Chapter 7: Manassas.
The movement of General Johnston from Harper's Ferry to Winchester was dictated, not only by the circumstances within his own field of operations, but by his relations to the Confederate commanders on his right and left. In the northwest was General Garnett, who, with five thousand men, confronted a Federal army of four times that number, commanded by Generals McClellan and Rosecranz. Had this army been overpowered, as it was during the month of July, while General Johnston was at Harper's Ferry, the victorious forces of McClellan would have been in a condition to threaten his rear atWinchester. East of the Blue Ridge, General Beauregard was organizing an army at Manassa's Junction, to cover that approach to the capital of the confederacy, and was confronted by the strongest of all theFederal armies, under General McDowell. The fearful preponderance against Beauregard could at any time have been increased, by suddenly withdrawing General Patterson's army from the Upper Potomacto Washington, for which the vast resources of the Baltimore Railroad offered ready means; while, fromHarper's Ferry to Manassa's Junction, General Johnston must have travelled a more circuitous line; but, by placing his Headquarters at-Winchester, he tempted General Patterson to Martinsburg. The advantages for concentration were now all reversed. General Johnston possessed the interior lino, and [207] was able to move by the shorter route to the support of General Beauregard.
The traveller who left the town of Alexandria, upon the Potomac, to go southwestward into the interior of Virginia, at the distance of twenty-five miles, found the Manassas Gap Railroad dividing itself on the right hand from the main stem, and turning westward towards the peaks of the Blue Ridge, which are visible in the horizon. This road sought a passage through those mountains at Manassa's Gap, a depression which received its name from an obscure Jew merchant named Manassa, who, years ago, had fixed his home in the gorge of the ravine. From this the railroad was called the Manassa's Gap Road, and the junction with the Alexandria Railroad the Manassa's Junction. Thus the name of an insignificant Israelite has associated itself with a spot, which will never cease to be remembered, while liberty and heroism have votaries in the world. This Junction was manifestly the strategic point for the defence of Northeastern Virginia. It was at a convenient distance from the Potomac, to observe the course of that river; for the Confederate generals were too much masters of the art of war, to adopt the stupid policy of attempting to hold all the banks of a long stream, on the stationary defensive, against a superior assailant. It was manifest that the command of railroads, by reason of their capacity for the rapid transportation of troops and supplies, must ever be a decisive advantage in campaigns. The general who is compelled to move all his forces and material of war over country roads, by the tedious and expensive agency of teams, in the presence of an adversary who effects his advance on a railroad, must be at his mercy. To hold Manassa's Junction, covered two railroads, of which one led southwestward to Gordonsville, and thence, by two branches, to Charlottesv!ue, and Richmond; and the other led westward, through the Blue [208] Ridge, into the heart of the Great Valley, the granary of the State; but worse, the possession of the Manassa's Gap Railroad by the Federalists uncoveredGeneral Johnston's rear to them equally whether he were at Harper's Ferry or at Winchester, and at once required the evacuation of the whole country north of that thoroughfare.
For these reasons, the Confederate Government made every effort to hold, and the Federal, directed by the veteran skill of General Winfield Scott, to seize this point. It is situated three miles south of Bull Run(a little stream of ten yards' width, almost everywhere fordable), in a smiling champaign, diversified with gentle hills, woodlands, and farmhouses.
The water-course takes its rise in a range of highlands, called the Bull Run Mountains, fourteen miles west of the Junction, and, pursuing a southeast course, meets Broad and Cedar Runs five miles east of it, and forms, with them, the Occoquan. The hills near the stream are more lofty and precipitous than the gentle swells which heave up the plain around the Junction; and, on one side or the other, they usually descend steeply to the water, commanding the level meadows which stretch from the opposite bank. Where the meadows happened to be on the north bank, the stream offered some advantages of defence for the Confederates; but where the lowlands were on the south side, the advantage for attack was with the Federalists.
No works of any description defended this line. The Junction, three miles in its rear, was surrounded with a single circuit of common earthworks, consisting of a ditch and an embankment of a few feet in height, with platforms for a score of cannon. A journey of six miles from the Junction, northeastward by the country road, brings the traveller to the hamlet of Centreville, seated on a high ridge. Through this little village passes the paved highway from Alexandria to Warrenton, in a direction [209] almost due west; and, at a point five miles northwest of the Junction, this thoroughfare crosses the channel of Bull Run obliquely upon an arch of stone. Here a little tributary, called Young's Branch, enters the stream from the southwest, and the hills from which it flows rise to even a bolder elevation than the other heights of Bull Run. Upon those hills was fought the first Battle of Manassas.
On the 16th of July, the hosts of General McDowell left their entrenched camps along the Potomac, and drove in the advance of General Beauregard from Fairfax Court House on the 17th. The Federal army consisted of about sixty thousand men, including nearly all the United States regulars east of the Rocky Mountains, and sixty pieces of artillery. It was equipped with all that wealth and art could lavish, and armed throughout with the most improved implements of destruction.
The whole army and people of the North were inflated with the assurance of victory. The Generals had labelled the packages of supplies “for Richmond.” The fanatical volunteers had supplied their pockets with halters with which to hang the “Southern Rebels,” as soon as they were captured in battle. The Federal Congress, then in session in Washington, was adjourned, in order to enable the members to go with the army, and feast their eyes with the spectacle of the rout of the Confederates; and long lines of carriages, filled with females bedecked with their holiday attire, followed the rear of the Federal army, with baskets of champagne, and all the appliances for the feast and the dance, with which they proposed to mock the groans of the dying thousands on the evening of their victory. The newspapers of the North scouted with disdain the ideas of defeat; and declared that, in ten days at the utmost, their triumphant army must be established in Richmond, and [210] the Confederate Government drowned in the blood of its leaders.1
On the evening of July 17th, General Beauregard assembled all his forces along the line of Bull Run, from the Stone Bridge to the Union Mills, a distance of eight miles. He thus presented to the enemy a body of about twenty thousand combatants, with thirty field-pieces, of which the heaviest were twelve-pounder howitzers. These forces were divided into eight brigades. The infantry was armed, with a few exceptions, with the smooth-bore musket; and the cavalry, with fowling-pieces and sabres. On the 18th of July, the enemy, having assembled in force at Centreville, made a tentative effort with a heavy detachment of all arms, to force the line of Bull Run, at Mitchell's and McLean's fords, upon the direct road to the [211] Junction. Meeting with a bloody repulse in this essay, he occupied Friday and Saturday, the 19th and 20th, with explorations of the country, for the purpose of devising a flank movement. The desired route was discovered, leading to Sudley Church, on Bull Run, two miles above the extreme left of the Confederates at the Stone Bridge; and the morning of Sunday, July 21st, was chosen for the second attempt.
Meantime, indeed at the first appearance of the Federal advance, General Beauregard had given notice to General Johnston, that the time had arrived for him to render his aid. Accordingly, on the forenoon of Thursday the 18th, the army of the Valley, numbering about eleven thousand men, was ordered under arms at its camp, north of Winchester, and the tents were struck. No man knew the intent, save that it was supposed they were about to attack Patterson, who lay to the north of them, from Bunker Hill toSmithfield, with twenty thousand men; and joy and alacrity glowed on every face. But at midday, they were ordered to march in the opposite direction, through the town, and then to turn southeastward towards Millwood and the fords of the Shenandoah.
As they passed through the streets of Winchester, the citizens, whose hospitality the soldiers had so often enjoyed, asked, with sad and astonished faces, if they were deserting them, and handing them over to the Vandal enemy. They answered, with equal sadness, that they knew no more than others whither they were going. The 1st Virginia brigade, led by General Jackson, headed the march. The cavalry of Stuart guarded every pathway between the line of defence which Johnston had just held and the Federalists, and kept up an audacious front, as though they were about to advance upon them, supported by the whole army. The mystified commander of the Federalists stood anxiously on the defensive, and never discovered that his [212] adversary was gone until his junction with GeneralBeauregard was effected, when he sluggishly drew off his hosts towards Harper's Ferry. As soon as the troops had gone three miles from Winchester, General Johnston commanded the whole column to halt, and an order was read explaining their destination. “Our gallant army under General Beauregard,” said this order, “is now attacked by overwhelming numbers; the commanding general hopes that his troops will step out like men, and make a forced march to save the country.” At these nervous words, every countenance brightened with joy, and the army rent the air with their shouts. They hurried forward, often at a double-quick, waded the Shenandoah River, which was waist-deep to the men, ascended the Blue Ridge at Ashby's Gap, and, two hours after midnight, paused for a few hours' rest at the little village ofParis, upon the eastern slope of the mountain. Here General Jackson turned his brigade into an enclosure occupied by a beautiful grove, and the wearied men fell prostrate upon the earth without food. In a little time an officer came to Jackson, reminded him that there were no sentries posted around his bivouac, while the men were all .wrapped in sleep, and asked if some should be aroused, and a guard set. “No,” replied Jackson, “let the poor fellows sleep; I will guard the camp myself.” All the remainder of the night he paced around it, or sat upon the fence watching the slumbers of his men. An hour before daybreak, he yielded to the repeated requests of a member of his staff, and relinquished the task to him. Descending from his seat upon the fence, he rolled himself upon the leaves in a corner, and in a moment was sleeping like an infant. But, at the first streak of the dawn, he aroused his men and resumed the march.
From Winchester to Manassa's Junction the distance is about sixty miles. The forced march of thirty miles brought the army [213] to the Piedmont Station, at the eastern base of the Blue Ridge, whence they hoped to reach their destination more easily by railroad. General Jackson's infantry was placed upon trains there, on the forenoon of Friday (the 19th July), while the artillery and cavalry continued their march by the country roads.
The president of the railroad company promised that the whole army should be transported on successive trains to Manassas Junction by the morning of Saturday; but by a collision which was, with great appearance of reason, attributed to treachery, the track was obstructed, and all the remaining troops detained, without any provision for their subsistence, for two precious days. Had they been provided with food, and ordered to continue their forced march, their zeal would have brought the whole of them to the field long before the commencement of the battle. General Jackson's whole command reached the Junction at dusk on Friday evening, and were marched, hungry, weary, and dusty, to the pine-coppices near Mitchell's Ford, where they spent Saturday in refreshing themselves for the coming conflict. All of Saturday night again, their indefatigable general was afoot, busy in the distribution of food and ammunition, and in the review of his preparations.
It was no part of General Beauregard's plan to occupy the defensive attitude absolutely, along so weak and extended a line as that which he held on Bull Run. To do this, was to give the enemy leisure and opportunity to concentrate his forces, at any point which he might select, in such preponderance as inevitably to crush the portion of the Confederate army guarding that place; and then the line of the water-course, being lost at one part, must be relinquished everywhere, or the army defending it would be cut in two. The Confederate general proposed, if General Johnston's reinforcements had arrived in time, to mass [214] his troops, take the aggressive, and strike the unwieldy body of the Federal army near Centreville. But Saturday passed, and they had not arrived. Nothing remained for him but to retain his defensive attitude, and await the development of the enemy's purposes. The morning of July 21st dawned with all the beauty and softness befitting a summer Sabbath-day, and the birds greeted the rising sun with as joyous a matin hymn as though the lovely quiet had been destined for nought but the worship of the Prince of peace. But the invaders had consecrated it, with an impiety equal to their malice, to the bloody orgies of the Moloch of their ambition. The sun had not begun to exhale the dew, when, along the Warrenton turnpike, every more pleasing sound was hushed into terror by the rumbling of the wheels of a great park of artillery, and the hoarse oaths of the officers hurrying it towards the extreme left of the Confederates. Columns of dust, rising into the quiet air in several directions, disclosed the movements of heavy masses of infantry. The Federal general, leaving one strong division to guard his rear at Centreville, paraded another opposite Mitchell's Ford, and still another in front of the Stone Bridge, each accompanied with batteries of rifled cannon; while the mass of his army made a detour through an extensive forest to the west, to cross Bull Run at Sudley Church, and thus to commence the assault in the rear of the Confederate left. They proposed to amuse the right and centre by a cannonade and a pretended assault, so as to detain those troops while the flanking force marched down the south side of Bull Run, crushed the brigade which guarded the Stone Bridge, and opened a way for the division attacking it to cross, and thus beat the patriot army in detail. Had the prowess of the Yankeetroops been equal to the strategy of the chieftain, this masterly plan would have given them a great victory. The Confederate generals anticipated [215] a flank attack, but were unable to decide at first, whether it would be delivered against their extreme right or left. Their hesitation, and the friendly concealment of the forest, enabled the enemy to effect his initial plan, and throw 20,000 men across Bull Run, at and near Sudley Ford, without a show of opposition. Colonel Evans, with a weak brigade of 1100 men, held the Confederate left, and watched the Stone Bridge. A mile below, Brigadier-GeneralCocke, with three regiments, guarded the next ford. When Evans ascertained that the enemy were already threatening his rear, he left the bridge and turnpike to the guardianship of two small pieces of artillery, wheeled his gallant brigade towards the west, and advanced a mile to meet the coming foe. Here the battle began, and soon the roar of musketry, and the accelerated pounding of the great guns, told that the serious work of the day was to be upon the left.
The cruel dilemma in which the superiority of the enemy's numbers, and their successful manoeuvre, placed the Confederate commanders, can now be comprehended. If they disfurnished their centre or right, while threatened with an imminent attack in front, the direct road to victory was surrendered to the enemy. If they permitted their left to remain unassisted it was inevitably crushed, and the remainder of the Confederate army was taken in reverse. They had three brigades in reserve, of which one was not available, because of its distance in the rear of the extreme right. But the other two were those ofGenerals Bee and Jackson, and the heroism of these two was sufficient to reinstate the wavering fortunes of the day. The plan of battle which was adopted, after the designs of the enemy were fully disclosed, was worthy of the genius of Beauregard, who suggested, and of Johnston who accepted it. This was, to send the two reserve brigades which were at hand to sustain the shock upon [216] the left, and to enable that wing of the army to hold its ground for a time, while the centre and right were advanced across Bull Run, and swung around into a position parallel to the enemy's line of march, towards the Stone Bridge, with the view of assailing their rear-guard and their line of communications, atCentreville.
The movement was to begin upon the extreme right, which would have the segment of the largest circle to traverse, and to be propagated thence to the centre, so as to concentrate all the brigades belowCocke's, in front of Centreville, ih a formidable line of battle. This fine conception promised every advantage. It offered most effectual relief to the laboring left wing; for the Federal army would be sure to relax its assault, when the thunder of the Confederate battle on the north side of Bull Run and in their rear, told them that their line of communications was threatened. At the same time, it obviated the difficulty, otherwise insuperable, of employing the right and centre, now inactive, in deciding the fortunes of the day, without stripping the lower fords of Bull Run of their defences, and thus opening an unobstructed way for the enemy to the Junction. For as the Federal troops threatening those fords were pushed back, and the Confederates interposed between them and the stream, that access to theJunction was more effectually barred than before. But chiefly, this manoeuvre promised a magnificent completeness in the victory which it seemed to secure; because it placed the strength of the Confederate army in the rear of their enemies, and in a formidable position commanding their only line of retreat. He who considers the panic which their actual discomfiture caused in the Federal army, will not doubt that, with the capture of Centreville, it would have dissolved into utter rout, and been dissipated or captured.
The two generals despatched the orders for this movement to [217] the commanders of the right and centre, and then galloped to the scene of action on the left where the furious and increasing fire showed that their presence was so urgently needed. The orderlies, by whom they were sent, miscarried; andBeauregard, after listening in anxious suspense to hear his guns open upon the heights of Centreville, until the day and the battle were too far advanced for any other resort, relinquished the movement, and devoted himself to sustaining the struggle before him. The only Confederate line seriously engaged was now at right angles to Bull Run, and facing westward. The Federal forces continuing to pour across at Sudley Ford, and extending their right wing perpetually farther to the south, pressed back their opponents by their fearful superiority of numbers and artillery, and by threatening to overlap their left. The only tactics which remained to the Confederate generals were, to bring up such reinforcements as could be spared from the centre and right successively, and as their line of battle was borne back from west to east, to repair its strength, and to increase its front by placing fresh troops at its south end, until it had sufficient extent and stability to breast the avalanche of Federal troops.
