Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
bony figure of the cadet, sitting bolt upright like a graven image in a
tight uniform, with his eyes glued to the ceiling of his barrack-room,
or the young man, with gaunt features, round shoulders, and uncombed
hair, who wandered alone about the streets of Paris in 1795.
They had the same love of method and of order. The accounts of the
Virginian constable was not more scrupulously kept than the ledgers of
Napoleon’s household, nor
could they show a greater regard for economy than the tailor’s bill,
still extant, on which the future Emperor gained a reduction of four
_sous._ But it was not on such trivial lines alone that they run
parallel. An inflexibility of purpose, an absolute disregard of popular
opinion, and an unswerving belief in their own capacity, were
predominant in both. They could say “No.” Neither sought sympathy, and
both felt that they were masters of their own fate. “You can be
whatever you resolve to be” may be well placed alongside the speech of
the brigadier of five-and-twenty: “Have patience. I will command in
Paris presently. What should I do there now?”
But here the parallel ends. In Jackson, even as a cadet, self was
subordinate to duty. Pride was foreign to his nature. He was incapable
of pretence, and his simplicity was inspired by that disdain of all
meanness which had been his characteristic from a child. His brain was
disturbed by no wild visions; no intemperate ambition confused his
sense of right and wrong. “The essence of his mind,” as has been said
of another of like mould, “was clearness, healthy purity,
incompatibility with fraud in any of its forms.” It was his instinct to
be true and straightforward as it was Napoleon’s to be false and
subtle. And, if, as a youth, he showed no trace of marked intellectual
power; if his instructors saw no sign of masterful resolution and a
genius for command, it was because at West Point, as elsewhere, his
great qualities lay dormant, awaiting the emergency that should call
them forth.
[1] Copyright 1897 by Longmans, Green, & Co.
[2] This letter is in the possession of Thomas Jackson Arnold,
Esquire, of Beverly, West Virginia, nephew of General “Stonewall”
Jackson.
[3] Anglicè, “house-warmings.”
[4] Dabney, vol. i, p. 29.
[5] A. P. Hill, G. E. Pickett, and D. H. Maury.
[6] Communicated by General John Gibbon, U.S.A.
[7] Communicated by Colonel P. T. Turnley.
[8] Colonel Turnley.
Chapter II
MEXICO[1]
1846 On June 30, 1846, Jackson received the brevet rank of second
lieutenant of artillery. He was fortunate from the very outset of his
military career. The officers of the United States army, thanks to the
thorough education and Spartan discipline of West Point, were fine
soldiers; but their scope was limited. On the western frontier, far
beyond the confines of civilisation, stood a long line of forts, often
hundreds of miles apart, garrisoned by a few troops of cavalry or
companies of infantry. It is true that there was little chance of
soldierly capacity rusting in these solitary posts. From the borders of
Canada to the banks of the Rio Grande swarmed thousands of savage
warriors, ever watchful for an opportunity to pay back with bloody
interest the aggression of the whites. Murder, robbery, and massacre
followed each other in rapid succession, and the troops were allowed
few intervals of rest. But the warfare was inglorious—a mere series of
petty incidents, the punishment of a raid, or the crushing of an
isolated revolt. The scanty butcher’s bills of the so-called battles
made small appeal to the popular imagination, and the deeds of the
soldiers in the western wilderness, gallant as they might be, aroused
less interest in the States than the conflicts of the police with the
New York mob. But although pursuits which carried the adversaries half
across the continent, forays which were of longer duration than a
European war, and fights against overwhelming odds, where no quarter
was asked or given, kept the American officers constantly employed,
their
training was hardly sufficient for the needs of a great campaign. In
the running fights against Apache or Blackfoot the rules of strategy
and tactics were of small account. The soldier was constrained to
acknowledge the brave and the trapper as his teachers; and Moltke
himself, with all his lore, would have been utterly baffled by the
cunning of the Indian. Before the war of 1845–6 the strength of the
regular army was not more than 8,500 men; and the whole of this force,
with the exception of a few batteries, was scattered in small
detachments along the frontier. The troops were never brought together
in considerable bodies; and although they were well drilled and under
the strictest discipline, neither the commanders nor the staff had the
least experience of handling men in masses. Many of the infantry
officers had never drilled with a whole battalion since they left West
Point. A brigade of cavalry—that is, two or three regiments working
together as a single unit—had never been assembled; and scarcely a
single general had ever commanded a force composed of the three arms,
either on service or on parade. “During my twenty years of service on
the frontier,” said one of the most famous of the Confederate
leaders,[2] “I learned all about commanding fifty United States
dragoons and forgot everything else.”
Nevertheless, this life of enterprise and hard work, the constant
struggle against nature, for the illimitable space of the inhospitable
wilderness was a more formidable antagonist than the stealthy savage,
benefited the American soldier in more ways than one. He grew
accustomed to danger and privation. He learned to use his wits; to
adapt his means to his end; to depend on his intelligence rather than
on rule. Above all, even the most junior had experience of independent
command before the enemy. A ready assumption of responsibility and a
prompt initiative distinguished the regular officers from the very
outset of the Civil War; and these characteristics had been acquired on
the western prairies.
