Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
Lexington, an old West Point graduate, who was afterwards distinguished
as Lee’s chief of artillery, and recruited largely from theological
colleges, it soon became peculiarly efficient.[7]
No better material for soldiers ever existed than the men of the
Valley. Most of them were of Scotch-Irish descent, but from the more
northern counties came many of English blood, and from those in the
centre of Swiss and German. But whatever their origin, they were
thoroughly well qualified for their new trade. All classes mingled in
the ranks, and all ages; the heirs of the oldest families, and the
humblest of the sons of toil; boys whom it was impossible to keep at
school, and men whose white beards hung below their cross-belts; youths
who had been reared in luxury, and rough hunters from their lonely
cabins. They were a mountain people, nurtured in a wholesome climate,
bred to manly sports, and hardened by the free life of the field and
forest. To social distinctions they gave little heed. They were united
for a common purpose; they had taken arms to defend Virginia and to
maintain her rights; and their patriotism was
proved by the sacrifice of all personal consideration and individual
interest. Nor is the purity of their motives to be questioned. They had
implicit faith in the righteousness of their cause. Slave-owners were
few in the Valley, and the farms were tilled mainly by free labour. The
abolition of negro servitude would have affected but little the
population west of the Blue Ridge. But, nevertheless, west of the Blue
Ridge the doctrine of State Rights was as firmly rooted as in the
Carolinas, the idea that a State could be coerced into remaining within
the Union as fiercely repudiated; and the men of the Valley faced the
gathering hosts of the North in the same spirit that they would have
faced the hosts of a foreign foe.
In the first weeks of June the military situation became more
threatening. The Union armies were taking shape. The levies of
volunteers seemed sufficiently trained to render reconquest
practicable, and the great wave of invasion had already mounted the
horizon. A force of 25,000 men, based on the Ohio, threatened
North-west Virginia. There had been collisions on the Atlantic
seaboard, where the Federals held Fortress Monroe, a strong citadel
within eighty miles of Richmond, and Richmond had become the capital of
the Confederacy. There had been fighting in Missouri, and the partisans
of the South in that State had already been badly worsted. The vast
power of the North was making itself felt on land, and on the sea had
asserted an ascendency which it never lost. The blue waters of the Gulf
of Mexico were patrolled by a fleet with which the Confederates had no
means of coping. From the sea-wall of Charleston, the great Atlantic
port of the South, the masts of the blockading squadron were visible in
the offing; and beyond the mouths of the Mississippi, closing the
approaches to New Orleans, the long black hulls steamed slowly to and
fro.
But it was about Manassas Junction—thirty miles south-west of
Washington and barring the road to Richmond—that all interest centred
during the first campaign. Here was posted the main army of the
Confederacy, 20,000 volunteers under General Beauregard,
the Manassas Gap Railway forming an easy means of communication with
the Army of the Shenandoah.
Johnston’s force had been gradually increased to 10,000 officers and
men. But the general was by no means convinced of the desirability of
holding Harper’s Ferry. The place itself was insignificant. It had
contained an arsenal, but this had been burnt by the Federals when they
evacuated the post; and it was absolutely untenable against attack. To
the east runs the Shenandoah; and immediately above the river stands a
spur of the Blue Ridge, the Loudoun Heights, completely commanding the
little town. Beyond the Potomac is a crest of equal altitude, covered
with forest trees and undergrowth, and bearing the name of the Maryland
Heights.
Jackson, without waiting for instructions, had taken on himself to hold
and fortify the Maryland Heights. “I am of opinion,” he had written to
General Lee, “that this place should be defended with the spirit which
actuated the defenders of Thermopylæ, and if left to myself such is my
determination. The fall of this place would, I fear, result in the loss
of the north-western part of the State, and who can estimate the moral
power thus gained to the enemy and lost to ourselves?”[8]
Lee, also, was averse to evacuation. Such a measure, he said, would be
depressing to the cause of the South, and would leave Maryland
isolated. The post, it was true, could be easily turned. By crossing
the Potomac, at Williamsport and Shepherdstown, twenty and ten miles
north-west respectively, the Federals would threaten the communications
of the garrison with Winchester; in case they were attacked, the
Confederates would have to fight with their backs to the Shenandoah,
broad, deep, and unbridged; and the ground westward of Harper’s Ferry
was ill adapted for defence. Attack, in Lee’s opinion, would have been
best met by a resolute offensive.[9] Johnston, however, believed his
troops unfitted for active manœuvres, and he was permitted to choose
his own course. The incident is of small
importance, but it serves to show an identity of opinion between Lee
and Jackson, and a regard for the moral aspect of the situation which
was to make itself manifest, with extraordinary results, at a later
period.
June 14 On June 14, Johnston destroyed the railway bridge over the
Potomac, removed the machinery that had been rescued from the arsenal,
burned the public buildings, and the next day retired on Winchester.
His immediate opponent, General Patterson, had crossed the Pennsylvania
border, and, moving through Maryland, had occupied Williamsport with
14,000 men. A detachment of Confederate militia had been driven from
Romney, thirty-five miles north-west of Winchester, and the general
forward movement of the enemy had become pronounced.