The reader is now prepared for an intelligent view of the important part borne by General Jackson in the battle. At four o'clock on the morning of the 21st, he was requested by General Longstreet, whose brigade formed the right of the centre, to reinforce him with two regiments. With this he complied, until the appearance of an immediate attack was rumored. He was soon after ordered by GeneralBeauregard to support Brigadier-General Bonham at Mitchell's Ford, then to support Brigadier-GeneralCocke above, and then to take an intermediate position where he could extend aid to either of the two. About ten o'clock A. M., General Cocke requested him to move to the Stone Bridge, and assume the task of [218] guarding it, in place of Evans, who had gone westward to meet the enemy descending from Sudley. But as Jackson advanced in this direction, the firing became more audible, and taught his superior judgment where was the true point of danger. He hastened towards it, sending forward a messenger to General Bee, who had already reinforced Evans, to encourage him with the tidings, that he was coming to his support with all his force. It. was, indeed, in good time. For two hours, these two officers, with five regiments and six guns, had breasted the Federal advance, often nearly surrounded, but stubbornly fighting as they retired, inflicting and receiving heavy losses, until their commands were disheartened and almost broken. As Jackson advanced to their assistance, he met the fragments ofBee's regiment sullenly retiring, while the heavy lines of the Federalists were surging forward like mighty waves. He proposed to that general to form a new line of battle, assuming the centre for himself, whileBee rallied his men in the rear, and then resumed his place upon his right. The ground which Jacksonselected for standing at bay, was the crest of an elevated ridge running at right angles to Bull Run, between Young's Branch and another rivulet to the eastward, which flowed by a parallel course into the former stream. The northern end of this ridge overlooked the Stone Bridge. Its top and its western slopes were cleared of timber, and swept down in open fields to a valley, which divided Jackson at the moment from the advancing enemy; but the reverse side of the hill, towards the Confederate rear, was clothed with a tangled thicket of pines, impenetrable, save by two pathways, to artillery or cavalry. Before the Confederate line, were two homely cottages, with their enclosures and stables; and a country road descended obliquely across the front, at the distance of a few hundred yards, enclosed on both sides with the heavy wooden fences of the country, and [219] [220] worn, by the action of the elements, into an excavation of a yard in depth.
The soldierly eye of Jackson, at a glance, perceived that this was the spot on which to arrest the enemy's triumph. In the rear of this, the country approached more the character of a plain, and offered no marked advantages. It was true that the two little farm-houses in front of his right and left respectively, offered shelter to the enemy should they succeed in approaching his position, and the road which descended beyond gave them almost the advantage of an entrenchment; but the thickets on his right, left, and rear, protected them from the assault of any other force than skirmishers,--a vital point to one so fearfully outnumbered. The swelling ridge gave his artillery a commanding elevation, whence every approach of the enemy in front could be swept with effect, and, by placing his guns a little behind the crest, he gave the cannoneers who served them a protection from the adverse fire. The infantry supports in the rear of the batteries were still better shielded. Here, then, he began the new formation, by putting in position two guns of Stanard's battery, with the regiments which headed his column of march, and, while the remainder came to the ground designed for them, these two pieces held the enemy in check by their accurate fire. The opposing batteries were then upon the hill beyond the valley in front, which was also swarming with heavy masses of Federal infantry. Jackson recalled Imboden's battery, which had entered the action with General Bee's command, and gallantly maintained a perilous position until all its supports were routed. He brought up the other two guns of Stanard, and also thePendleton battery, so that twelve pieces, which a little after were increased to seventeen, were placed in line under his command behind the crest of the eminence. Behind this formidable array he placed the 4th and 27th Regiments, commanded [221] respectively by Colonel Preston and Lieut.-Colonel Echols, lying upon their breasts to avoid the storm of cannon-shot. On the right of the batteries, he postedHarper's 5th Virginia, and on the left the 2d Regiment commanded by Colonel Allen, and the 33d led byColonel Cummings. Both ends of the brigade, when thus disposed, penetrated the thickets on the right and left, and the 33d was wholly masked by them. On the right of Jackson's Brigade, General Beeplaced the remains of the forces which, under him and Evans, had hitherto borne the heat and burden of the day, while, on the left, a few regiments of Virginian and Carolinian troops were stationed. At this stage of affairs, Generals Johnston and Beauregard galloped to the front, inspiriting the men by their words and fearless exposure of their persons, and assisted in advancing the standards of the rallying regiments. Their appeals were answered by the fierce cheers of the Confederates; and a new battle now began, to which the former was but a skirmish. Jackson's Brigade numbered 2600 bayonets, and all the troops confronting the enemy, about 6500. The Federal commander, according to his own declaration, marshalled 20,000 of his best troops, with twenty-four guns, for the attack upon this position. Successive lines of infantry were pressed across the valley and up the ascent of the ridge; they filled the fences of the roadway with sharp-shooters, who picked off the Confederate gunners with their long-range rifles; they crowded onward, and got foothold in the buildings before their lines. The Federal artillery poured a tempest of missiles upon our batteries, while they as furiously cannonaded the advancing lines of infantry. From 11 o'clock A. M. to 3 P. M. the artillery shook the earth with its incessant roar, while the more deadly clang of the musketry rolled in peals across the field. To the spectator in the rear, the smoke and dust rolled sullenly upward beyond the dark horizon of pines, like the fumes of Tophet. Through [222] the long summer hours, Jackson's patient infantry stood the ordeal, which even the hardiest veterans dread, lying passive behind their batteries while the plunging shot and shells of the enemy ploughed frequent gaps through their lines. He rode, the presiding genius of the storm, constantly along his lines, between the artillery and the prostrate regiments, inspiring confidence wherever he came. In the early morning, while he was ordered first to one post and then to another, but always in the rear, and it seemed as if he were destined for no decisive share in the great struggle, his men noticed that his cheeks were wan and his eye haggard with anxiety and suspense. But now, all was changed, the ruddy glow had returned to his face, his whole form was instinct with life; and while his eye blazed with that fire which no other eye could meet, his countenance was clothed with a serene and assured smile.
As the grim wrestle continued, for the key of the Confederate position, the enemy perceived that they could make no impression upon Jackson's front. They therefore extended and advanced their wings. On his left, they brought a formidable battery of six guns within musket range, intending to enfilade his line, while on his right their irresistible numbers overwhelmed the shattered ranks of Bee.
It was then that this general rode up to Jackson, and with despairing bitterness exclaimed, “General, they are beating us back!” “Then,” said Jackson, calm and curt, “we will give them the bayonet.” Beeseemed to catch the inspiration of his determined will, and, galloping back to the broken fragments of his over-tasked command, exclaimed to them, “There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer. Follow me.” At this trumpet-call a few score of his men reformed their ranks. Placing himself at their head, he charged [223] the dense mass of the enemy, and in a moment fell dead, with his face to the foe. From that timeJackson's was known as the Stone-wall Brigade, a name henceforward immortal, and belonging to all the ages; for the christening was baptized in the blood of its author, and that wall of brave hearts has been, on every battle-field, a steadfast bulwark of their country.
Meantime, the battery which advanced upon Jackson's left had paid dearly for its temerity. It formed itself close upon the masked position of the 33d regiment, which, after a welldirected volley from the unerring mountain riflemen that slaughtered the larger part of the horses, dashed upon it with the bayonet, and captured every gun. But the excavated road-way was just beyond, and, from its depressed banks and zig-zag fences, the Federal infantry poured in such a fire, that it was impossible to retain the prize. The struggle for the crest of the eminence had now continued three hours, and was evidently approaching its crisis. Both of Jackson's flanks were threatened. Upon his front the enemy was pressing with overwhelming numbers; the ammunition and the strength of his cannoneers were failing together; and the red cloud of dust, in which the advancing line of the Federalists shrouded itself, was rolling perilously near to his batteries. Jackson saw that the moment had come to appeal to his supreme arbiter, the bayonet. Wheeling his guns suddenly to the rear by his right and left, he cleared away the arena before his regiments, and gave them all the signal. Riding up to the 2d regiment, he cried, “Reserve your fire till they come within fifty yards, then fire and give them the bayonet; and, when you charge, yell like furies!” Like noble hounds unleashed, his men sprang to their feet, concentrating into that moment all the pent — up energies and revenge of the hours of passive suffering, delivered one deadly volley, and dashed upon the enemy. These did not tarry to cross bayonets with them, [224] but recoiled, broke, and fled headlong from the field. The captured battery was recaptured, along with a regimental flag; the centre of the enemy's line of battle was pierced, and the area, for which they had struggled so stubbornly, cleared of their presence.
This was) for the Confederates, the critical success. For nearly four hours, Jackson had held the enemy at bay; and the precious season had been diligently improved by the commanding Generals, in bringing up their reserves. As the pressure upon their lines below was relaxed, regiments and brigades were detached, and hurried up to the scene of action. A perpetual stream of fresh men was pouring on towards the smoking pinewoods, the chasms made in the scanty host on the crest were refilled, and theConfederate line of battle extended towards the south, by new batteries and brigades. The decisive hour was saved, and saved chiefly by Jackson's skill and heroism. It is true that, even when he charged the enemy's centre, their sharpshooters found an inlet through the breaches of the line upon his right and left, and almost enveloped his rear; that his brigade was partially broken and dissipated, by the eagerness of its pursuit of the fugitive foe; and that their teeming numbers enabled these to return again and re-occupy a portion of the contested arena, and the battery which Jackson had twice taken. But the other troops which were now at hand, were formed by him, under the direction of General Johnston, and speedily regained the lost ground; a few well-directed shots from the artillery which Jackson posted farther to the rear, cleared away the encumbrances of his right flank; and the fresh regiments killed or captured the audacious skirmishers, who had insinuated themselves into the thickets behind him.
It was now four o'clock in the afternoon, and the Federalists were as yet only repulsed, and not routed. They were still [225] bringing up fresh masses, and, on the eminences fronting that from which they had just been driven, were forming an imposing line of battle, crescent-shaped, with the convex side toward the Confederates, for a final effort. But their hour had passed. The reserves from the extreme right, under Early and Holmes, were now at hand; and better still, the Manassa's Gap Railroad, cleared of its obstructions, was again pouring down the remainder of the Army of the Valley. General Kirby Smith led a body of these direct to the field, and receiving at once a dangerous wound, was replaced by Colonel Arnold Elzy, whom Beauregard styled the Blucher of his Waterloo. These troops being hurled against the enemy's right, while the victorious Confederates in the centre turned against them their own artillery, they speedily broke, and their retreat became a panic rout. Every man sought the nearest crossing ofBull Run. Cannon, small arms, standards, were deserted. The great causeway, from the Stone Bridge toCentreville, was one surging and maddened mass of men, horses, artillery, and baggage, amidst which the gay equipages of the amateur spectators of the carnage, male and female, were crushed like shells; while the Confederate cavalry scourged their flanks, and Kemper's field-battery from behind, pressed them like a Nemesis, and ploughed through the frantic medley with his bullets. In this pursuit Jacksontook no share, except to plant a battery upon a rising ground at his rear, whence he could speed the flight of the enemy with some parting shots. He retired then to seek relief for a painful wound in the hand, which he had received early in the action; while his officers collected their wearied and shattered men, and ministered to their disabled comrades.
Along a little rivulet, fringed with willows, which ran behind the hill that received the farthest cannon-shot of the enemy, many hundreds of wounded Confederates were gathered, with [226] many more of shameless stragglers, who had deserted the field under the pretext of assisting disabled comrades. During all the afternoon, the surgeons were busy here, under the grateful shade, plying their repulsive but benevolent task, and the green sward was strewn for half a mile with men writhing in every form of suffering, and the corpses of those just dead. Here Jackson found the Medical Director and the surgeons of his brigade. A rifle-ball had passed through his bridle-hand, breaking the longest finger and lacerating the next. He was seen at the time to give his hand an impatient shake, and wrap his handkerchief around it, but, during the remainder of the action, he took no further notice of it. When he came up, his friend, Dr. McGuire, said, “General, are you much hurt?” “No,” replied he; “I believe it is a trifle.” “How goes the day?” asked the other. “Oh!” exclaimed Jackson, with intense elation, “we have beat them; we have a glorious victory; my brigade made them run like dogs.” And this was the only instance in which he was ever known to give expression to these emotions, upon his most brilliant triumphs. Several surgeons now gathered around to examine him, but he refused their services, saying, “No, I can wait; my wound is a trifle; attend first to these poor fellows.” And he persisted, against their earnest entreaties, in compelling them to dress the hurts of all the seriously wounded belonging to their charge, while he sat by upon the grass holding up his bloody hand, evidently suffering acute pain, but with a quiet smile on his face. After the common soldiers were attended to, he submitted to their examination, and, as they passed judgment upon the nature of the wound, he looked intently from one speaker to another, while all, except their chief, concurred in declaring that one finger at least must be removed immediately. Turning to him, he said, “Dr. McGuire, what is your opinion?” [227] He answered, “General, if we attempt to save the finger, the cure will be more painful; but if this were my hand, I should make the experiment.” His only reply was to lay the mangled hand in Dr. McGuire's, with a calm and decisive motion, saying, “Doctor, then do you dress it.” The effort was a successful, though a tedious one, and his hand was restored, after a time, nearly to its original shape and soundness.
While he was at this place, the President of the Confederate States, with a brilliant staff, galloped by towards the battle-field, and called upon the idlers to return with him to the assistance of their comrades.General Jackson arose, waved his cap, and exhorted the men to give him a lusty cheer, and to respond with alacrity to his orders. The men who had shed their blood for the cause were much more hearty in their greeting than the stragglers. Jackson, describing the manifest rout of the enemy, remarked to the physicians, that he believed “with 10,000 fresh men he could go into the city of Washington.”
The actual results of this victory were the capture of twentyeight cannon, with several thousands of muskets, and a vast store of ammunition, equipments, and clothing; a number of armywagons and ambulances, and a thousand or two of prisoners of war. The State was delivered from the immediate danger of invasion, and, while the Federal army and capital, with the rabble of the nation, were thrown into a panic as abject as their previous boasting had been arrogant, the Confederate people and armies received the news of their deliverance with an unwonted quiet, made up of devout gratitude to God, and solemn enthusiasm. No bells were rung in Richmond, no bonfires lighted, no popular demonstrations made. From the solemn acts of religious thanksgiving, the people turned at once to eager ministrations to the wounded heroes, who had purchased the victory with their blood. For these, the preparations made by the Confederate [228] Government were crude and scanty, but the generosity of the people amply supplemented the lack of public service. The commanding generals reported, on the Confederate side, a loss of 369 killed on the field, and 1483 wounded. The Federal commander never confessed his real loss, covering up the number of his killed in a vague statement of the missing; but the greater masses engaged on his side, the superior accuracy of the Confederate fire, and the appearance of the field of battle, proved that the enemy's killed and wounded must have been twice or thrice as numerous as ours.
The portion of the Confederate loss borne by Jackson's brigade was the best evidence of the character of their resistance, and of its importance to the general result. Out of less than 2700 men present it lost 112 killed and 393 wounded. The object of this narrative has been to give such a sketch of the whole battle, as to make the part borne by the Stonewall Brigade and its leader intelligible, and to give fuller details of the conduct of the general whose life is the subject of this work. The reader will not infer from this that all the stubborn and useful fighting was done by Jackson and his command. Other officers and other brigades displayed equal heroism, and contributed essentially to the final result. But the divine Providence which he delighted so much to recognize assigned to him the maintenance of the critical post, during the critical hours. Had the enemy overpowered his brigade and occupied the eminence, which was the key of the Confederate position, or had they not been held at bay until forces could be assembled to cope with them, no other stand could have been made, save within the entrenchments around the Junction, where the lack of water and the confined limits would speedily have made surrender inevitable. In this sense Jackson may be said to have won the first Battle of Manassas. [229]
But no narrative of the event will be so full of interest to the reader as the disclosure of his own secret emotions in view of the battle. To his wife he wrote, July 22d:--
“Yesterday we fought a great battle, and gained a great victory, for which all the glory is due to God alone. Though under a heavy fire for several continuous hours, I only received one wound, the breaking of the largest finger of the left hand, but the doctor says the finger can be saved. My horse was wounded, but not killed. My coat got an ugly wound near the hip. My preservation was entirely due, as was the glorious victory, to our God, to whom be all the glory, honor, and praise. Whilst great credit is due to other parts of our gallant army, God made my brigade more instrumental than any other in repulsing the main attack. This is for your own information only; . . . say nothing about. it. Let another speak praise, not myself.”
To complete this view of his magnanimous and modest temper, two other letters will be anticipated. In reply to some expression of impatience at the silence of rumor concerning his valuable services, while so many others were vaunting their exploits in the newspapers, he wrote, July 29th:--
“You must not be concerned at seeing other parts of the army lauded, and my brigade not mentioned. ‘Truth is powerful, and will prevail.’ When the reports are published, if not before, I expect to see justice done to this noble body of patriots.”
