Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
received his constant attention. Discipline was made stricter, indolent
and careless officers were summarily dismissed, and the divisions were
drilled at every favourable opportunity. Headquarters had been
transferred to a tent near to Hamilton’s Crossing, the general
remarking, “It is rather a relief to get where there will be less
comfort than in a room, as I hope thereby persons will be prevented
from encroaching so much upon my time.” On his wife’s arrival he moved
to Mr. Yerby’s plantation, near Hamilton’s Crossing, but “he did not
permit,” she writes, “the presence of his family to interfere in any
way with his military duties. The greater part of each day he spent at
his headquarters, but returned as early as he could get off from his
labours, and devoted all his leisure time to ha visitors—little Julia
having his chief attention and his care. His devotion to his child was
remarked upon by all who beheld the happy pair together, for she soon
learned to delight in his caresses as much as he loved to play with
her. An officer’s wife, who saw him often during this time, wrote to a
friend in Richmond that ‘the general spent all his leisure time in
playing with the baby.’”
April 29 But these quiet and happy days were soon ended. On April 29
the roar of cannon was heard once more at Gurney’s Station, salvo after
salvo following in quick succession, until the house shook and the
windows rattled with the reverberations. The crash of musketry
succeeded, rapid and continuous, and before the sun was high wounded
men were brought in to the shelter of Mr. Yerby’s outhouses. Very early
in the morning a message from the pickets had come in, and after making
arrangements for his wife and child to leave at once for Richmond, the
general, without waiting for breakfast, had hastened to the front. The
Federals were crossing the
Rappahannock, and Stonewall Jackson had gone to his last field.[11]
NOTE
Headquarters, Second Corps, Army of N. Va.:
April 13, 1863.
General Orders, No. 26.
I. . . . . . . . .
II. Each division will move precisely at the time indicated in the
order of march, and if a division or brigade is not ready to move at
that time, the next will proceed and take its place, even if a division
should be separated thereby.
III. On the march the troops are to have a rest of ten minutes each
hour. The rate of march is not to exceed one mile in twenty-five
minutes, unless otherwise specially ordered. The time of each division
commander will be taken from that of the corps commander. When the
troops are halted for the purpose of resting, arms will be stacked,
ranks broken, and in no case during the march will the troops be
allowed to break ranks without previously stacking arms.
IV. When any part of a battery or train is disabled on a march, the
officer in charge must have it removed immediately from the road, so
that no part of the command be impeded upon its march.
Batteries or trains must not stop in the line of march to water; when
any part of a battery or train, from any cause, loses its place in the
column, it must not pass any part of the column in regaining its place.
Company commanders will march at the rear of their respective
companies; officers must be habitually occupied in seeing that orders
are strictly enforced; a day’s march should be with them a day of
labour; as much vigilance is required on the march as in camp.
Each division commander will, as soon as he arrive at his
camping-ground, have the company rolls called, and guard details
marched to the front of the regiment before breaking ranks; and
immediately afterwards establish his chain of sentinels, and post his
pickets so as to secure the safety of his command, and will soon
thereafter report to their headquarters the disposition made for the
security of his camp.
Division commanders will see that all orders respecting their divisions
are carried out strictly; each division commander before leaving an
encampment will have all damages occasioned by his command settled for
by payment or covered by proper certificates.
V. All ambulances in the same brigade will be receipted for by the
brigade quartermaster, they will be parked together, and habitually
kept together, not being separated unless the exigencies of the service
require, and on marches follow in rear of their respective brigades.
Ample details will be made for taking care of the wounded;
those selected will wear the prescribed badge; and no other person
belonging to the army will be permitted to take part in this important
trust.
Any one leaving his appropriate duty, under pretext of taking care of
the wounded, will be promptly arrested, and as soon as charges can be
made out, they will be forwarded.
By command of Lieutenant-General Jackson,
A. S. PENDLETON,
_Assistant Adjutant-General._
[1] The report of Sharpsburg, which Jackson had not yet revised at the
time of his death, is not altogether free from exaggeration.
[2] On January 23 the daily ration was a quarter of a pound of beef,
and one-fifth of a pound of sugar was ordered to be issued in
addition, but there was no sugar! Lee to Davis, O.R., vol. xxi, p.
1110. In the Valley, during the autumn, the ration had been one and
one-eighth pound of flour, and one and a quarter pounds of beef. On
March 27 the ration was eighteen ounces of flour, and four ounces of
indifferent bacon, with occasional issues of rice, sugar, or molasses.
Symptoms of scurvy were appearing, and to supply the place of
vegetables each regiment was directed to send men daily to gather
sassafras buds, wild onions, garlic, etc., etc. Still “the men are
cheerful,” writes Lee, “and I receive no complaints.” O.R., vol. xxv,
part ii, p. 687. On April 17 the ration had been increased by ten
pounds of rice to every 100 men about every third day, with a few peas
and dried fruits occasionally. O.R., vol. xxv, part ii, p. 730.
[3] On January 19, 1,200 pairs of shoes and 400 or 500 pairs of
blankets were forwarded for issue to men without either in D. H.
