on a holiday. But when the general rode by the
men remembered the victories they had won and to whom they owed them,
the hardships they had endured, and who had shared them; and the
appearance of “Little Sorrel” was the sure precursor of a scene of the
wildest enthusiasm. The horse soon learned what the cheers implied, and
directly they began he would break into a gallop, as if to carry his
rider as quickly as possible through the embarrassing ordeal. But the
soldiers were not to be deterred by their commander’s modesty, and
whenever he was compelled to pass through the bivouacs the same tribute
was so invariably offered that the sound of a distant cheer, rolling
down the lines of the Second Army Corps, always evoked the exclamation:
“Boys, look out! here comes old Stonewall or an old hare!” “These being
the only individuals,” writes one of Jackson’s soldiers, “who never
failed to bring down the whole house.”
Nothing could express more clearly the loyalty of the soldiers to their
general than this quaint estimate of his
popularity. The Anglo-Saxon is averse to the unrestrained display of
personal affection; and when his natural reluctance is overborne by
irrepressible emotion, he attempts to hide it by a jest. So Jackson’s
veterans laughed at his peculiarities, at his dingy uniform, his
battered cap, his respect for clergymen, his punctilious courtesy, and
his blushes. They delighted in the phrase, when a distant yell was
heard, “Here’s ‘Old Jack’ or a rabbit!” They delighted more in his
confusion when he galloped through the shouting camp. “Here he comes,”
they said, “we’ll make him take his hat off.” They invented strange
fables of which he was the hero. “Stonewall died,” ran one of the most
popular, “and two angels came down from heaven to take him back with
them. They went to his tent. He was not there. They went to the
hospital. He was not there. They went to the outposts. He was not
there. They went to the prayer-meeting. He was not there. So they had
to return without him; but when they reported that he had disappeared,
they found that he had made a flank march and reached heaven before
them.” Another was to the effect that whereas Moses took forty years to
get the children of Israel through the wilderness, “‘Old Jack’ would
have double-quicked them through in three days on half rations!”
But, nevertheless, beneath this affectation of hilarity lay a deep and
passionate devotion; and two incidents which occurred at this time show
the extent of this feeling, and at least one reason for its existence.
“On October 8th,” writes Major Heros von Borcke, adjutant-general of
the cavalry division, “I was honoured with the pleasing mission of
presenting to Stonewall, as a slight token of Stuart’s high regard, a
new uniform coat, which had just arrived from the hands of a Richmond
tailor. Starting at once, I reached the simple tent of our great
general just in time for dinner. I found him in his old weather-stained
coat, from which all the buttons had been clipped by the fair hands of
patriotic ladies, and which, from exposure to sun, rain, and
powder-smoke, and by reason of many rents and patches, was in a very
unseemly
condition. When I had dispatched more important matters, I produced
General Stuart’s present in all its magnificence of gilt buttons and
sheeny facings and gold lace, and I was heartily amused at the modest
confusion with which the hero of many battles regarded the fine
uniform, scarcely daring to touch it, and at the quiet way in which at
last he folded it up carefully and deposited it in his portmanteau,
saying to me, “Give Stuart my best thanks, Major; the coat is much too
handsome for me, but I shall take the best care of it, and shall prize
it highly as a souvenir. And now let us have some dinner.” But I
protested emphatically against the summary disposition of the matter of
the coat, deeming my mission indeed but half executed, and remarked
that Stuart would certainly ask how the coat fitted, and that I should
take it as a personal favour if he would put it on. To this with a
smile he readily assented, and having donned the garment, he escorted
me outside the tent to the table where dinner had been served in the