“August 5th.--You think that the papers ought to say more about me. My brigade is not a brigade of newspaper correspondents. I know that the 1st Brigade was the first to meet and pass our retreating forces, to push on with no other aid than the smiles of God, to boldly take its position with the artillery that was under my command, to arrest the victorious foe in his [230] onward progress, to hold him in check until reinforcements arrived, and, finally, to charge bayonets, and, thus advancing, pierce the enemy's centre. I am well satisfied with what it did, and so are my Generals, Johnston and Beauregard. ... I am thankful to our ever kind heavenly Father, that He makes me content to await His own good time and pleasure for commendation, knowing that all things work together for my good. Never distrust our God, who doeth all things well. In due time He will make manifest all His pleasure, which is all His people should ever desire. If my brigade can always play as important and useful a part as in the last battle, I shall always be very grateful, I trust.”
The pursuit of the enemy was not continued beyond Centreville, and this was the first error which made the laurels of the Confederate army, so fair to the eye, barren of substantial fruit. It was accounted for, in part, by the paucity of the cavalry; but this excuse was no justification, because the cavalry in hand, of which only two companies had been engaged in the actual combat, was not pertinaciously pressed after the fugitives, but paused even before it met with any solid resistance from them. Another cause of the interrupted pursuit was a rumor brought at sunset to the commanding generals, by some alarmed scout, who had seen a bewildered picquet of the enemy wandering through the country,--that a powerful Federal force was about to attack the lines of Bull Run near the Union Mills, where they were now denuded of defenders. This caused them to recall the fresher regiments from the chase, and send them upon a forced march of seven or eight miles, by night, to meet an imaginary enemy, and to return next morning to the field of battle. It would have been better had those regiments marched an equivalent fourteen miles upon the track of the fugitives. It should have been remembered also, that, even if full credit were given [231] to the rumor of a fresh force advancing from the east, the masses which GeneralMcDowell had that day displayed on the left and front, all of which were now discomfited, were too large to permit the supposition that this detachment could be itself a formidable array. But, if it were, obviously enough its proposed attack was intended to be only in concert with the one already made byMcDowell, so that the most speedy and certain way to repel it was to precipitate the rout of the latter. The true policy of the Confederate generals should therefore have been to leave this supposed assault to take care of itself, for the moment, and to hurry every man after the beaten enemy.
The whole army and country naturally hoped, that so splendid a victory would not be allowed to pass, without prompt and energetic efforts to gather in all the fruits. It was expected that the Confederatecommanders would at least pursue the enemy to the gates of their entrenchments before Alexandria andWashington; and it was hoped that it might not be impracticable, in the agony of their confusion, to recover the Virginian city, to conquer the hostile capital, with its immense spoils, and to emancipate oppressed Maryland, by one happy blow. The toiling army, which had marched and fought along the hills of Bull Run through the long July day, demanded, with enthusiasm, to be led after the flying foe, and declared that they would march the soles off their feet in so glorious an errand without a murmur. But more than this; the morning after the battle saw an aggregate of 10,000 fresh men, composed of the remainder of the Army of the Valley, who had at length reached the scene, and of reinforcements fromRichmond, arrive within the entrenchments at Manassa's Junction, who were burning with enthusiasm, and expected nothing else than to be led against the enemy at once. In a few days, the patriotic citizens of Alexandria sent authentic intelligence of the condition [232] of the beaten rabble there, and inWashington, which a true military sagacity would have anticipated, as Jackson did, without actual testimony. When Bee and Evans were repulsed in the forenoon, the Federalists had telegraphed toWashington that the “rebels” were beaten in the open field; that the Grand Army was marching triumphantly upon the Junction; and that victory was assured. This premature boast the vain confidence of the Federals accepted as sufficient, and they spent the remainder of the Sabbath-day in exultation; but the dawn of Monday revealed to the citizens of Alexandria a different story. Already the streets were full of a miserable, jaded, and unarmed rabble, whose fears had given them wings to flee the thirty miles, within the short summer night. They sat cowed, upon the curbstones and door-steps, and begged the citizens, over whom they had so lately boasted, in pitiful tones, for a morsel of bread and a few rags to bind up their wounds. As the morning advanced, the stream increased into a torrent. They had run until their laboring breath compelled them to fall into a languid walk, and yet, at every sound in the rear, they burst into fresh speed. Stalwart men were seen to throw themselves upon the pavement, upon reaching the town, and give vent to their sense of relief, in floods of tears. To the questions of the citizens, some replied that Beauregard, with his bloody horsemen, was just beyond the last hill; while some were too frightened and eager to pause for any answer. For days, there was neither organization nor obedience, nor thought of resistance, on the south side of the Potomac; and the confused crowd heeded only two wants, food for their present hunger, and means to cross the river, that they might at once desert, and return to their homes. The steam ferry-boats were crowded nearly to sinking, until the authorities of Washington arrested their journeys altogether. Sentry or picket-guard there was none [233] on the front next the enemy; the whole energies of the military authorities were directed to guarding the other side, to prevent their brave soldiers from running away. Nor was the capital city in a more hopeful condition. Confusion and uncertainty reigned there; nothing was needed but a few cannon-shots upon the southern bank, to turn their alarm also into a panic rout.
Now, then, said the more reflecting, was the time for vigorous audacity. Now, a Napoleonic genius, were he present, would make this victory another Jena, in its splendid fruits; and, before the enemy recovered from his staggering blow, would concentrate, into one effort, the labors and successes of a whole campaign. He would fiercely press upon the disorganized masses; he would thunder at the gates of Washington; and, replenishing his exhausted equipments with the mighty spoils, would rush blazing, like the lightning that shineth from the one part under heaven to the other, through the affrighted North, until the usurper was crippled, humbled, and compelled to relinquish his iniquitous designs. Especially was this boldness the true prudence now, because of the revolutionary nature of the war. Such struggles are so much moral convulsions, that military success is usually the prize of that party which knows how to impress, and mould the vacillating mind of the public, by its initial policy. Nowhere else is it more true, that the use made of the first tide of fortune decides the whole issue. In the North, the coercive policy of the Lincoln Government was an acknowledged innovation upon the established doctrines of theRepublic. Up to that year, all schools of politicians had condemned it as wicked and absurd. The rage and pride of the Black Republicans had impelled them to adopt it, but it was a confessed novelty; and with all their heat, there was no solid assurance of its success. The triumphs of the patriots against [234] it would have taught multitudes to reconsider the rash and bloody experiment, and to return, though with reluctance, to the creed which founded the Union on the consent of the sovereign States. But especially were decisive results at the outset important to determine the wavering judgments of Maryland,Kentucky, and Missouri. The occupation of Washington would have transferred the former of these States from the Northern to the Southern side, and have united the divided allegiance of the other two; and such a change in the balance of strength, would have decided the whole subsequent success, had the North thereafter endeavored to continue the struggle.
With these views of the campaign, General Jackson earnestly concurred. His sense of official propriety sealed his lips; and, when the more impatient spirits inquired, day after day, why they were not led after the enemy, his only answer was to say, “That is the affair of the commanding Generals.” But to his confidential friends he afterwards declared, when no longer under the orders of those officers, that their inaction was a deplorable blunder; and this opinion he was subsequently accustomed to assert, with a warmth and emphasis unusual in his guarded manner. He was then compelled to sit silent, and see the noble army, with its enthusiastic recruits, withering away in inaction on the plains of Bull Run, now doubly pestilential from the miasma of the August heats, and the stench of the battle-field, under camp-fevers tenfold more fatal than all the bullets of the enemy. Regiments dwindled, under the scourge, to skeletons; and the rude, temporary hospitals acquired trains of graves, far more numerous and extended than those upon the hills around the Stone Bridge. The enemy recovered from their terror, which was replaced, again, by a mocking contempt for the Government, which could be capable of so impotent a policy. A new commander was installed by them, and the gigantic North [235] set itself, with energies only quickened by its shame, revenge, and consciousness of danger just escaped, to equip more enormous fleets and armies, and to carry the scourge of war to every coast and river of the South.Jackson had the mind to comprehend the inestimable value of the opportunity thus wasted, and the heart to feel a grief commensurate with the evils it was destined to cost his country. He knew that when God's providence gives either to a man or a people rare occasion for securing the blessing, it is not for nought; and His goodness cannot be slighted or misunderstood with impunity. The question may be asked, with scarcely less emphasis in the affairs of providence than in those of redemption, “How can ye escape, who neglect so great salvation?” He foresaw that the country would be called to pay the penalty of this mistake in future arduous and protracted struggles. But his lips were silent. He busied himself as diligently, and, to outward appearance, as cheerfully, in the duties assigned to him, as though the policy of the campaign had been his own.
Those who justified the inactive policy, affected, indeed, to treat the hope that the Confederate forces might now occupy Washington, as fanciful. They urged that the utter disorganization of the Yankee army could not be immediately known, and was not naturally to be inferred from losses so moderate as theirs; that the dreary rain which succeeded the battle hindered immediate pursuit, and that, to be effective, the pursuit of so powerful a foe must be prompt; that the Commissary's warehouse was empty, and the troops must have marched without rations; that the army, after its large increase, had not adequate transportation to enable it to move; and that, if it went towards Washington, it could expect nothing else than to meet the unbroken army of General Patterson, which, it was well known, was effecting a junction with that of McDowell. The reply to [236] these pleas is, that the military intuitions of Jacksontold him, before the battle was ended, what the rout and disorganization of the enemy would be. The wearied Confederate soldiers did not find the rain any the less dreary on the next day, because they were either countermarched up and down Bull Run, or left to crouch on the battle-field in fence-corners, without tents, instead of engaging in the inspiring pursuit of the enemy; and it would have been well to begin teaching them, even for no other object, the lesson they have since so abundantly learned, of marching and fighting in all weathers. Rations were not created by sitting still, and the appropriate supply for the victorious army was that which was in the magazines of their enemies. The country was then teeming with supplies; herds of bullocks were feeding in the pastures around Centreville, and the barns of the farmers were loaded with grain, which was denied its usual outlet to Washington and Baltimore. A march of twenty-five miles could surely have been accomplished without baggage or rations, especially when the short effort might lead them to the spoils of a wealthy capital. If the arrival ofGeneral Patterson's army was suspected, it was not known. At the most, it was only the army which, before it was appalled by disaster, had so often recoiled before the 11,000 of General Johnston. How then could it meet 40,000 Confederates flushed with victory? But in truth, at the hour Jackson was piercing the centre of McDowell, with a fatal thrust, at Manassas, Patterson was haranguing his mutinous troops at Charleston, within a few miles of the lines in which Johnston had left him the Thursday before; and the Confederate forces would have reached Washington before him. The recital of these numerous obstacles, which were surmised (and with probable reason) to exist, but which the event showed did not exist, teaches what was the true fault of the Southern commanders. They are not to be condemned by history because they [237] did not actually take Washington, but because they did not try. Their inexcusable error was, that they were not adventurous enough to explore the extent of their own good fortune. It is ever the duty of a leader of armies to hope that obstacles may be superable, unless he has proved them insuperable. It is early enough for him to arrest his career, when he has found them actual, and not merely possible.
The true solution of the enigma, how men, capable of winning such a victory, could prove so incompetent to improve it, is probably to be found in their mistrust of their own irregular soldiery. They were officers of the regular army of the United States, accustomed to prize its professional accuracy, and to depreciate the uninstructed militia, and they were unable to understand the capacities of the peculiar force which they handled. This was an army of volunteers, who had been drilled, at most, for eight or twelve weeks, and were led by company-officers who had never seen a battle, nor heard the whistling of a bullet. Subordination was slight, and the feeble bond of order which they had acquired, although it sufficed to give them on the parade-ground the semblance of a gallant army, was not as yet habitual enough to endure the strain of battle. Under the pressure of either success or repulse, it was dissolved, and regiments reverted almost into mobs. This body was pervaded by a large infusion of personal heroism, and, even after its exact order was lost, the major part of its men continued to fight with admirable gallantry; but their impulse was personal, and not common. In their tactics,--intelligence, patriotism, and chivalry supplied the place of methodical concert and mutual dependence. In the melee, each man found opportunity to do what was right in his own eyes, and, while the larger number, the brave men, fought on in their irregular fashion, and won the day, the remainder of poltroons straggled shamefully to the rear. [238] Hence, doubtless, these great professional soldiers were horrified when they saw their army so disorganized by its own success. They shuddered when they asked themselves what would have been its condition in defeat? They felt as though a victory with such an army was only a lucky accident; and that their wisdom would be to “let well enough alone,” and tempt the Fates no more with so uncertain an instrument.
But Jackson was more than the professional soldier. Leaving the army, he had become the citizen, the philosophic scholar, the statesman. He knew both the vices and virtues of this citizen-soldiery. He knew that, penetrated by such a moral sentiment as animated the larger number, it would be even less disorganized by defeat than by victory. While he reprobated the base stream of stragglers, and was as anxious as any to superinduce upon the good men all the advantages of a thorough discipline, in addition to a generous morale, he knew how to take those thin, irregular lines, decimated by the laggards, and so to launch them against the enemy as to pluck a brilliant triumph from the midst of numbers. His hardy and sober judgment reminded him that, if battle had loosened the bonds of order in our ranks, it had destroyed them in those of our enemies; for their army also was a militia, composed, not of gallant gentlemen and their reputable dependants, but of unwarlike mechanics. He foresaw that, while the thorough drill would benefit our gallant soldiery, relatively it would advance the mercenary hordes of the enemy yet more. The more nearly both were brought to the mechanical perfections of a regular army, the more would the difference between them be narrowed. And, therefore, notwithstanding the imperfections of the Confederate army, the present was its opportunity, and its earliest blows would be successful at least cost to it.
A few days after the battle of Manassas, General Jackson [239] moved his brigade to a pleasant woodland, a mile in advance of Centreville. There he busied himself in perfecting the discipline of the troops. After a time the Confederate generals, whose forces had grown to about 60,000 men, pushed their lines forward to Munson's and Mason's Hills, within sight of the Federal capital, and erected slight earthworks upon these eminences. Their object was to tempt General McClellan to an assault. But this leader was too well taught by the disasters of Bull Run to risk a general action. He occupied the attention of the Confederates with skirmishes of pickets and occasional feints, which required the advance of heavy supports to the front. In these alarms the 1st Brigade was always conspicuous for the promptitude with which it appeared at the threatened point, and for its martial bearing. This season of comparative quiet was largely employed by General Jackson in religious labors for the good of his command. His correspondence showed the same humility and preference for the quiet enjoyments of home which characterized him before he became famous.
August 22d, he wrote to his wife :--“Don't put any faith in (the assertion) there will be no more fighting till October. It may not be till then; and God grant that, if consistent with His glory, it may never be. Sure, I desire no more, if our country's independence can be secured without it. As I said before leaving you, so say I now, that if I fight for my country it is from a sense of duty, a hope that, through the blessing of Providence, I may be enabled to serve her, and not merely because I prefer the strife of battle to the peaceful enjoyments of home.”
September 24th, he says:--“This is a beautiful and lovely morning, beautiful emblem of the morning of eternity in heaven. I greatly enjoy it, after our cold, chilly weather, which has made me feel doubtful of my capacity, humanly speaking, to endure the campaign, should we remain longer in tents. But God, our [240] God, will do, and does all things well, and if it is His pleasure that I should remain in the field, He will give me the ability to endure all its fatigues.”
This hope was fully realized. The life in the open air proved a cordial to his feeble constitution. Every appearance of the scholastic languor vanished from his face, his eye grew bright, and its vision, so long enfeebled, was so fully restored that thenceforward it endured, by night and by day, all the labors of his burdensome correspondence, and the business of his command. His cheek grew ruddy and his frame expanded, so that to his former acquaintances he appeared a new man.