June 20 On June 20 Jackson’s brigade was ordered to destroy the
workshops of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway at Martinsburg, together
with the whole of the rolling stock that might there be found, and to
support the cavalry. The first of these tasks, although Martinsburg is
no more than ten miles distant from Williamsport, was easily
accomplished. Four locomotives were sent back to Winchester, drawn by
teams of horses; and several more, together with many waggons, were
given to the flames. The second task demanded no unusual exertions. The
Federals, as yet, manifested no intention of marching upon Winchester,
nor was the Confederate cavalry in need of immediate assistance. The
force numbered 300 sabres. The men were untrained; but they were
first-rate horsemen, they knew every inch of the country, and they were
exceedingly well commanded. Lieutenant-Colonel J. E. B. Stuart, who had
been a captain of dragoons in the United States army, had already given
token of those remarkable qualities which were afterwards to make him
famous. Of an old Virginia family, he was the very type of the
Cavalier, fearless and untiring, “boisterous as March, yet fresh as
May.”
“Educated at West Point, and trained in Indian fighting in the
prairies, he brought to the great struggle upon which he had now
entered a thorough knowledge of
arms, a bold and fertile conception, and a constitution of body which
enabled him to bear up against fatigues which would have prostrated the
strength of other men. Those who saw him at this time are eloquent in
their description of the energy and the habits of the man. They tell
how he remained almost constantly in the saddle; how he never failed to
instruct personally every squad which went out on picket; how he was
everywhere present, at all hours of the day and night, along the line
which he guarded; and how, by infusing into the raw cavalry his own
activity and watchfulness, he was enabled, in spite of the small force
which he commanded, to observe the whole part of the Potomac from Point
of Rocks to beyond Williamsport. His animal spirits were unconquerable,
his gaiety and humour unfailing; he had a ready jest for all, and made
the forests ring with his songs as he marched at the head of his
column. So great was his activity that General Johnston compared him to
that species of hornet called ‘a yellow jacket,’ and said that ‘he was
no sooner brushed off than he lit back again.’ When the general was
subsequently transferred to the West he wrote to Stuart: ‘How can I
eat, sleep, or rest in peace without you upon the outpost?’”[10]
No officer in the Confederacy was more trusted by his superiors or more
popular with the men; and Jackson was no more proof than others against
the attractions of his sunny and noble nature. As a soldier, Stuart was
a colleague after his own heart; and, as a man, he was hardly less
congenial. The dashing horseman of eight-and-twenty, who rivalled Murat
in his fondness for gay colours, and to all appearance looked upon war
as a delightful frolic, held a rule of life as strict as that of his
Presbyterian comrade; and outwardly a sharp contrast, inwardly they
were in the closest sympathy. Stuart’s fame as a leader was to be won
in larger fields than those west of the Blue Ridge, and, although
sprung from the same Scotch-Irish stock, he was in no way connected
with the Valley soldiers. But from the very outbreak of the war he was
intimately associated with
Jackson and his men. Fortune seemed to take a curious delight in
bringing them together; they were together in their first skirmish, and
in their last great victory; and now, on the banks of the Potomac,
watching the hostile masses that were assembling on the further shore,
they first learned to know each other’s worth.
July 2 On July 2 Patterson crossed the river. The movement was at once
reported by Stuart, and Jackson, with the 5th Virginia and a battery,
advanced to meet the enemy. His instructions from Johnston were to
ascertain the strength of the hostile force, and then to retire under
cover of the cavalry. Four regiments of his brigade were therefore left
in camp; the baggage was sent back, and when the 5th Virginia had
marched out a short distance, three of the four guns were halted. Near
Falling Waters, a country church some five miles south of the Potomac,
Patterson’s advanced guard was discovered on the road. The country on
either hand, like the greater part of the Valley, was open, undulating,
and highly cultivated, view and movement being obstructed only by rail
fences and patches of high timber.
The Virginians were partially concealed by a strip of woodland, and
when the Federal skirmishers, deployed on either side of the highway,
moved forward to the attack, they were received by a heavy and
unexpected fire. As the enemy fell back, a portion of the Confederate
line was thrown forward, occupying a house and barn; and despite the
fire of two guns which the Federals had brought up, the men, with the
impetuous rashness of young troops, dashed out to the attack. But
Jackson intervened. The enemy, who had two brigades of infantry well
closed up, was deploying a heavy force; his skirmishers were again
advancing, and the 5th Virginia, in danger of being outflanked, was
ordered to retire to its first position. The movement was misconstrued
by the Federals, and down the high road, in solid column, came the
pursuing cavalry. A well-aimed shot from the single field-piece
sufficed to check their progress; a confused mass of horsemen went
flying to the rear; and the Confederate gunners turned their attention
to the hostile
battery. Stuart, at the same time, performed a notable feat. He had
moved with fifty troopers to attack the enemy’s right flank, and in