Hill’s division, O.R., vol. xxi, p. 1097. In the Louisiana brigade on
the same date, out of 1,500 men, 400 had no covering for their feet
whatever. A large number had not a particle of underclothing, shirts,
socks, or drawers; overcoats were so rare as to be a curiosity; the
5th Regiment could not drill for want of shoes; the 8th was almost
unfit for duty from the same cause; the condition of the men’s feet,
from long exposure, was horrible, and the troops were almost totally
unprovided with cooking utensils. O.R., vol. xxi, p. 1098.
[4] O.R., vol. xxi, p. 1098.
[5] Cooke, p. 389.
[6] _The Times,_ June 11, 1863.
[7] Letter from Dr. Hunter McGuire.
[8] General G. B. Gordon. _Introduction to Memoirs of Stonewall
Jackson,_ p. 14.
[9] In April he wrote to his wife: “There is increasing probability
that I may be elsewhere as the season advances.” That he said no more
is characteristic.
[10] “There is no better way of defending a long line than by moving
into the enemy’s country.” Lee to General Jones, March 21, 1863; O.R.,
vol. xxv, part ii, p. 680.
[11] The Army of the Potomac was now constituted as follows:—
Engineer Brigade
First Corps
Second Corps
Third Corps Reynolds
Couch
Sickles Divisions Birney
Berry
Whipple Fifth Corps
Sixth Corps
Eleventh Corps Meade
Sedgwick
Howard Divisions McLean
Von Steinwehr
Schurz Twelfth Corps Slocum Divisions Williams
Geary Cavalry Corps Stoneman Divisions Pleasanton
Averell
Gregg.
Chapter XXIII
CHANCELLORSVILLE
It has already been said that while the Army of Northern Virginia lay
in winter quarters the omens did not point to decisive success in the
forthcoming campaign. During the same period that Lincoln and Stanton,
taught by successive disasters, had ceased to interfere with their
generals, Jefferson Davis and Mr. Seddon, his new Secretary of War, had
taken into their own hands the complete control of military operations.
The results appeared in the usual form: on the Northern side, unity of
purpose and concentration; on the Southern, uncertainty of aim and
dispersion. In the West the Confederate generals were fatally hampered
by the orders of the President. In the East the Army of Northern
Virginia, confronted by a mass of more than 130,000 foes, was deprived
of three of Longstreet’s divisions; and when, at the end of April, it
was reported that Hooker was advancing, it was absolutely impossible
that this important detachment could rejoin in time to assist in the
defence of the Rappahannock.
A full discussion of the Chancellorsville campaign does not fall within
the scope of this biography, but in justice to the Southern generals—to
Lee who resolved to stand his ground, and to Jackson who approved the
resolution—it must be explained that they were in no way responsible
for the absence of 20,000 veterans. Undoubtedly the situation on the
Atlantic littoral was sufficiently embarrassing to the Confederate
authorities. The presence of a Federal force at New Berne, in North
Carolina, threatened the main line of railway by which Wilmington and
Charleston communicated with Richmond, and these two ports were of the
utmost
importance to the Confederacy. So enormous were the profits arising
from the exchange of munitions of war and medicines[1] for cotton and
tobacco that English ship-owners embarked eagerly on a lucrative if
precarious traffic. Blockade-running became a recognised business.
Companies were organised which possessed large fleets of swift
steamers. The Bahamas and Bermuda became vast entrepôts of trade.
English seamen were not to be deterred from a perilous enterprise by
fear of Northern broadsides or Northern prisons, and despite the number
and activity of the blockading squadrons the cordon of cruisers and
gunboats was constantly broken. Many vessels were sunk, many captured,
many wrecked on a treacherous coast, and yet enormous quantities of
supplies found their way to the arsenals and magazines of Richmond and
Atlanta. The railways, then, leading from Wilmington and Charleston,
the ports most accessible to the blockade-runners, were almost
essential to the existence of the Confederacy. Soon after the battle of
Fredericksburg, General D. H. Hill was placed in command of the forces
which protected them, and, at the beginning of the New Year, Ransom’s
division[2] was drawn from the Rappahannock to reinforce the local
levies. A few weeks later[3] General Lee was induced by Mr. Seddon to
send Longstreet, with the divisions of Hood and Pickett,[4] to cover
Richmond, which was menaced both from Fortress Monroe and Suffolk.[5]
The Commander-in-Chief, however, while submitting to this detachment as
a necessary evil, had warned General Longstreet so to dispose his
troops that they could return to the Rappahannock at the first alarm.
“The enemy’s position,” he wrote, “on the sea-coast had been probably
occupied merely for purposes of defence, it was likely that they were
strongly intrenched, and nothing would be gained by attacking them.”
The warning, however, was disregarded; and that Mr. Seddon should have
yielded, in the first instance, to the influence of the sea-power,
exciting apprehensions of sudden attack along the whole seaboard of the
Confederacy, may be forgiven him. Important lines of communication were
certainly exposed. But when, in defiance of Lee’s advice that the
divisions should be retained within easy reach of Fredericksburg, he
suggested to Longstreet the feasibility of an attack on Suffolk, one
hundred and twenty miles distant from the Rappahannock, he committed an
unpardonable blunder.
Had Jackson been in Longstreet’s place, the Secretary’s proposal,