The period is now reached when it is necessary to narrate the views and efforts of General Jackson, in reference to his native region, Northwestern Virginia. The communications of all the region between theOhio River and the Alleghany Mountains, are much more easy with the States of the Northwest than with the remainder of Virginia. A large portion of the population was, moreover, from this cause, disaffected. The type of sentiment and manners prevailing there, was rather that of Ohio than of Virginia. To the military invasions of the enemy it lay completely open, while direct access from the central parts of the Confederacy could only be had by a tedious journey over mountain roads. The western border is washed by the Ohio River, which floats the mammoth steamboats of Pittsburg and Cincinnati, save during the summer-heats. The Monongahela, a navigable stream, pierces its northern boundary. The district is embraced between the most populous and fanatical parts of the States of Ohio andPennsylvania. Two railroads from the Ohio eastward, uniting at Grafton, enabled the Federalists to pour their troops and their munitions of war, with rapidity, into the heart of the country. The Confederate authorities, on the contrary, had neither navigable river nor [241] railroad by which to transport their troops, or to subsist them there, but could only effect this by a long wagon-road crossing numerous mountain-ridges from Staunton, upon the Central Virginia Railroad. It was manifest, therefore, that theGovernment had little prospect of being able to cope with the Federalists for the occupation of the country. The traitorous partisans of the region, intimidating the loyal people by the bayonets of the invaders, set up a usurping government, and adhered to the Lincoln dynasty. But the same difficulties of transportation would evidently press the enemy, so soon as he, not content with the occupation ofNorthwestern Virginia, sought to invade the central parts of the State; for, then, it would be the Federalarmy which would have the long and laborious line of communication to sustain, and the Confederateforce would be brought near its railroad and its supplies. The obvious military policy for Virginia, therefore, was to make no attempt to hold the Northwest, in the face of such difficulties; but to tempt the enemy to involve himself in the arduous mountain-roads, and to await his enfeebled attacks on the nearer side of the wilderness, where the means of more rapid concentration would give the power to crush him. But this policy was forbidden by a generous pride, and an unwillingness to leave a loyal population exposed, even for a time, to the oppressions of a clique of traitors, backed by invaders. A small army was sent thither, under General Garnett, through vast difficulties. It numbered about 5000 men, and, as might have been expected, found itself confronted by a force of fourfold numbers and resources, under General McClellan. On the 11th of July, the little army, indiscreetly divided into two detachments, was assailed at Rich Mountain. Both parts were compelled to retreat across the Alleghanies with the loss of their baggage and a number of prisoners, and, at the skirmish at Cannock's Ford, their unfortunate leader was killed. It was this [242] easy triumph which procured for GeneralMcClellan, from the Yankee people, the title of “The young Napoleon,” the most complete misnomer by which the rising fortunes of a young aspirant were ever caricatured.
General Jackson held, that there was one plan of campaign by which the difficulty of contesting this country with the enemy might probably be solved, and, during the first year of the war, he was eager to be engaged in it. His scheme embraced two parts. One was, the sending of a commander into the northwest, to rally as many of the population as possible to the Confederate cause, and thus find a large part of the men and materials for sustaining the contest, in the country itself. The leader, therefore, must be one who was known to the people, and possessed their confidence, and who knew how to conciliate their peculiar temper. He believed that nearly all the more respectable people of that region were loyal to their State and duty; and, in this, events sustained his opinion; for, after a year's experiment, the most which the usurping Government could assert was, that among the forty counties which they claimed for their pretended State, they had dared to collect revenues in eleven only. And it has been shown that, with a few exceptions, the county majorities, polled in their favor at elections, were composed of the intrusive votes of the soldiers encamped there, to intimidate the people; while the true voters, not being permitted to speak their real wishes, almost unanimously stayed at home.
The other part of General Jackson's plan was, to retain, by force of arms, that section of the great Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which lies on the territory of Virginia, from Harper's Ferry westward, and to employ it as the line of operations for the major force employed in the northwest: For, he argued, this road being the great military and commercial thoroughfare [243] connecting the enemy's capital with theWest, whence he drew so many of his men and supplies, it was at all times a vital matter to us to deprive him of it. Next, its use as a line of operations would cover, from the ravages of the enemy, a most important part of central and northern Virginia, the counties of the lower Valley, and of the south branch of the Potomac-a magnificent region teeming with precious resources, and inhabited, in the main, by a gallant and loyal people. But the chief reason for maintaining this line was, that it was the only one by which it was practicable for us to move men and materials in sufficient masses, and with speed enough, to cope with the Federalists, entering the contested district by two navigable rivers and two railroads. A strong force, he said, should be pushed along the railroad, so far west as to place itself in the rear of the Federal army, operating against the little detachment which we so painfully sustained at the western side of the mountains. This would compel the retreat of our enemies, and make their capture probable. The country, being thus cleared of their presence, and reassured against their return by the occupation of the great railroad, would, in consequence, revert to its proper allegiance, and by its resources make this part of the war nearly selfsustaining. A reference to the map will show that this scheme was in appearance liable to a capital objection: The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, thus made the line of operations for the Confederate forces, would be parallel to the frontier of Pennsylvania, which the enemy might at once make the base of their operations against us. But such an arrangement is likely to be fatal to the party pursuing the aggressive (in this case the Confederates), because their communications are ever within the reach of their enemy's blows. Here, however, the objection was more seeming than real. The true base from which the Federalists must have operated against this line of advance, [244] was not the Pennsylvanian frontier, but the Central Pennsylvania Railroad, parallel thereto, and a hundred miles distant. Now, to operate from that base against the Confederate line of advance, they would have had not railroads, but only the country roads of a mountainous region. Thus the superior mobility of our forces along their line of operations would have compensated, in great measure, for their exposure to the enemy's advance across it.
From the beginning of the war, General Jackson was anxious to be sent to the Northwest. It was the land of his birth and his kindred. The oppressions of the enemy and the traitorous defection of a part of its people, filled him with grief and indignation. The patriots who fled thence before the Federal bayonets and domestic informers, looked to him as their natural avenger. They knew that he was the pride of his numerous race — everywhere stanch in its loyalty to Virginia, and wielding the wealth and influence of the district; and that they would have secured for him a popular support which no other commander could have received. Hence, when General Jackson was placed at the head of the 1st Brigade, in June, he expressed to his wife an earnest hope that the Government would despatch it to the Northwest, and the modest belief, that he could march with it to the Ohio River. He declared that he was willing to serve in any capacity under General Garnett, then commanding there. After that unfortunate commander was killed, and his army expelled from the country, the Confederate Government sent out from Staunton a much more powerful expedition, under General Robert E. Lee. This commander endeavored to shorten the arduous line of communication over the mountain roads, by leaving the Central Virginia Railroad, at a point forty miles west of Staunton, and penetrating the northwest through the counties of Bath and Pochahontas at the Valley Mountain. [245] But the intrinsic difficulties of his line, aggravated by a season of unusual rains, robbed him of solid success. From his great reputation, and the fine force entrusted to him, brilliant results were expected. In this hope General Jackson concurred. He wrote, August 15th, to his wife:--“General Lee has recently gone west, and I hope that we will soon hear thatour God has again crowned our arms with victory. . .. If General Lee remains in the Northwest, I would like to go there and give my feeble aid, as an humble instrument in the hand of Providence, in retrieving the down-trodden loyalty of that part of my native State. But I desire to be wherever those over me may decide, and I am content to be here (Manassas). The success of my cause is the earthly object near my heart, and, if I know myself, all that I am and have is at the service of my country.”
To his friend, Colonel Bennet, first auditor of the Commonwealth, he wrote, August 27th:--
“My hopes for our section of the State have greatly brightened since General Lee has gone there. Something brilliant may be expected in that region. Should you ever have occasion to ask for a brigade from this army for the Northwest, I hope that mine will be the one selected. This of course is confidential, as it is my duty to serve wherever I may be placed, and I desire to be always where most needed. But it is natural for one's affections to turn to the home of his boyhood and family.” In a few weeks, the unavoidable obstacles surrounding General Lee's line of operations disclosed the truth, that, although he might check the enemy, he could do nothing aggressive. The second failure of the campaign, in hands so able, only demonstrated more fully than before that General Jackson's was the proper conception. He returned therefore to this with redoubled strength of conviction, and in the month of September endeavored, through every appropriate channel, to infuse his [246] ideas into the rulers of the country. While he did this, he strictly charged his friends to make no reference to his name or authority, both because he would not be suspected of craving any power or distinction in a new field of enterprise, and because his punctilious subordination forbade his even seeming to criticise his military superiors. His plans were submitted to some civilians, that, as the authorized counsellors of theGovernment, they might recommend them for adoption if approved by their judgment. He urged that, inasmuch as six precious weeks had been wasted since the victory at Manassas, and the enemy had been allowed to recover from his panic so far as to render an attack upon Washington city hazardous, the Army of the Valley, under General Johnston, should be again detached and sent westward; thatGeneral Beauregard should be left near Manassas with his corps, to hold the enemy in check, supported, if need be, by General Lee, who, by falling back to the Central Railroad, could reinforce him in a few days; that General Johnston meantime should re-occupy the lower Valley about Winchester,Harper's Ferry, and Martinsburg, and, making it his base, push his powerful corps, by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, direct to the Ohio River; and that thence he should cut off the retreat of GeneralRosecranz and his whole force, whom General Lee had drawn far eastward into the gorges of the Alleghanies. The capture of the larger part of the Federal army, and the deliverance of the country, he thought, could hardly fail to reward the prompt execution of this project. But it was not brought to the test of experiment. The fine army of North Virginia expended the remainder of the year in inactivity, neither attempting nor accomplishing any.-thing. General Lee was held in check, not by the enemy, but by the mud, and the Northwest remained in the clutches of the oppressor. Whether General Jacksonwould have succeeded in [247] that difficult region, or whether Providence was kind to him and his country in crossing his desires, and preserving him for future triumphs in more important fields, must remain undecided.
On the 7th of October, 1861, the Minister of War rewarded General Jackson's services at Manassaswith promotion to the rank of Major-General in the Provisional Army. The spirit in which this new honor was received, is displayed in the following letter to his wife:--
October 14th, 1861.--It gives my heart an additional gratification to read a letter that hasn't travelled on our holy Sabbath. I am very thankful to that good God who withholds no good thing from me (though I am so utterly unworthy and so ungrateful), for making me a major-general of the provisional army of the Confederate States. The commission dates from October 7th.
What I need is a more grateful heart to the “ Giver of every good and perfect gift.” I have great reason to be thankful to our God for all His mercies which He has bestowed, and continues to shower upon me. Our hearts should overflow with gratitude to that God who has blest us so abundantly and overabundantly. O that my life could be more devoted to magnifying His holy name!
Soon after came an order assigning him, under General Johnston, to the Valley District, a military jurisdiction embracing all the country between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghany Mountains. The force assigned him would be still under the general supervision of the Commander-in-Chief; yet it constituted a separate, and, to a great degree, an independent command. When this appointment reached him, his venerable pastor was present, upon that visit to his soldiery which has been mentioned. He handed. him the order, and, when he had read it, said with a simplicity and candor which could not be mistaken: “Such a [248] degree of public confidence and respect as puts it in one's power to serve his country, should be accepted and prized; but, apart from that, promotion among men is only a temptation and a trouble. Had this communication not come as an order, I should instantly have declined it, and continued in command of my brave old Brigade.”
To his wife he wrote thus:--
“ Nov. 4th, 1861.--I have received orders to proceed to Winchester. My trust is in God for the defence of that country. I shall have great labor to perform, but through the blessing of an ever-kind heavenly Father, I trust that He will enable me and other instrumentalities to accomplish it. I trust that you feel more gratitude to God than pride, or elation At my promotion. Continue to pray for me, that I may live to glorify God more and more by serving Him and our country.”
His brigade was ordered to remain with the Army of the Potomac, and it became necessary for him to part from his comradesin-arms. On the day fixed for beginning his journey to his new scene of labor, he directed the regiments to be paraded in arms, and rode to their front with his staff. No cheer arose, like those which usually greeted him, but every face was sad. Ranging his eye along their ranks, as though to say an individual farewell to each familiar face, he addressed them thus: “I am not here to make a speech, but simply to say farewell. I first met you at Harper's Ferry in the commencement of this war, and I cannot take leave of you without giving expression to my admiration of your conduct from that day to this, whether on the march, in the bivouac, or the tented field; or on the bloody plains of Manassas, where you gained the well-deserved reputation of having decided the fate of the battle. Throughout the broad extent of country over which you have marched, by your respect for the rights and the property of citizens, you [249] have shown that you were soldiers, not only to defend, but able and willing both to defend and protect. You have already gained a brilliant and deservedly high reputation, throughout the army of the whole Confederacy, and I trust, in the future, by your deeds on the field, and by the assistance of the same kind Providence who has heretofore favored our cause, you will gain more victories, and add additional lustre to the reputation you now enjoy. You have already gained a proud position in the future history of this, our second War of Independence. I shall look with great anxiety to your future movements; and I trust, whenever I shall hear of the First Brigade on the field of battle, it will be of still nobler deeds achieved, and higher reputation won.”
Then pausing, as though unable to leave his comrades-in-arms without some warmer and less official words, he threw the rein upon the neck of his horse, and, extending his arms, exclaimed,--
“ In the army of the Shenandoah you were the First Brigade; in the army of the Potomac you were the First Brigade; in the Second Corps of the army you are the First Brigade; you are the First Brigade in the affections of your general; and I hope, by your future deeds and bearing, you will be handed down to posterity as the First Brigade in this our second War of Independence. Farewell.”
Thus saying, he waved his hand, wheeled, and left the ground at a gallop, followed by a shout in which his brave men poured out their whole hearts. He repaired immediately to Winchester, and entered upon his duties as General commanding in the Valley district.
This chapter will be closed with four passages from his correspondence, which show how thoroughly public spirit and disinterestedness ruled in his heart. The new and enlarged sphere to which he was promoted called for a re-arrangement of his [250] staff. Application was made to him by dear friends, to make this the occasion of advancing persons near to his affections, as well as to theirs. His reply was the following:
My desire, under the direction and blessing of our heavenly Father, is to get a staff specially qualified for their specific duties, and that will, under the blessing of the Most High, render the greatest possible amount of service to their country.
And his personal friends were not appointed. To another kinsman he replied, by stating that qualification must be, with him, in every case, the first requisite; and inasmuch as the prosperity of the service, and even the fate of a battle, might depend on the fitness of a staff-officer for his post, he could not gratify personal partialities at his country's expense. The habits into which he made most anxious inquiry, wereearly rising and industry; and, upon the whole subject of seeking promotion, his views were expressed with characteristic wisdom and manliness to another friend thus:--
“ Your letter, and also that of my much esteemed friend, Hon. Mr.--in behalf of Mr.-- , reached me to-day; and I hasten to reply, that I have no place to which, at present, I can properly assign him. I knew Mr.--personally, and was favorably impressed by him. But if a person desires office in these times, the best thing for him to do is at once to pitch into service somewhere, and work with such energy, zeal, and success, as to impress those around him with the conviction that such are his merits, he must be advanced, or the interest of the public service must suffer. If Mr.-- should mention the subject to you again, I think that you might not only do him, but the country, good service, by reading this part of my letter to him. My desire is, to make merit the basis of my recommendations and selections.” [251]
The next extract is upon a different topic:--
“Nov. 9th, 1861.--I think that, as far as possible, persons should take Confederate State bonds, so as to relieve the Government from any pecuniary pressure. You had better not sell your coupons from the bonds, as I understand they are paid in gold, but let the Confederacy keep the gold. Citizens should not receive a cent of gold from the Government, when it is so scarce. The only objection to parting with your coupons, is, that if they are payable in gold, it will be taking just so much out of the treasury, when it needs all it has.”
To appreciate the self-denial expressed in the following passage, it must be known how dear his home was to him. In reply to a suggestion that he should obtain a furlough, he says:--“I can't be absent, as my attention is necessary in preparing my troops for hard fighting, should it be required; and as my officers and soldiers are not permitted to visit their wives and families, I ought not to see mine. It might make the troops feel that they are badly treated, and that I consult my own comfort, regardless of theirs. Every officer and soldier who is able to do duty ought to be busily engaged in military preparation, by hard drilling, etc., in order that, through the blessing of God, we may be victorious in the battles which, in His all-wise providence, may await us. If the war is carried on with vigor, I think, under the blessing of God, it will not last long.” [252]
1 It may be well to recall to memory the boastful spirit and arrogant self-confidence, with which theNorth entered upon the struggle with the South. The Tribune said: “The hanging of traitors is sure to begin before the month is over. The nations of Europe may rest assured that Jeff. Davis & Co. will be swinging from the battlements of Washington, at least by the 4th of July. We spit upon a later and longer deferred justice.” The New York Times said: “Let us make quick work. The ‘rebellion,’ as some people designate it, is an unborn tadpole. Let us not fall into the delusion of mistaking a ‘local commotion,’ for a revolution. A strong active pull together ‘ will do our work effectually in thirty days.’ ” The Philadelphia Press declared that “no man of sense could, for a moment, doubt that this much-ado-about-nothing would end in a month.” The Northern people were “simply invincible.” “The rebels, a mere band of ragamuffins, will fly, like chaff before the wind, on our approach.” But who can wonder that the press of America should pander thus to the ignorance and the arrogance of the North, whenSeward himself, just a month before the Battle of Manassas, wrote thus in a public document, addressed to Mr. Dayton, the Minister at the French Court: “France seems to have mistaken a mere casual and ephemeral insurrection here, such as is incidental in the experience of all nations, for a war, which has flagrantly separated this nation into two co-existing political powers, who are contending in arms against each other, after the separation.” And again: “It is erroneous to suppose that any war exists in the United States. Certainly there cannot be two belligerent powers, where there is no war.” Read in the light of subsequent events, can anything appear more grotesque, more contemptible?
