Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
war, her cannon, powder, and ammunition, were of foreign make. More
than all, her mercantile marine was very small. Her foreign trade was
in the hands of Northern merchants. She had ship-yards, for Norfolk and
Pensacola, both national establishments, were within her boundaries;
but her seafaring population was inconsiderable, and shipbuilding was
almost an unknown industry. Strong on land, she was powerless at sea,
and yet it was on the sea that her prosperity depended. Cotton, the
principal staple of her wealth, demanded free access to the European
markets. But without a navy, and without the means of constructing one,
or of manning the vessels that she might easily have purchased, she was
unable to keep open her communications across the Atlantic.
Nor was it on the ocean alone that the South was at a disadvantage. The
Mississippi, the main artery of her commerce, which brought the
harvests of the plantations to New Orleans, and which divided her
territory into two distinct portions, was navigable throughout; while
other great rivers and many estuaries, leading into the heart of her
dominions, formed the easiest of highways for the advance of an
invading army. Very early had her fatal weakness been detected.
Immediately Fort Sumter fell, Lincoln had taken measures to isolate the
seceding States, to close every channel by which they could receive
either succour or supplies, and if need be to starve them into
submission. The maritime resources of the Union were so large that the
navy was rapidly expanded. Numbers of trained seamen, recruited from
the merchant service and the fisheries, were at once available.
The Northern shipbuilders had long been famous; and both men and
vessels, if the necessity should arise, might
be procured in Europe. Judicious indeed was the policy which, at the
very outset of the war, brought the tremendous pressure of the
sea-power to bear against the South; and, had her statesmen possessed
the knowledge of what that pressure meant, they must have realised that
Abraham Lincoln was no ordinary foe. In forcing the Confederates to
become the aggressors, and to fire on the national ensign, he had
created a united North; in establishing a blockade of their coasts he
brought into play a force, which, like the mills of God, “grinds
slowly, but grinds exceeding small.”
But for the present the Federal navy was far too small to watch three
thousand miles of littoral indented by spacious harbours and secluded
bays, protected in many cases by natural breakwaters, and communicating
by numerous channels with the open sea. Moreover, it was still an even
chance whether cotton became a source of weakness to the Confederacy or
a source of strength. If the markets of Europe were closed to her by
the hostile battle-ships, the credit of the young Republic would
undoubtedly be seriously impaired; but the majority of the Southern
politicians believed that the great powers beyond the Atlantic would
never allow the North to enforce her restrictive policy. England and
France, a large portion of whose population depended for their
livelihood on the harvests of the South, were especially interested;
and England and France, both great maritime States, were not likely to
brook interference with their trade. Nor had the Southern people a high
opinion of Northern patriotism. They could hardly conceive that the
maintenance of the Union, which they themselves considered so light a
bond, had been exalted elsewhere to the height of a sacred principle.
Least of all did they believe that the great Democratic party, which
embraced so large a proportion of the Northern people, and which, for
so many years, had been in close sympathy with themselves, would
support the President in his coercive measures.
History, moreover, not always an infallible guide, supplied many
plausible arguments to those who sought to forecast the immediate
future. In the War of Independence,
not only had the impracticable nature of the country, especially of the
South, baffled the armies of Great Britain, but the European powers,
actuated by old grudges and commercial jealousy, had come to the aid of
the insurgents. On a theatre of war where trained and well-organised
forces had failed, it was hardly to be expected that raw levies would
succeed; and if England, opposed in 1782 by the fleets of France,
Spain, and Holland, had been compelled to let the colonies go, it was
hardly likely that the North, confronted by the naval strength of
England and France, would long maintain the struggle with the South.
Trusting then to foreign intervention, to the dissensions of their
opponents, and to their own hardihood and unanimity, the Southerners
faced the future with few misgivings.
At Richmond, finding himself without occupation, Major Jackson
volunteered to assist in the drilling of the new levies. The duty to
which he was first assigned was distasteful. He was an indifferent
draughtsman, and a post in the topographical department was one for
which he was hardly fitted. The appointment, fortunately, was not
confirmed. Some of his friends in the Confederate Congress proposed
that he should be sent to command at Harper’s Ferry, an important
outpost on the northern frontier of Virginia. There was some
opposition, not personal to Jackson and of little moment, but it called
forth a remark that shows the estimation in which he was held by men
who knew him.
“Who is this Major Jackson?” it was asked.
“He is one,” was the reply, “who, if you order him to hold a post, will
never leave it alive to be occupied by the enemy.”
Harper’s Ferry, the spot where the first collision might confidently be
expected, was a charge after Jackson’s own heart.
April 26 “Last Saturday,” he writes to his wife, “the Governor handed
me my commission as Colonel of Virginia Volunteers, the post I prefer
above all others, and has given me an independent command. Little one,
you must not expect to hear from me very often, as I expect to have
more work than I ever had in the same
length of time before; but don’t be concerned about your husband, for
our kind Heavenly Father will give every needful aid.”