But the warfare of the frontier had none of the glamour
of the warfare which is waged with equal arms against an equal enemy,
of the conflict of nation against nation. To bring the foe to bay was a
matter of the utmost difficulty. A fight at close quarters was of rare
occurrence, and the most successful campaign ended in the destruction
of a cluster of dirty wigwams, or the surrender of a handful of
starving savages. In such unsatisfactory service Jackson was not called
upon to take a part. It is doubtful if he ever crossed the Mississippi.
His first experience of campaigning was to be on a field where gleams
of glory were not wanting. The ink on his commission was scarcely dry
when the artillery subaltern was ordered to join his regiment, the
First Artillery, in Mexico. The war with the Southern Republic had
blazed out on the Texan border in 1845, and the American Government had
now decided to carry it into the heart of the hostile territory. With
the cause of quarrel we have no concern. General Grant has condemned
the war as “one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a
weaker nation.”[3] Be this as it may, it is doubtful whether any of
Grant’s brother officers troubled themselves at all with the equity of
invasion. It was enough for them that the expedition meant a struggle
with a numerous enemy, armed and organised on the European model, and
with much experience of war; that it promised a campaign in a country
which was the very region of romance, possessing a lovely climate,
historic cities, and magnificent scenery. The genius of Prescott had
just disentombed from dusty archives the marvellous story of the
Spanish conquest, and the imagination of many a youthful soldier had
been already kindled by his glowing pages. To follow the path of
Cortez, to traverse the golden realms of Montezuma, to look upon the
lakes and palaces of Mexico, the most ancient city of America, to
encamp among the temples of a vanished race, and to hear, while the
fireflies flitted through the perfumed night, the music of the
black-eyed maidens of New Spain—was ever more fascinating prospect
offered to a subaltern of two-and-twenty?
The companies of the First Artillery which had been
detailed for foreign service were first transferred to Point Isabel, at
the mouth of the Rio Grande. Several engagements had already taken
place. Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, and Monterey were brilliant
American victories, won by hard fighting over superior numbers; and a
vast extent of territory had been overrun. But the Mexicans were still
unconquered. The provinces they had lost were but the fringe of the
national domains; the heart of the Republic had not yet felt the
pressure of war, and more than six hundred miles of difficult country
intervened between the invaders and the capital. The American proposals
for peace had been summarily rejected. A new President, General Santa
Anna, had been raised to power, and under his vigorous administration
the war threatened to assume a phase sufficiently embarrassing to the
United States.
Jackson had been attached to a heavy battery, and his first duty was to
transport guns and mortars to the forts which protected Point Isabel.
The prospect of immediate employment before the enemy was small.
Operations had come to a standstill. It was already apparent that a
direct advance upon the capital, through the northern provinces, was an
enterprise which would demand an army much larger than the Government
was disposed to furnish. It seemed as if the First Artillery had come
too late. Jackson was fearful that the war might come to an end before
his regiment should be sent to the front. The shy cadet had a decided
taste for fighting. “I envy you men,” he said to a comrade more
fortunate than himself,[4] “who have been in battle. How I should like
to be in _one_ battle!” His longing for action was soon gratified.
Mexico had no navy and a long sea-board. The fleet of the United States
was strong, their maritime resources ample, and to land an army on a
shorter route to the distant capital was no difficult undertaking.
General Winfield Scott, who had been sent out as commander-in-chief,
was permitted, early in 1847, to organise a combined naval and military
expedition for the reduction of Vera Cruz, the principal port of the
Republic,
whence a good road leads to Mexico. The line of advance would be thus
reduced to two hundred and sixty miles; and the natural obstacles,
though numerous enough, were far less serious than the deserts which
barred invasion from the north.
1847 For this enterprise most of the regular regiments were withdrawn
from the Rio Grande; and General Taylor, the hero of Palo Alto and
Monterey, was left with a small army, composed principally of
volunteers, to hold the conquered provinces. Scott’s troops assembled
in the first instance at Tampico. The transports, eighty in number,
having embarked their freight, were directed to rendezvous in the road
stead of Lobos, one hundred and twenty miles north of Vera Cruz; and
when the whole had assembled, the fleet set sail for Los Sacrificios,
the island where Cortez had landed in 1520, three miles south of the
city. The army of invasion, in which the First Regiment of Artillery
was included, consisted of 13,000 men.
March 9 On the morning of March 9 the sun shone propitiously on the
expedition. The surf-boats, each holding from seventy to eighty men,
were quickly arrayed in line. Then, dashing forward simultaneously,
with the strains of martial music sweeping over the smooth waters of
the bay, they neared the shore. The landing was covered by seven armed
vessels, and as the boats touched the beach the foremost men leaped