Chapter 8: winter campaign in the Valley. 1861-62.
The appointment of General Jackson to the command of a separate district under General Joseph E.Johnston, consisting of the Valley of Virginia, was made on October 21st, 1861. On the 4th of November he took leave of his brigade, and set out, in compliance with his orders.from theCommander-in-Chief, for Winchester, by railroad, and reached that place on the same day. On his arrival there, the only forces subject to his orders, in the whole district, were three fragmentary brigades of State militia, under Brigadier-Generals Carson, Weem, and Boggs, and a few companies of irregular cavalry, imperfectly armed, and almost without discipline or experience. The first act of the General was to call out the remaining militia of those brigades from the adjoining counties. The country people responded with alacrity enough to raise the aggregate, after a few weeks, to 3000 men. To the disciplining of this force he addressed himself with all his energies.
A brief description of the country composing his district is necessary to the understanding of the remaining history. The Great Valley extends through much of the States of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and crosses Maryland, at its narrowest part. This district is widest and most fertile just where thePotomac passes through it, from its sources in the main Alleghany range to its outlet into Eastern Virginiaat Harper's [253] Ferry. It is bounded on the southeast by the Blue Ridge, which runs, with remarkable continuity, for many hundred miles from northeast to southwest; and on the other side there is a similar parallel range, called the Great North Mountain. The space between the bases of these mountains varies from thirty to fifteen miles in width, but it is by no means filled by a level vale. The intervening country is one of unrivalled picturesqueness, variety, and fertility, whose hills, in some places, sink into gentle swells of the most beautiful arable lands, and, in others, rise into mountains, only inferior to the great ranges which bound the district. Of these mountains, the most considerable is the Masanutthin, orPeaked Mountain, which is itself a range of fifty miles in length, and which, beginning twenty miles southwest of Winchester, runs parallel to the Blue Ridge, including between them, for that distance, a separate valley of the same character. This space is occupied by the populous counties of Page andWarren, and watered by the main..stream of the Shenandoah. It is only when the traveller, standing upon some Peak of the Blue Ridge or of the Great North Mountain, looks across to the other boundary, and, ranging his eyes longitudinally, sees the grand barriers extending their parallel faces to a vast distance, and losing themselves in the blue horizon, that he fully comprehends the justness of the name, Valley of Virginia. The romantic hills and dales of the intermediate space are then, by comparison, lost to view, and the whole district presents itself as a gigantic vale. The streams which descend from the abounding ranges of mountains, as well as those which rise between the Great North Mountain and the Alleghanies, pass along and across the valley obliquely, until they gather into sufficient volume to force their way to the ocean, as the Potomac, the James, and the Roanoke. The outlets from the Valley on either Bide are by railroad, or by turnpike roads, which pass through [254] depressions of the mountains, called, in the language of the country, Gaps. The soil is almost uniformly calcareous, and the roads, where they are not paved, of heavy clay. The population at the beginning of the war was dense, industrious, and loyal, the agriculture was skilful, and the whole goodly land teemed with grain, pasturage, horned cattle, swine, sheep, and horses. The manufacturing industry of this region was also prosperous, every county boasting of its numerous mills or furnaces, for the production of woollen cloths, iron wares, and other staple supplies of an agricultural people.
Between the Great North Mountain and the Alleghany is a rugged region, more extensive than theValley proper, which is sometimes included under that term. It is almost filled with parallel ranges of mountains, which increase in altitude as the traveller proceeds westward, until he crowns the parent ridge itself. But hidden between these chains are a thousand valleys of unrivalled beauty and fertility, peopled with a happy and busy population. The most extensive of these is the far-famed valley of the south branch of the Potomac, which forms the garden of three counties, Pendleton, Hardy, andHampshire. The wide meadows which line this stream from its source to its mouth are fruitful beyond belief; their prodigal harvests of hay and Indian corn, together with the sweetness of the upland pastures by which they are bordered, make them the paradise of the grazier. As Winchester is the focal point and metropolis for the lower Valley, so Romney, forty miles northwest of it, is the key to the valley of the south branch (of the Potomac) and the capital of the great county of Hampshire. The northwestern turnpike, an admirable, paved road, beginning from the former place, passes through the latter on its way to the Ohio River, and crosses the highways which ascend the valleys of the streams. [255]
All this country, to the Alleghany crest, was included in General Jackson's military district. The frontier, which he was required to guard against the enemy, was the whole line of the Potomac, from Harper's Ferry to its source in the mountain last named, and from that ridge to the place where the troops ofGeneral Lee were posted, after their ineffectual attempt upon Northwest Virginia. That commander had been recalled, to be employed in a more important sphere; and his troops were left along the line which he had occupied under the command of Brigadier-Generals Henry Jackson and Loring. The first of these, with a detachment of that army, had, on the 8th of October, repulsed the Federalists with the aid of Colonel Edward Johnson, in a well-fought battle upon the head of the Greenbrier River, in Pochahontas county. But the only fruit of this victory which the Confederates gathered, was an unobstructed retreat to a stronger position, upon the top of the Alleghany mountains: another striking evidence of the soundness of General Jackson's theory concerning the campaign in the Northwest. Yet more surprising proof was furnished a few weeks later. On December 13th, the same gallant little army was attacked in its new position on the Alleghany; and, under Edward Johnson, now Brigadier-General, the result was a brilliant victory over their assailants. As soon as General Jackson heard of it, he again wrote, to urge that this force should be sent to him, and predicted that, if it remained where it was, it would, before long, have no enemy in its front, and find the foe which it had beaten, threatening its communications by the way of the South Branch. This was exactly verified. His advice was rejected; and it was not many weeks until the victorious army was retreating to another position, on theShenandoah mountain, forty miles to the rear. The explanation was, that the Federalists being in undisturbed possession of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, were [256] able to occupy Hampshire andHardy, and to threaten thence the communications of the Confederates.
General Jackson had not reached Winchester, before his foresight of these results induced him to urge upon the Government that plan of campaign which was explained in the last chapter. Possessed of the keen appreciation of the value of time in war, he begrudged the loss of every day. On the route toWinchester, he paused at a station, to write to an influential friend in Richmond, asking his aid to further his views; and, through every proper channel, he continued to press them, until events forbade their execution. He proposed the immediate organization of a winter campaign in the Northwest, to be conducted from Winchester, by the way of the railroad and northwestern turnpike. He requested that all the forces of Generals Loring and Johnson should be hurried to him, so as to constitute a body sufficient to sustain itself. If it was suggested that the Federalists might take advantage of their withdrawal, to invade the central parts of the State, by crossing the mountains, his reply was, that it would be so much the worse for them. While they were marching eastward, involving themselves in those interminable obstacles, which had proved so disastrous to our arms there, he would be rapidly pouring his masses westward by railroad and turnpike, would place himself upon their communications, would close behind them, and would make their destruction so much the more certain, the farther they advanced towards their imaginary prize. If the Confederate Government, he argued, delayed its efforts to recover theNorthwest, it would then find the Federalists more firmly seated there; the loyalty of the inhabitants would be more corrupted by their blandishments and oppressions; the supplies, which should feed our soldiers, would be consumed by our enemies, and the country too much exhausted to sustain a vigorous campaign from its own resources; [257] fortified posts would be created where none now existed; and, above all, the constant development of the military power of the United States under the management ofGeneral McClellan, might occupy all our forces elsewhere.
His representations were so far successful, that about the middle of November, his old Brigade was sent to him, with the Pendleton battery, now under the command of Captain McLaughlin. Early in December, Colonel William B. Taliaferro's brigade from the army of the Northwest, consisting of the 1st Georgia, 3d Arkansas, and 23d and 37th Virginia regiments, reached Winchester. Near the close of December, the last reinforcements arrived from that army, under Brigadier-General Loring, consisting of the brigades of Colonel William Gilham, and Brigadier-General S. R. Anderson. The former of these brigades embraced the 21st, 42d, and 48th regiments of Virginia, and the 1st battalion of State Regulars, with Captain Marye's battery; the latter, the 1st, 7th, and 14th regiments of Tennessee, andCaptain Shurmaker's battery. He now, at the end of December, found himself in command of about eleven thousand men, of whom three thousand were militia, while the remainder were the volunteer forces of the Confederacy. But the delay in assembling these was such, as nearly to blast his hopes. He had continued to urge that the command of Brigadier-General Edward Johnson, from the Alleghany, should be sent to him, or else directed to march northward through Hardy and Hampshire counties, to effect a junction with him near Romney; but his advice was not adopted. This subtraction from his expected means, he declared, would be decisive against his cherished plan of penetrating to theNorthwest. For, contemplating the repeated failures to which the Confederate cause had been condemned in that quarter by inadequate means, he was determined [258] not to make an attempt without such forces as would make success possible.
Just before General Jackson came to the Valley, Romney was occupied by a Federal force, which was speedily increased to 6000 men. At Williamsport, and neighboring points, were as many more. BeyondHarper's Ferry, General Banks was organizing a force of 26,000 men, for the invasion of the Valley. Before the arrival of General Loring's command, General Jackson had to oppose nearly 40,000 enemies, with only 4000 men, inclusive of his undisciplined militia; yet, if this force was increased to so many as 15,000, he had resolved to attempt the audacious enterprise of clearing away the foes who hung around his own district, and then invading another, occupied by an army as strong as his own.
But his genius taught him that his safety lay in audacity. Winchester is the centre to which great thoroughfares converge, from Harper's Ferry on the northeast, from Martinsburg and Williamsport on the north, and from Romney on the northwest; while another highway from the south branch would place his enemies twenty miles in his rear, at Strasburg. He said that unless Romney and the south branch were held, Winchester was untenable, It was true that his central position gave him the interior line of operations; but, to employ this advantage, it was necessary for him to strike one of his adversaries promptly. If he waited until they approached near enough to co-operate, and to hem him in by their convergent motions, he would have no alternative except precipitate retreat or surrender; hence his burning anxiety to be in motion. His purpose was to assail the Federal General Kelly at Romney, first, so as to secure the western side of his district, as a preliminary, either to his expedition into theNorthwest, or, if that were surrendered, to his approaching contest with General Banks. It has already been [259] indicated, that the late arrival of General Loring's brigades, and the refusal of theGovernment to send General Edward Johnson's, doomed the hopes of General Jackson to disappointment as to the former enterprise. It may be useless to speculate upon the results which he would have attained, if it had been undertaken in good time. He never concealed his belief that the attempt was hazardous; but many would perhaps conclude that it was utterly rash; and, in the latter opinion, it would appear the War Department concurred. The facilities which the Federalists enjoyed for pouring troops and supplies into Northwest Virginia, must ever have rendered its occupation by a Confederate force, an arduous task. Had General Jackson gone thither with 15,000 men, the countless hordes of United States troops, who, a little later, crushed the Confederates at Fort Donelson, in spite of most heroic fighting, might have been directed upon him. If the skill and courage with which he evaded similar dangers in the famous campaign of the ensuing spring were forgotten, the conclusion would be reached, that in such an event his situation in the Northwest would be desperate. But the issue of that campaign has taught the world, that there is no limit to be set to the possibilities which genius, united to generous devotion, may achieve. Success would have turned mainly upon the degree of support which the people of the Northwest would have given to the cause, when rallied under their favorite leader. And these speculations may be most safely dismissed, with a thankful acquiescence in the orderings of Divine providence, which forbade Jackson's making the great experiment, and preserved him for the service of his country on a still more important and glorious field.
About the middle of November, General Jackson, busying himself, while he awaited his reinforcements, in organizing his command, adverted to the condition of his cavalry. This [260] consisted of several companies, raised in his district, which had no regimental formation. He found serving with them Lieut.-Colonel Turner Ashby, and, recognizing in him a kindred spirit, he assigned to him the chief command. From that day to his death this chivalrous officer served his general, as commander of cavalry, with untiring zeal and intelligence. He was a gentleman of Fauquier county, of the best connexions, of spotless and amiable character, devoted to field sports and feats of horsemanship, and known to be as modest and generous as he was brave. At the first outbreak of the war, he had flown to his country's service, had raised a company of cavalry, had assisted at the first capture of Harper's Ferry, and, during the summer campaign of 1861, had distinguished himself by his devotion and vigilance, upon the outposts of the army, below that village. After it ceased to be an important position to the Confederates, he was transferred to the Upper Potomac. There occurred the first of those daring exploits which soon surrounded his name with a halo of romance. A part of his command, under his beloved brother,Captain Richard Ashby, was assailed, in the county of Hampshire, by an overpowering force of Federal cavalry; and, in the retreat which followed, Captain Ashby was overtaken, at an obstruction presented by the railroad track to the career of his horse, and was basely murdered, while prostrate and helpless under his fallen steed. A few moments after, Turner Ashby, attracted by the firing, came up with a handful of fresh horsemen, and the enemy retired. He found his brother mortally wounded and insensible, and, kneeling beside his body, he raised his sword to heaven, and made a sacred vow to consecrate his life afresh to delivering his country from the assassin foe. The assailants had retired to an island in the river, covered with shrubbery and driftwood, and there stood on the defensive, concealed in these hiding-places. Ashby now gathered a dozen [261] men, and, fording the stream under a shower of bullets, dashed among them, slew several men with his own hand, and dispersed or captured the whole party. From the day he paid this first sacrifice to the manes of his murdered brother, he appeared a changed man. More brave he could not be; but while he was, if possible, more kindly, gentle, and generous to his associates than before, there was a new solemnity and earnestness in his devotion to the cause of his country. Ile evidently regarded his life as no longer his own, and contemplated habitually its sacrifice in this war. He was, in his own eyes, as a man already dead to the world. His exposure of his person to danger became utterly reckless, and, wherever death flew thickest, thither he hastened, as though he courted its stroke. Yet his spirit was not that of revenge, but of high Christian consecration. To his enemies, when overpowered, he was still as magnanimously forbearing, as he was terrible in the combat. Henceforward, his activity, daring, and seeming immunity from wounds, filled the Federalsoldiers with a species of superstitious dread. At the sound of his well-known yell, and the shout of “Ashby” from his men, they relinquished every thought of resistance, and usually fled without pausing to count the odds in their favor. To General Jackson he was eyes and ears. Ever guarding the outposts of his army with rare discretion, and sleepless vigilance, he detected the incipient movements of the enemy; and his sobriety of mind, which was equal to his daring. secured implicit confidence for his reports.
In December, General Jackson determined to employ his enforced leisure in a local enterprise, which promised much annoyance to the enemy. This was the interruption of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.The Potomac not being navigable above Washington city, a great canal had been begun from tidewater below that point, which was carried along the valley of [262] the river, with the proud design of threading its highest tributaries, piercing the Alleghany ridge, and connecting the waters of Chesapeake Bay with those of the Ohio. It was not completed farther than Cumberland, in western Maryland; but this place is within the verge of the great coal-fields of that country, whence the cities of Washington andBaltimore, the furnaces of the military factories at the Federal capital, and many of their war-steamers, were supplied with fuel. Besides, this canal offered the means for the speedy transportation of large masses of troops and supplies. Although the Confederates had interrupted the great railroad, by destroying the bridge at Harper's Ferry, and the whole track to Martinsburg, the Federal authorities had the unobstructed use of it from the Ohio River eastward to Cumberland. The destruction of the canal was therefore needed, to make the interruption complete. This work, ascending the left, or north bank of the Potomac, receives its water from that river, which is raised to a sufficient height to feed it by a series of dams thrown across its channel. The most important of these was the one known as Dam No. 5, built within a sharp curve of the river, concave towards the south, north of the town of Martinsburg. The sluices from above this barrier filled a long level of the canal, and its destruction left it dry, and useless for many miles; while no force would be adequate to rebuild it amidst the ice and freezing floods of winter.