The garrison at Harper’s Ferry consisted of a large number of
independent companies of infantry, a few light companies, as they were
called, of cavalry, and fifteen smooth-bore cannon of small calibre.
This force numbered 4,500 officers and men, of whom all but 400 were
Virginians. Jackson’s appearance was not hailed with acclamation. The
officers of the State militia had hitherto exercised the functions of
command over the ill-knit concourse of enthusiastic patriots. The
militia, however, was hardly more than a force on paper, and the camps
swarmed with generals and field-officers who were merely civilians in
gaudy uniform. By order of the State Legislature these gentlemen were
now deprived of their fine feathers. Every militia officer above the
rank of captain was deposed; and the Governor of Virginia was
authorised to fill the vacancies. This measure was by no means popular.
Both by officers and men it was denounced as an outrage on freemen and
volunteers; and the companies met in convention for the purpose of
passing denunciatory resolutions.
Their new commander was a sorry substitute for the brilliant figures he
had superseded. The militia generals had surrounded themselves with a
numerous staff, and on fine afternoons, it was said, the official
display in Harper’s Ferry would have done no discredit to the
Champs-Elysées. Jackson had but two assistants, who, like himself,
still wore the plain blue uniform of the Military Institute. To eyes
accustomed to the splendid trappings and prancing steeds of his
predecessors there seemed an almost painful want of pomp and
circumstance about the colonel of volunteers. There was not a particle
of gold lace about him. He rode a horse as quiet as himself. His seat
in the saddle was ungraceful. His well-worn cadet cap was always tilted
over his eyes; he was sparing of speech; his voice was very quiet, and
he seldom smiled. He made no orations, he held no reviews, and his
orders were remarkable for their brevity. Even with his officers
he had little intercourse. He confided his plans to no one, and not a
single item of information, useful or otherwise, escaped his lips.
Some members of the Maryland Legislature, a body whom it was important
to conciliate, visited Harper’s Ferry during his tenure of command.
They were received with the utmost politeness, and in return plied the
general with many questions. His answers were unsatisfactory, and at
length one more bold than the rest asked him frankly how many men he
had at his disposal. “Sir,” was the reply, “I should be glad if
President Lincoln thought I had fifty thousand.” Nor was this reticence
observed only towards those whose discretion he mistrusted. He was
silent on principle. In the campaign of 1814, the distribution of the
French troops at a most critical moment was made known to the allies by
the capture of a courier carrying a letter from Napoleon to the
Empress. There was little chance of a letter to Mrs. Jackson, who was
now in North Carolina, falling into the hands of the Federals; but even
in so small a matter Jackson was consistent.
“You say,” he wrote, “that your husband never writes you any news. I
suppose you mean military news, for I have written you a great deal
about your _sposo_ and how much he loves you. What do you want with
military news? Don’t you know that it is unmilitary and unlike an
officer to write news respecting one’s post? You couldn’t wish your
husband to do an unofficer-like thing, could you?”
And then, the claims of duty being thus clearly defined, he proceeds to
describe the roses which climbed round the window of his temporary
quarters, adding, with that lover-like devotion which every letter
betrays, “but my sweet little sunny face is what I want to see most of
all.”
Careful as he was to keep the enemy in the dark, he was exceedingly
particular when he visited his distant posts on the Potomac that his
presence should be unobserved. Had it become known to the Federal
generals that the commander at Harper’s Ferry had reconnoitred a
certain point of passage, a clue might have been given to his designs.
The Confederate officers, therefore, in charge of these posts,
were told that Colonel Jackson did not wish them to recognise him. He
rode out accompanied by a single staff officer, and the men were seldom
aware that the brigadier had been through their camps.
Never was a commander who fell so far short of the popular idea of a
dashing leader. This quiet gentleman, who came and went unnoticed, who
had nothing to say, and was so anxious to avoid observation, was a type
of soldier unfamiliar to the volunteers. He was duty personified and
nothing more.
But at the same time the troops instinctively felt that this absence of
ostentation meant hard work. They began to realise the magnitude of the
obligations they had assumed. Soldiering was evidently something more
than a series of brilliant spectacles and social gatherings. Here was a
man in earnest, who looked upon war as a serious business, who was
completely oblivious to what people said or thought; and his example
was not without effect. The conventions came to nothing; and when the
companies were organised in battalions, and some of the deposed
officers were reappointed to command, the men went willingly to work.
Their previous knowledge, even of drill, was of the scantiest. Officers
and men had to begin as recruits, and Jackson was not the man to cut
short essential preliminaries. Seven hours’ drill daily was a heavy tax
upon enthusiasm; but it was severely enforced, and the garrison of the
frontier post soon learned the elements of manœuvre. Discipline was a