Jackson therefore marched to Martinsburg, December 10th, with a part of his militia, his cavalry, and the Stonewall Brigade, and thence made his dispositions to protect the working party, who were to attempt the task of demolition. It was necessary to guard the whole circuit of the curve upon which the dam was situated, lest the enemy, who were in force on the other bank, should cross behind the detachment. General Jackson, sending the militia to make a diversion towards [263] Williamsport, entered the peninsula, posted the veteran brigade near the work, but behind a hill which protected them from the cannon planted upon the opposite bank, and, by night, he advanced his working party to the brink of the stream. A guard of riflemen occupied a strong mill, whence they could deliver a murderous fire upon any detachment advancing to a near attack upon the workmen, while these speedily shielded themselves from the more distant sharpshooters in the cavities which they excavated in the doomed structure. Although the Federal General, Banks, assembled a large force on the other side, and cannonaded the Confederates, the work was continued from the 17th to the 21st of December, until a great chasm was made, through which the whole current of the river flowed down towards its original level, leaving the canal far above it drained of its waters. The most essential parts of the work were done by the gallant men of Captain Holliday, of the 33d, and Captain Robinson, of the 27th Virginia regiments. These generous fellows volunteered to descend, by night, into the chilling waters, and worked under the enemy's fire, until the task was completed. The amount of fatigue which the men endured, laboring, as they constantly did, waist-deep in water, and in the intense cold of winter, can never be sufficiently appreciated. The only loss, at the hand of the enemy, was that of one man killed, a member of the infantry guard which watched the work, but the effects of such exposure could hardly fail to tell ruinously on the health and lives of many of those who executed the difficult and dangerous task.
General Jackson returned to Winchester on December the 25th, and had the pleasure of meeting there the reinforcements which have been already mentioned, under Brigadier-General Loring. It was settled by the Government, that he should retain command of all the troops which he had brought with him, and be second to General Jackson. The weather wau [264] most propitious for the season, and the roads were still firm. He, therefore, determined to carry out that part of his original scheme, which was still feasible, and to drive the Federalists from the western part of his district. At Bath, the seat of justice forMorgan County, a village forty miles north of Winchester, was a detachment of fifteen hundred Federal soldiers, with two pieces of artillery, who grievously tyrannized over the loyal part of the inhabitants. At the village of Hancock, upon the opposite side of the Potomac, was another detachment. Romney upon the south branch, at a distance of about forty miles, was occupied by a force of the enemy now increased to at least ten thousand, who were fortifying themselves there, and ravaging all the fertile country about them. General Jackson intended to march rapidly upon the detachment at Bath and capture them, next, crossing the Potomac, to disperse the party at Hancock, and then, having cleared his rear, to proceed to Romney. The 1st day of January, 1862, an April sun was shining, and the dust was flying in the roads. The whole army, with the exception of the necessary detachments, began its march for Bath, numbering about 8500 men, with five batteries of artillery, and a few companies of cavalry. But, before the day was ended, a biting northwester began to blow, and this was succeeded by a freezing rain and snow, which sheathed the roads in ice. The hardships of the troops now became most severe. The march was pressed forward notwithstanding the inclement weather; the soldiers were often unable to keep their footing upon the slippery mountain sides; and, along the column, the accidental discharge of muskets frequently announced the fall of their owners. The country was one of the roughest, and the roads selected were the most unfrequented, in order that the movement might be kept a secret. For several nights, the wearied troops bivouacked in the sleet and snow, without tents, rations, or blankets, because [265] the baggage-train was unable to overtake them, and with the recklessness of new soldiers, they had refused, against orders, to carry them. The Stonewall Brigade bore these trials without murmuring, for their beloved General shared them all; but, among the reinforcements, the discontent was excessive, and was openly encouraged by a part of their officers, who pronounced the expedition rash, unreasonable, and out of season. General Jackson was cursed by many of them, for this adventure, and looked on as a maniac, for dragging his command through such a region, and at such a season. Many of the troops, taking countenance from the unsoldierly complaints of their leaders, deserted the ranks under plea of sickness, and returned to Winchester. That town was soon thronged with many hundreds of these pretended invalids, who roamed the streets without control, and taxed the generous hospitality of the citizens. Jackson, nevertheless, pressed on, and the third day, met the enemy's outposts a few miles from Bath. They were speedily driven in, and the army proceeding a little farther, encamped for the night. In the morning, January 4th, General Jackson made his dispositions to surround and capture the enemy. A body of militia had already been detached, to cross the mountain behind the village, and then approach it from the west. The main column was now pushed along the direct road, headed by General Loring, while Colonels Maury and Campbell advanced upon the hill sides, on the left and right respectively, to surround the village. General Jackson complained much of the dilatory movements and repeated halts of the column. It seemed as though the whole day would be consumed in marching a few miles, until at length the wings were impelled forward with more energy, and a detachment of cavalry, headed by Lieut.-Col. Baylor of the General's staff, dashed into the town. At their approach the enemy fled without any resistance, leaving all their stores and camp [266] equipage in the hands of the victors. General Jackson himself entered the place in advance of the skirmishers of the main column; but so sluggish had been their movements, that the enemy was already out of sight. Their escape filled him with chagrin, and he instantly urged the pursuit, along the route by which they had fled.
Bath is situated three miles from the Potomac, from which it is separated by a small mountain-ridge. Two roads lead to the river, one to the nearest railroad station, that of Sir John's Run, and the other toHancock, which is seated upon the opposite bank. By one of these two routes the Federalists must have escaped, but so dilatory had been the movements of General Loring's command, that even his skirmishers were not in sight of the rear of the fugitives, when they disappeared. It was not immediately apparent, therefore, by which of the roads the main body had gone. General Jackson, accordingly, divided his forces, sending a part of his cavalry, and General Loring's column, towards Hancock; the second Virginia brigade, under Colonel Gilham, and Captain Wingfield's company of cavalry, towards Sir John's Run; and Colonel Rust with his and the 37th Virginia regiments, and two field-pieces, by the western road, towards an important railroad bridge over the Great Capon river. The first of these detachments General Jackson accompanied. It speedily overtook the rear of the enemy, and drove them, with some loss, into Hancock. The General then crowned the southern bank of the river with artillery, and fired a few shots into the town. This was in retaliation for the crime of the Federalists, who had repeatedly shelled the peaceful village of Shepherdstown, on the south bank of the Potomac, when it was not used as a military position by the Confederates, and even when there was not a soldier near it. Jackson declared that they should be taught, such outrages could not be perpetrated [267] with impunity; and he added, that, while he was in command of that district, the lesson was efficacious upon their dastardly natures. The 4th of January was now closed by night, and the troops opposite the town again bivouacked in the snow.
Meantime, the second column, directed towards Sir John's Run, had overtaken a considerable detachment of the enemy; but although the ground offered facilities for turning the position on which they stood at bay, no improvement was made of the opportunity, and the Federalists were allowed to escape unmolested over the river, when they probably joined their comrades at Hancock. The third detachment under Colonel Rust proceeded with more vigor. When near the Capon Bridge, they met a party of Federalists guarding that important structure, with whom they skirmished until night, suffering some loss, and inflicting upon the enemy a more serious one. The next morning, January 5th, having been reinforced by General Loring, they drove away the guard, destroyed the bridge and stationhouses, and pulled down a long tract of the telegraph wires, besides capturing great spoils. Thus, both railroad and telegraph communication between the Federal commander at Romney and General Banks below, was effectually severed. The Confederates could now pursue their designs against the former without molestation from the latter, and beat each of them in detail. Such were the promising results, which seemed to be about to reward the vigorous use of the interior line of movements by Jackson.
But he did not propose to leave the party at Hancock so near his line of communications. On the morning of January 5th, he summoned the place to surrender, and notified the Federal commander, that if he declined to accept this proposal he must remove the non-combatants, as he proposed to cannonade the place in good earnest. The bearer of the summons was the [268] gallant Colonel Ashby. As he was led, blindfold, up the streets, he overheard the Federal soldiers whispering the one to the other, “That is the famous Colonel Ashby;” and soon the suppressed hum of a crowd told him that they were thronging around, to catch a sight of the warrior, whose name had so often carried confusion into their ranks. The Federal commander refused either to evacuate the place, or to remove the females and children, and claimed that, if the cannonade took place, the guilt of shedding their blood would rest upon the Confederates, --a preposterous and impudent pretension, especially when coming from a party which has burned so many peaceful dwellings, and so often shelled unresisting towns without notice. The true motive of the claim was obvious. The Yankee thought that the humanity of General Jackson was so great, it would permit him to skulk safely behind the skirts of the women. But the Confederate Generalwas as clear-sighted and vigorous as he was humane. After the time had elapsed which he had announced in his challenge, he opened a hot cannonade from a score of guns, and speedily drove every Federal soldier out of the town, or into some invisible hiding-place. At the same time, a detachment was busy preparing to construct a bridge across the Potomac, two miles above, that the Confederates might attack them on the Maryland side; but before this work was completed, they received reinforcements so numerous, that General Jackson judged it inexpedient to risk the loss which would be incurred in defeating them, when every man was needed for the attainment of his great object, the deliverance ofRomney and the South Branch. Believing, therefore, that the enemy in this quarter were sufficiently chastised to cause them to respect his further movements, and, secure in another line of communication with Winchester, far to, the south of [269] Bath, even if the latter place were re-occupied by them, he determined to move westward without further delay.
Having destroyed all the spoils which he lacked means to remove, he left Hancock on January 7th, and returned to the main Romney highway, reaching a well-known locality called Unger's Store, the same evening. On that day his advanced forces, consisting of a regiment of militia and a section of artillery, had an unfortunate affair with the Federalists at Hanging Rock, fifteen miles from Romney, in which two guns were lost by the Confederates; but the difficulties of the roads and season compelled GeneralJackson to halt here, to collect and refresh his wearied men, and to prepare the horses of his artillery and baggage-trains for their labors. The roads over the mountain-ranges were now sheeted with firm and smooth ice, upon which the wearied animals could keep no footing. Bruised, and sometimes bleeding from their falls, they had struggled thus far, only dragging the trains a few miles daily, by the most cruel exertions. The order was now given to replace their shoes with new ones, constructed so as to give them a firm foothold upon the ice. In this way the time was consumed until the 13th, when the army resumed the march, and the General, with the advanced infantry, entered Romney on the 14th of January. But on the 10th, the Federal commander had taken the alarm, and retreated precipitately to the northwestern part of Hampshire. The hope of making a brilliant capture of prisoners was again disappointed. The flight of the enemy was only witnessed by two of Ashby's cavalry companies, which were pressing close upon their rear. It was some solace, however, to the conquerors, to find their tents standing, with all their camp equipments, and their magazines filled with valuable military stores, which fell into the hands of the Confederates. This retreat was an emphatic [270] testimony to the dread which the vigor of Jackson already inspired in his enemies. With a force larger than his own, they feared to meet him in a most defensible position, which they had selected and entrenched at their leisure. When he was yet more than a day's march distant, they fled in such panic as to leave behind them the larger part of their equipage!
But cowardice like this was the natural sequel to the barbarities by which they had disgraced the name of soldiers. As soon as the Confederates passed Hanging Rock, they began to see marks of desolation, then new, but now, alas! familiar to their eyes. Nearly every dwelling, mill, and factory, between that place and Romney, was consumed; the tanneries were destroyed, and the unfinished hides slit into ribbons; the roadside was strewed with the carcasses of milk-kine, oxen, and other domestic animals, shot down in mere wantonness. As they came in view of the town, lately smiling in the midst of rural beauty, scarcely anything appeared, by which it could be recognized by its own children, save the everlasting hills which surround it. Gardens, orchards, and out-buildings, with their enclosures, were swept away; the lawns were trampled by cavalry horses into mire; many of the dwellings were converted into stables, and the blinds and wainscot torn down for fuel; and every church, save one, which the Federal commander reserved for the pious uses of his own chaplains, was foully desecrated. And these outrages had no pretext, for the despoilers had found Romney a defenceless town, and had entered it at their leisure, without resistance. Their crimes are detailed here, not because the fate of this once charming village has been peculiar among the towns cursed by Federal occupation. If every such instance, which has been added in the progress of the war, were detailed with a similar truthful particularity, the narrative would only be extended, and marked with a dreary and repulsive monotony. [271] But it is just, that this beginning of sorrows should be fixed in history, for the everlasting infamy of the Federals, and as an example of the never-to-bc-forgotten acts of barbarity which the Southernpeople have endured at their hands. Let the solemn testimony of Jackson against the perpetrators stand recorded, as long as his great name is revered among men. His official report of the campaign is closed with these words:--“I do not feel at liberty to close this report without alluding to the conduct of the reprobate Federal commanders, who, in Hampshire county, have not only burned valuable mill-property, but also many private houses. Their track from Romney to Hanging Rock, a distance of fifteen miles, was one of desolation. The number of dead animals lying along the roadside, where they had been shot by the enemy, exemplified the spirit of that part of the Northern army.”
On the 16th of January, the whole Confederate army was again assembled near Romney. It was ascertained that the retreating force had gone to the neighborhood of Cumberland, in Maryland, a town on the north side of the Potomac, and opposite to the northwestern border of Hampshire county. Three important railroad bridges required their oversight in that region. One of these crossed Patterson's Creek, near its entrance into the river. A little west of this spot, the railroad, which pursues the southern bank for more than fifty miles, crosses to the other side, and continues upon the northern margin toCumberland; above which it returns to the soil of Virginia. Two massive and costly bridges span the river at these crossings. By destroying these bridges, communication between the Federalists atCumberland, and the army of General Banks in the lower Valley, would be more effectually severed. But more than this: since the force which had invaded Hampshire drew its supplies from the west by the railroad, [272] these breaches in its continuity would restrict their future opera tions to the eastward, inasmuch as they would entail upon them, as they advanced, a continually lengthening line of transportation by wagons. On the arrival of the main body of his troops, General Jackson instantly prepared to press onward to New Creek. This stream, flowing northward, enters the Potomac at the western extremity of Hampshire county, and above Cumberland; but in consequence of its situation upon the apex of a great angle of the river, the road which conducts to that town from Romney is much longer than the one leading to the mouth of New Creek. He purposed, therefore, to proceed to the latter spot, and, placing himself above the enemy, to destroy the bridge across the Potomac, aboveCumberland, first, thus insulating them from their western base. He selected the Stonewall Brigade, and that of Colonel Taliaferro, from the army of General Loring, to perform this service under his own eye; but when he was ready to march, he discovered that the discontent and disorganization had proceeded so far in the latter brigade, that they were not to be trusted for so responsible a service. With deep mortification and reluctance, he therefore relinquished further aggressive movements, and prepared to defend what he had already won; and this, although less than he believed a more efficient army would have realized for him, was by no means little. In sixteen days, he had driven the enemy out of his whole district, except a few miles which they occupied at its extreme corner; had liberated three counties from their tyranny, securing for the Confederate cause their riches of corn and cattle; had rendered the railroad useless to the enemy for a hundred miles; and had captured stores almost equal to the equipment of an army like his own. On the first day of January, scarcely a man in those counties, loyal to his State, could remain at his home, without danger of persecution or arrest. The dominion [273] of law and peace was now restored to all the citizens. All this had been accomplished with a loss of four men killed, and twenty-eight wounded.
General Jackson now proceeded to place the command of General Loring in winter quarters, nearRomney, and to canton Boggs' brigade of militia along the south branch, from that town to Moorefield, with three companies of cavalry for duty upon the outposts. The remainder of the cavalry and militia returned to Bath, or to the Valley, to guard its frontier; and the Stonewall Brigade was placed in winter quarters as a reserve, near Winchester. Having begun these dispositions, General Jackson returned to the latter place on the 24th of January. He was uneasy lest General Banks should initiate some movements in his absence. General Loring was left in command at Romney, with his three brigades, and thirteen pieces of artillery. The militia force upon his left placed him in communication with the army ofGeneral Edward Johnson, upon the Alleghany Mountain; for a forced march of three days would have brought those troops to Moorefield. At Winchester, forty miles from Romney, was the Stonewall Brigade, ready to launch itself from its central position upon any point of the circumference which was assailed, and it was to be immediately connected with General Loring's forces by a new line of telegraph. Romney itself offers an exceedingly defensible position. It is situated in the Valley of the south branch, twenty miles from the Potomac, and it could be approached, from the direction of the enemy, only by two roads. Of these, one ascends the valley of the river, and the other crosses the mountain-ridge separating it from the vale of Patterson's Creek by a narrow defile. Both these routes pass through gorges in approaching the town, where the sides are utterly impracticable for artillery, and a regiment might hold a host at bay. East of Romney lies a low mountain, not commanded from any [274] other height, but commanding the town completely, as well as the highway to Winchester. The General who knew how to use these advantages, might reasonably count on defending himself against threefold odds, long enough to receive succor from the latter place. Finally, the loyal farmers of the south branch offered, from their magnificent plantations, abundant supplies for the whole winter; or, if these failed, the way was open, by a drive of twenty-five miles, to the broad fields and teeming granaries of the Great Valley. General Jackson designed that the troops, after the construction of their winter quarters, should at once strengthen their position by entrenchments; and, to this end, he urgently requested that an able engineer should be sent to him.
Upon his return to Winchester, he found the country full of debate and difference concerning his movements. No one presumed to dispute his courage and devotion, and many had perspicacity enough to perceive, in his administration, the promise of a great commander. But the larger number professed to depreciate his capacity, and not a few declared that he was manifestly mad. They said that the man had a personal disregard of danger, a hardihood of temper, and a stubbornness, which made him a good fighter, where he was guided by a wiser head; that he was competent to lead a brigade well on the parade ground, or the battle-field, but had no capacity adequate to the management of a separate command, and an extensive district; that his headstrong and unreasoning zeal, with his restless thirst for distinction, thrust him into enterprises which he lacked discretion to conduct to a prosperous issue, and that it was only good fortune, or the better judgment of his reluctant subordinates, in lagging behind his rash intentions, which saved his army from a catastrophe. His wintry march, with the hardships of his men, exaggerated [275] in every form by the interested falsehoods of the stragglers, was denounced as inhuman. They forgot that the unreasonable period to which the expedition was delayed was the fault of others, and was deplored and condemned by him more than by any one else. They refused to consider that he had shared all the hardships of the freezing sleet, and snowy bivouac, and the cold vigils, with his men, and had endured them cheerfully. They were ignorant of the careful and able arrangements which he had made for their comfort. So anxious was he that every supply for their wants should accompany them, that when his chief commissary was consulting him as to the selection of the rations to be transported behind the army, and proposed to take no rice along, inasmuch as it was a species of food seldom preferred by the troops, he dissented, and ordered several tierces to be carried, saying that his soldiers must lack for nothing which they were accustomed to enjoy, so long as it was practicable to furnish it. He was also charged by his critics with being partial to his old brigade, Jackson's pet lambs, as they were sneeringly called; it was said that he kept them in the rear, while other troops were constantly thrust into danger; and that now, while the command of General Loring was left in mid-winter in an alpine region, almost within the jaws of a powerful enemy, these favored regiments were brought back to the comforts and hospitalities of the town, whereas, in truth, while the forces in Romney were ordered into huts, this brigade was three miles below Winchester, in tents, and under the most rigid discipline. And what would have been the outcry of the objectors had General Jackson left the old brigade with General Loring, and brought away a part of his troops, which had been assured to him by special pledge of the Government? His secrecy, which was absolute as that of the grave, piqued the [276] curiosity and self-importance of these cavillers. But had he condescended to explain, they would not have been able to comprehend his policy. Necessities which were plain in the future to his prophetic eye, they could not see. His far-reaching combinations were beyond their grasp; hence, to their imperfect view, the movements, which are now recognized as the promptings of a profound and original genius, appeared to be the erratic spasms of rashness. And truth requires the statement, that not a few of his subordinates so far forgot the proprieties of their honorable profession, as to echo these criticisms and lend them all their credit. Especially were such persons found among those who had lately come under his command. They were unaccustomed to a military regimen so energetic as his. For while he was, personally, the most modest of men, officially, he was the most exacting of commanders; and his purpose to enforce a thorough performance of duty, and his stern disapprobation of remissness and self-indulgence, were veiled by no affectations of politeness. Hence, those who came to serve near his person, if they were not wholly likeminded with himself, usually underwent, at first, a sort of breaking in, accompanied with no little chafing to restive spirits. The expedition to Romney was, to these officers, just such an apprenticeship to Jackson's method of making war. All this was fully known to him; but while he keenly felt its injustice, he disdained to resent it, or to condescend to any explanation of his policy.
On the 31st of January, he was astounded by the receipt of the following order, by telegraph, from theSecretary of War: --“Our news indicates that a movement is making to cut off General Loring's command; order him back to Winchester immediately.” The explanation was, that a number of officers [277] from that command, as soon as it was ordered into winter quarters, had obtained furloughs and repaired to Richmond, where they busily filled the ears of the public and the Government with complaints of the exposed and hazardous position assigned them, and the rashness and severity ofGeneral Jackson's rule. A petition for the recall of the troops was actually signed among them, and theGeneral complained, with justice, that it was not more positively discountenanced by their commander. It filled him with indignation, to see men bearing their country's commission, assigning the presence of danger as the ground of their complaints, as though it were not a soldier's profession to brave danger; and when the withering rejoinder was at hand, that, if indeed the men intrusted to their care were in such peril, then it was no time for a gallant officer to be wasting his days on a furlough, amidst the luxuries and cabals of a far-distant capital. The demand for the recall of the troops, without reference to the commander of the district, directly impugned his vigilance and good judgment. Yet the Secretary of War, misguided by the urgency of the discontented officers, gave the peremptory order, without consultation either with General Jackson, or General Joseph E. Johnston, the Commander-in-Chief of the whole department The injury thus done to the authority and self-respect of both these officers is too obvious to need illustration. Of the personal element of wrong, Jackson seemed to feel little, and he said nothing. But, considering his usefulness in his District at an end under such a mode of administration, he instantly determined to leave it. The reply which he sent to the War department is so good an example of military subordination, and, at the same time, of manly independence, that it should be repeated. [278]
Headquarters, Valley district,
Hon. J. P. Benjamin, January 31st, 1862. Sec. of War.
Sir,--Your order requiring me to direct General Loring to return with his command to Winchester, immediately, has been received, and promptly complied with.
With such interference in my command, I cannot expect to be of much service in the field, and accordingly respectfully request to be ordered to report for duty to the Superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute, at Lexington; as has been done in the case of other professors. Should this application not be granted, I respectfully request that the President will accept my resignation from the Army.--Respectfully, etc., your obed. serv.,
T. J. Jackson.
This conditional resignation he forwarded through the appointed channel, the Headquarters of hisCommander-in-Chief. At the same time, to make one more effort for preventing the injury, he wrote requesting that General Johnston would countermand the order for the retreat. To his adjutant he said, “The Secretary of War stated, in the order requiring General Loring's command to fall back to this place immediately, that he had been informed the command was in danger of being cut off. Such danger, I am well satisfied, does not exist, nor did it, in my opinion, exist at the time the order was given; and I therefore respectfully recommend that the order be countermanded, and that General Loring be required to return with his command to the neighborhood of Romney.” But the Commander-in-Chief, although concurring in his opinions of the campaign, did not think it best to assume the responsibility of giving the order; and all the troops returned to the vicinity of Winchester. General Johnston detained the resignation for a time, and [279] immediately wrote to General Jackson, in terms alike honorable to his own magnanimity, and to the reputation of the latter. Descending from the position of his commander to that of a friend and brother-in-arms, he declared his full approval of his disposition of the forces, and his belief that the order of which he complained was injurious to the country, and to his official rights; yet, expressing an exalted appreciation of his value to the cause, he besought him to waive every personal interest, to hold even his just rights in abeyance, and to sacrifice everything for his native land.
The news of his resignation aroused a vivid excitement in the army, the capital, and the State at large, which showed that, notwithstanding the criicisms of his enemies, he had gained a firm hold upon the affections of his countrymen. Their sympathies were warmly with him against the Government. They were outraged, that the only army which had marched, and which had won anything from the enemy, should be thus arrested. Indeed the decision and dignity of his attitude silenced at once the voices of the fault-finders; and they seemed to concur in the general feeling of the people of his district, which regarded him as their bulwark and deliverer. He was besieged with solicitations from soldiers, citizens, and clergymen, far and near, appealing to his patriotism, to subordinate his sense of injustice to the public good, and assuring him that, with his resignation, the hopes of the people would sink. The Governor of the State, besides writing to urge his continuance in the service, sent a friend of the greatest weight in the Commonwealth to expostulate in person against his intended retirement. To all theseGeneral Jackson made the same reply. To the Governor, he had tersely stated the grounds of his decision in the following words:--“The order was given without consulting me; it is abandoning to the enemy what has cost much preparation, [280] expense, and exposure to secure; it is in direct conflict with my military plans; it implies a want of confidence in my capacity to judge when General Loring's troops should fall back; and it is an attempt to control military operations in detail, from the Secretary's desk at a distance.” To his ambassador, he now added, that he had no personal pique to satisfy; for, however he might feel at another time, that he himself was wronged, the hour of his country's extremity was no occasion to weigh private grievances. Neither had he any complaint to lodge against his superior, the Secretary of War; but, presuming that he was a considerate and firm man, he must infer that the order given in this case was an example of his intended system of management. And, then, he was satisfied that he could not hope to serve his country usefully or successfully under such a system. But it was the rule of his life never to hold a position where he could not be useful; his conscience forbade it. He had not sought command because it was sweet to him; he had no ambition to gratify; the soldier's stormy career had no allurements for him; and nothing on earth, save the hope of being useful to his injured country, had ever persuaded him to forego the happiness of a beloved home, and a congenial occupation, for the daily martyrdom of his present cares. Now that this hope was extinguished, he felt that the voice of duty, which alone had driven him out from his happy privacy, not only permitted, but commanded his return to it. It was answered that he should be willing to make sacrifices to serve his country, in her hour of need. “Sacrifices” he exclaimed; “have I not made them? What is my life here but a daily sacrifice? Nor shall I ever withhold sacrifices for my country, where they will avail anything. I intend to serve her, anywhere, in any way in which I am permitted to do it with effect, even if it be as a private soldier. But if this method of making war is to prevail, which [281] they seek to establish in my case, the country is ruined. My duty to her requires that I shall utter my protest against it in the most energetic form in my power; and that is, to resign.” And then, traversing the floor of his chamber with rapid strides, he burst into an impetuous torrent of speech, in which he detailed his comprehensive projects with a Napoleonic fire and breadth of view; his obstacles, created by the reluctance and incompetency of some, with whom he had been required to co-operate; his hardships, and the heroic spirit of his troops; the brilliant success with which Providence had crowned his first steps, and the cruel disappointment which dashed the fruit of all his labors. For a long time he was inexorable; but at last, When he was told that the Governor had, in the name of Virginia, withdrawn his resignation from the files of the War Department, and requested that action should be suspended upon it until an attempt was made to remove his grounds of difficulty, he consented to acquiesce in this arrangement.
In a few days he received the assurance, that it had never been the purpose of the Government to introduce the obnoxious system against which he protested. Accepting this as a sufficient guarantee that his command would not hereafter bQ subjected to such a system of interference, he quietly left his resignation in the hands of the chief magistrate of the State, and resumed his tasks.
In this transaction, General Jackson gained one of his most important victories for the Confederate States. Had the system of encouragement to the insubordination of inferiors, and of interference with the responsibilities of commanders in the field, which was initiated in his case, become established, military success could only have been won by accident. By his firmness, the evil usage was arrested, and a lesson impressed both upon the government and the public opinion of the country, which [282] warrants that it will not soon be revived. Whether he had any expectation of this result, when he demanded a release from the service, it is useless to surmise: if he had, his sound judgment taught him that the way to secure this issue was to seem not to expect it, but to offer an explicit resignation, and to act as though he anticipated nothing else than its certain acceptance.
The one instance in which he betrayed the emotions which were aroused by the affair, has been related. In no other case did he show a shade of feeling, and the grandest impression which the people about him ever received of the greatness of his moral nature, was that made by his demeanor under this trial. He uttered no complaint against his detractors or his superiors, and calmly refused to listen to those who endeavored, in that form, to express their sympathy with his wrong. While he thanked them for their partial estimate of his value to the country, he exhorted them, for his sake, not to relax anything of their own zeal; and he showed the same care and diligence in preparing everything for the advantage of his unknown successor, as though he had expected to continue in permanent command of the district. Concerning the operations of his army he had always been obstinately silent, and repelled inquiry with sternness. It appeared that this reserve was dictated, not by pride or love of power, but by a sense of duty. Now that the concern respected his own interests, he had no secrecy, and invited the most candid expressions of opinion; save that he would not permit any denunciations of those who, as his friends supposed, had sought to injure him. As soon as the affair was terminated, it was banished from his conversation, and he was never again heard to allude to the actors in it, except where he could honestly applaud them. He appeared to be elevated wholly above all the infirmities of passion; and the [283] only human emotion which was apparent, even to his wife, who was then on a visit to him, was the revival of his genial gaiety, at the prospect of their speedy return to their home.
His domestic tastes led him, whenever his duties confined him to the town, to take his meals with the family of a congenial Christian friend. To them there appeared, during these trials, the most beautiful display of Christian temper. His dearest relaxation from the harassing cares of his command, were the caresses of the children, and the prayers of the domestic altar. When he led in the latter, as he was often invited to do, it was with increasing humility and tenderness. A prevalent petition was that they “might grow in gentleness;” and he never spoke of his difficulties, except as a kind discipline, intended for his good, by his Heavenly Father.
The inexpediency of the evacuation of Romney was soon manifested. The ice of January was now replaced by the mud of February; and the deficiency of transportation, with the timid haste of the retreat, caused a loss of tents and military stores, equal to all which had been won in the advance. The enemy immediately assumed the aggressive again, and reoccupied Romney in force. February 12th they seized Moorefield, and on the 14th they surprised and routed the advanced force, composed of a small brigade of militia, stationed at Bloomery Gap, twenty-one miles from Winchester, capturing a number of prisoners. Two days after, Colonel Ashby, with his cavalry, recovered the pass, which the Federalists had left in the keeping of a detachment; but they remained firmly established beyond it, with a force of 12,000 men. The whole valley of the South Branch was now open to their incursions. Good roads led up this stream from Moorefield to its head, far in the rear of General Edward Johnson's position on theAlleghany, which the enemy had found so impregnable in front. The prediction of [284] GeneralJackson was now verified, and that force, to save its communications, was after a little compelled to retire to the Shenandoah mountain, only twenty-five miles from Staunton, thus surrendering to the inroads of the Federalists the three counties of Pendleton, Highland, and Bath. Winchester was again exposed to the advance of the enemy from four directions.
The difficulties of General Jackson's position were, at the same time, aggravated by a diminution of his force. General Loring having been assigned to a distant field of operations, his command was divided between the Valley and Potomac districts. The brigade of General Anderson, composed of Tennesseetroops, was sent, with two regiments from that of Colonel Taliaferro, to Evansport, on GeneralJohnston's extreme right. The brigade of Colonel Gilham, now commanded by the gallant Colonel J. S.Burks, was retained by General Jackson; and was henceforth denominated the 2d Brigade of the Army of the Valley. Two Virginia regiments only, the 23d and 37th, remained to Colonel Taliaferro. These, increased afterwards by the addition of the 10th Virginia, composed the 3d Brigade of the Army of theValley. The three militia brigades were continually dwindling through defective organization, and before the opening of the active campaign they were dissolved. The conscription law of the Confederate Congress was passed not long after, which released the men over thirty-five years old, and swept the remainder into the regular regiments of the provisional army. When the Tennessee regiments were sent away, February 22d, General Jackson informed the Commander-in-Chief that his position required at least 9,000 men for its defence, threatened as it was by two armies of 12,000 and 36,000 respectively. His effective strength was now reduced to about 6,000; but he still declared that, if the Federalist generals advanced upon him, he should march out and attack the one [285] who approached first. The force on the south branch was now commanded by General Lander, and was concentrated about a locality on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad called Paw Paw, thirty-five miles from Winchester. The importance of the expedition which Jackson had been so anxious to make in January, to destroy the great bridges about Cumberland, was now manifest. This force was able to draw its supplies by railroad from the west, and to bring them unobstructed to the Great Capon Bridge. That work they were rapidly rebuilding, and nothing could be anticipated but that, on its completion, they would break into the valley, in concert with General Banks, from the northeast. The latter commander had been hitherto inactive, but it was known that he had a large force cantoned at Frederick City, Hagerstown, and Williamsport, in Maryland. His first indications were, that he was moving his troops up the northern bank of thePotomac, and effecting a junction with General Lander, by boats constructed at Cumberland and brought down the stream. But this movement, if it was not a feint, was speedily reconsidered. On the 25th of February he crossed at Harper's Ferry with 4000 men, and by the 4th of March had established his Headquarters at Charlestown, seven miles in advance. The remainder of his force was brought over, from time to time, until he, with General Shields, had now collected about 36,000 men at that place,Harper's Ferry and Martinsburg.
A General of less genius than Jackson would have certainly resorted to laborious entrenchments, as an expedient for repairing the inequality of his force. But he constructed no works for the defence ofWinchester. To an inquiry of General Hill, he replied, “I am not fortifying; my position can be turned on all sides.” Knowing that, if he enclosed himself in forts, the superior forces of the Federalists would envelop him, he [286] refused to construct works for them to occupy, after his enforced evacuation. He hoped to return upon them some day, and did not desire to have the necessity of reducing his own fortifications. His strategy sympathized always with that of the Douglas, who “preferred rather to hear the lark sing, than the rat squeak.”
General Jackson, perceiving that the Commander-in-Chief would not be able to give him the aid he desired, looked next for co-operation to the force stationed at Leesburg, in Loudoun county, underGeneral D. H. Hill. By providing means of rapid transit across the Shenandoah at Castleman's Ferry, and establishing a telegraph line between Leesburg and Winchester, he proposed to secure a concentration of the two forces by two days march at most. He also advised that General Hill should proceed to the Loudoun heights, in the northwest corner of that county, and station some artillery upon the mountain there overlooking Harper's Ferry, so as to make the ferry across the stream so hazardous, and the village so untenable, as to compel General Banks to relinquish that line of approach. But the duty of guarding his own position forbade General Hill to extend to him the proposed assistance. He therefore busied himself in removing his sick, and his army stores to Mount Jackson, in Shenandoah county, in order to be prepared either for a desperate resistance at Winchester, or for a safe retreat. While he was thus occupied, the winter ended, and the spring campaign opened in good earnest; and, before the summer was over, General Jackson, up to this period comparatively unknown, won for himself a world-wide reputation, by a series of the most brilliant achievements; in which, with a mere handful of troops, he again and again swept thousands of the enemy before him, and, passing swiftly and silently from point to point, burst like a thunderbolt upon the foe, when least expected, and at the decisive hour, [287]
Chapter 9: General view of the campaigns of 1862.
The campaigns of 1861 had been but a prelude to the gigantic struggle which was to be witnessed in 1862. The prowess and superiority which the Confederates everywhere displayed, rudely awakened the people of the United States from their dreams of an easy conquest, and exasperated their pride and revenge. The Washington Government now resolved upon a new policy. This was, to raise armies so vast, and to add to their momentum by such deliberate preparation, as to overwhelm their gallant enemies by material weight. Under the industrious management of General McClellan, their levies reached, if they were to be believed, the enormous number of seven hundred thousand men; and it is probable that more than half a million were actually under arms, and drilling with the greatest care. Hitherto, the different campaigns had been detached, but in 1862 they assumed connexion with each other. The movements in Virginia were related to those in the Great West, and the brilliant events in the district commanded by General Jackson had a vital influence upon the campaign in Virginia.
In writing the military history of this great commander, two objects must be kept in view. One will be to explain the strategic grounds which support the propriety of his own movements: the other, to show the intimate connexion of his [288] successes with the fortunes of the war. Many persons have claimed his career as an illustration of the uselessness of the science of warfare, and an instance of success in defiance of it. They have conceived of him as a leader who discarded rules, and trusted only to his fortunate star, to rapidity of movements, and to hard blows. They suppose his victories were the results of his boldness only, with that inexplicable chance, which, to man's natural reason, appears good luck, and which a religious faith, like that of Jackson, terms Providence. But while the perpetual and essential influence of the divine power is asserted, which alone sustains the regular connexion of means with ends, it will be shown that these conceptions are erroneous; that General Jackson's campaigns were guided by the most profound and original applications of military science, as well as sustained by the vigor of their execution; and that they are an invaluable study for the leader of armies.
The reader has now reached the commencement of that wondrous campaign in the Valley of Virginia, which created his fame. Before the narrative is begun, it will not be unprofitable to pass in review the general theatre of the war, and the posture and advantages of the two parties. This survey, as well as the subsequent history, will involve the use of a few technical terms, whose definition may be helpful to the unprofessional reader. In accordance with the best usage the word Strategy will be employed to denote the art of giving the proper direction to the movements of an army upon the theatre of war. A Strategic Point is a place, which, from geographical or other reasons, secures for its occupant some advantage in strategic movements, and thence, some control over a part of the theatre of war. Thus, Manassa's Junction was an important strategic point for the Confederates in 1861, because the two railroads meeting there gave them the decisive advantage in all movements over [289] the territory through which they pass. So, an important fortress, a focus where many highways meet, a mountain defile constituting the main entrance to a region, may be such a point. The phrase General Tactics expresses the art of arraying and using an army successfully upon a field of battle; while special tactics is the drill which is taught to the single soldier, the company, or the battalion, in the several branches of infantry, cavalry, or artillery. A Base of Operations is that line, or series of neighboring points, in secure possession of an army, whence it sets out to assail its enemy, whence it continually draws its supplies and reinforcements, and to which it may retreat for safety. Its Line of Operations is the zone along which an army advances from its base toward the object of its attack; and its Line of Communications is but the same tract, usually, viewed in the inverted direction. It might appear from this definition, that an army's line of operations would be projected always at right angles to its base, or in a direction approximating this; but while this is often true, it is not necessarily so, and instances arise in which the most successful line of operations may be oblique, or even almost parallel to the base. Other terms which occur will now easily explain themselves to the attentive reader, without the formality of definitions.
The one decisive advantage, to which the North owes all its successes over the South, has been, not its larger territories, or population, or armies, or geographical position, but its superiority upon the water. And this is true, as will be made clear, notwithstanding that it has been chiefly a war upon land. At the division of the Union) the Government of Washington retained all the Federal Navy. Many of its States were maritime and manufacturing communities; while those of the South were chiefly agricultural; hence the multiplication of ships and sailors, from the river transport up to the man-of-war, was far more [290] rapid among them. This inequality was made more ruinous to the naval force of the South, by the further fact, that the initial superiority of the North excluded her rival from all foreign sources of supply, for equipping and manning ships. The result has been, that the Confederates have had no opportunity to cope with their invaders upon the water; and whereever an entrance was open to Federal ships, either upon sea or river, the former have been expelled.
It has also been the misfortune of the Confederate States, to have the hitherto unsettled question, whether shore-batteries can prevent the passage of ships of war, decided, in novel instances, of the most serious importance to them. When ships were only propelled by the winds, a motive power never so forcible as steam, save in tempests, variable, uncertain, liable to desert the mariner at the critical moment, and leaving him no option save that of moving in a direction somewhat conformed to its own, or else, of casting anchor, artillerists might well boast, that the stationary battery would usually destroy the vessel which challenged its fire. But our generation has witnessed the introduction of steam-ships of war, having a regular and unfailing motive power within themselves, propelling them irrespective of winds and tides, in any direction desired, and capable of a speed as safe and steady, at once, as that of the gentle breeze, and as rapid as the hurricane. When to these advantages is added the iron plating, which, if not impenetrable, at least delays the ruin of the ship's frame-work until after a series of blows, it becomes probable, that such a vessel of war might brave the bullets of shore-batteries, and pass them with impunity without silencing them. But the old authorities of the land service, confident in the former precedents, still declared that such batteries must ever be a secure protection against the entrance of ships of war into rivers and harbors; and it required the disastrous events of [291] Island No.10, of New Orleans, and at last, of Vicksburg, in each of which the batteries were passed, and thus rendered useless, without being silenced, to teach the Confederate Government this new fact in warfare.
Let it be remembered, then, that the oceans which bound two sides of the Confederate States, belong to their enemy, affording them a way of approach, cheap, speedy, and secure from assault. This fact renders the whole sea-shore, wherever harbor or inlets gave access to Federal ships,, a base of operations to their armies. It has made it all an exposed frontier, and brought the enemy upon it all, as though he had embraced its whole circumference with coterminous territories of his own. Popular readers may form to themselves some conception of the disastrous influence of this fact, by representing to themselves the inland kingdom of Bavaria, assailed at once on four sides, by Austria, Switzerland, and the German States, all united under a single hostile will. The similitude is unequal only in this, that theConfederate States have a larger area than Bavaria. The professional reader will comprehend our disadvantage more accurately, by considering that our enemies thus had two pairs of bases of operations, at right angles to each other; whence it resulted, that from whatever interior base a Confederate army might set out, to meet the invading force advancing from one of these sides, theConfederate line of operations must needs be exposed, at a greater or less distance, to a Federal advance from another base, threatening to strike it at right angles. And the cheap and rapid transit of large masses by water, from one line of operations to another, gave to the exterior lines all the advantages for concentration usually possessed by the interior.
But this was not the worst: the Confederate territories are penetrated in every part by navigable rivers, either opening into the sea, which is the territory of the Federal, or into his own frontiers. [292]
From the east and south, the Potomac, the Rappahannock, the James, the Roanoke, the Neuse, theCape Fear, the Savannah, the Alabama, the Brazos, pierce the country from the sea, while theMississippi, itself an inland sea, which floats the greatest men of war, passes out of the United States, through the middle of the Confederacy, to the Gulf of Mexico. The Tennessee and the Cumberland, with their mouths opening upon the Federal frontier, and navigable in winter for war-ships as well as transports, curve inward, deep into the heart of the southeastern quarter; and the Arkansas and Red Rivers open up the States west of the Mississippi. Now, the naval supremacy of the Federalists having been asserted upon all these streams, it is the least part of the evil, that their fertile borders have all been exposed to ravage, and the wealthy cities which grace them, have been wrested from the Confederates. The margins of all these rivers are thus made capable of becoming new bases of operations for invading armies, as secure as their own frontiers. The difficulties of distance, arising from the great extent of theConfederate territories, are reduced, and worst of all, no interior base remains to the Confederates, from which strategic operations can proceed in any direction, but that line is found parallel to some one of these bases of Federal operations; and so, exposed at no great distance, to their advance at right angles upon it. Or, if there is an exception, it is only found in the regions surrounding the Appalachian Range, in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, equally removed from the navigable waters of the Ohio, the Tennessee, and the Atlantic streams. And here, accordingly, the Confederates may be expected to make their most successful resistance, and the Federalists to find their accidental advantages lost, and their true obstacles beginning.
The true strategic difficulties of the Confederates, have ever [293] arisen more from their enemies' command of the water, than from their superior numbers. A review of the crowd of disasters with which the year 1862 opened, will be the best illustration of these reasonings.
The first of these was the battle of Mill Spring, or of Somerset, in the southeastern part of Kentucky; where the Confederates, at first victorious, were struck with discouragement by the death of their beloved commander Gen. Zollicoffer, and suffered a defeat. This insulated event was without consequence, save as it showed improved spirit and drill in the Federal soldiery. February 8th, a Federal fleet and army, entering Albemarle Sound in North Carolina, overpowered the feeble armament on land and water, by which the Confederates sought to defend Roanoke Island, the key to all the inland waters of the region. The enemy established himself there; and this naval success was one of the causes, which led to the evacuation of Norfolk at a later day; because it gave a base for offensive operations against the rear of its defences. The Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston, to whom the defence of Kentucky and Tennessee was entrusted, had stationed his main force at Bowling Green, in Kentucky, a position in itself strong and well chosen. But his retention of it depended upon his closing the Mississippi, Tennessee, and Cumberland Rivers, to the enemy; because the former ran parallel with his line of communications, and the two latter actually passed behind his rear. He attempted to close theMississippi by batteries at Columbus, the Tennessee by Fort Henry, and the Cumberland by Fort Donelson. The first of these posts was supposed by friends and enemies, to be of adequate strength. But the second fell after a feeble defence, February 6th, and the third after a bloody and heroic resistance, February 15th. These events at once compelled the evacuation [294] of Columbus, on theMississippi, because they gave the Federalists, on the margin of the two rivers now opened to them, a base of operations parallel to the line of communications which connected the Confederate army, atColumbus, with their base. The next defence was attempted at Island No.10, between that place and the city of Memphis. The Federalists, after an expensive and futile bombardment, made an essay to pass the batteries with their gunboats, without waiting to silence them; and being partially successful in this, compelled the evacuation of the post, which they could not reduce, by threatening the communications of the garrison. The necessary corollary was the fall of Memphis without a defence. There now remained for the Confederates, no practicable line of operations, in all West and Middle Tennessee: for the reason that the three streams, diverging from points near Cairo, the great naval depot of the Federalists, and open to their fleets, gave them bases of operations on all their banks, parallel to any line upon which the other party might move. The determination of Generals A. S. Johnston and Beauregardto transfer the campaign to the southern bank of the Tennessee, was therefore in strict conformity with military principle; although it required the loss of the Capital of the fine State of Tennessee, and two-thirds of its territory. The result of their wise strategy was the victory of Sbiloh, April 6th: yet even this was almost neutralized by the facility of concentration, which the naval resources of the enemy gave them. The selection of Corinth as the strategic point for the protection of the State of Mississippi was also correct: for it gave the command of the railroads diverging thence eastward and southward. But the advantage of river transportation for troops and munitions of war, to the neighborhood, speedily enabled the Federalists to assemble so enormous a preponderance of means in front of GeneralBeauregard's position there, [295] as to compel his retreat to an interior point. Had he withstood this motive for retreat, another, still more controlling, would in time, have appeared: the Mississippi River, now open to the enemy to Vicksburg, offered them a base, parallel to General Beauregard's line of communications from Corinth with his rear; so that it was practicable to assail that line by advancing from the water.
The extravagant joy of the Federalists at the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson was generally ridiculed. It was said that the capture of two hastily-constructed earthworks, mounting a few cannon, was no exploit to justify the boastings of a great fleet and army, employed in their reduction. The results of these successes were far greater than their glory; and they spoke far more strongly against the providence of the Confederate rulers, than for the prowess of the Federal armies. The true gravity of the events was not in the fact, that the reduction of such works was a difficult or honorable task: but in the fact that theConfederates lacked either the wisdom or the means to interpose more stable defences in avenues of such vital importance to their campaign. It is now manifest, that the possession of the three rivers decided that of the theatre of war. It is not intended that the mere access to the margins of these streams, and the opportunity to use them as bases of operations on land, would have been enough, without a preponderance of military means to be employed thence; but that, without the advantage of these bases, even the great superiority of the Federal numbers would not have availed to give. them the campaign.
But the most fatal of all these advantages was the occupation of New Orleans. This success also resulted from the discovery, whose novelty was so unfortunate for the Confederate cause, that war steamers could pass batteries with impunity. After [296] the chief of the naval force had despaired of the reduction of the forts which guarded the approaches to the city, Commodore Farragut, April 24th, essayed, what was then esteemed the rash experiment of passing them by night, with perfect success. The rich and unarmed city then lay at his mercy; for the Confederates had no fleet adequate to resist his approach, and the surrender of the forts was thQ obvious sequel to the loss of that, which they were intended to protect. The Mississippi River was now open to the Federal navies through all its length, except the section embraced between the fortresses of Port Hudson and Vicksburg. Thus, their strategic advantages were extended indefinitely for operating in all the States on both sides of its waters. The greater success of the Federalists in their southwestern campaigns is explained by the position of these great rivers. When the advantage which they possessed in them is considered, the only wonder will be, that they did not accomplish more, with their vast military resources. Their failure to conquer the whole is only to be explained by their own timidity and feebleness in execution, coupled with the bravery and talent of the Confederates. It is no small glory to the latter, to have saved any part of their country from an enemy possessed of strategic advantages so deadly.
The policy which should have been adopted for defence by the Confederate Government, is also indicated by these events. They should have understood that there were four vital points, --the mouth of the Mississippi, its course at the western extremity of Kentucky, the mouth of the Tennessee, and the mouth of the Cumberland, to the defence of which every en, ergy should have been bent from the first day of the war. The loss of one of these, and especially of one of the last three, rendered nugatory the defence of the others; because the invading army, penetrating along the one stream which it had [297] opened, could base itself upon its banks, far in the rear of the forces defending the other two, and, by threatening their communications, compel their retreat. The obstacles placed upon all of them should, therefore, have been equally impregnable. It had been better to neglect anything else, and to suffer any incursions by land, than to fail in this. And since the recent introduction of steam into ships of war, with the earnest warnings of enlightened naval men, ought to have aroused at least a mistrust of shore-batteries, as a sufficient defence against ships, other and more certain means of resistance should have been provided at these essential points. To the construction of enough efficient war-ships to hold these four avenues, the energies of the Government and people should have been directed, at the earliest hour, with an activity akin to that of desperation. The Confederates then possessed the wealth, the skilled labor, and the material supplies, of Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans, and Norfolk; by neglecting to expend a part early and wisely, they lost the whole of them.
At the place last named, the Confederates were employed during the winter, in one enterprise, which pointed in the right direction; the construction of the iron-clad steamer, Virginia. This powerful and unique ship, armed with the most formidable rifled cannon, was prepared for action early in March, and on the 8th of that month, attacked the Federal fleet in Hampton Roads, destroying three frigates and several gunboats, and putting the remainder to flight.
This brilliant action filled the people with delight, and the noble ship was accepted as a sufficient defence for the mouth of James River, against all the men-of-war which the Federalists could at that time bring against her. Her prowess showed that a few such vessels in the Mississippi might have saved the [298] disasters of the southwest, and the occupation of a third of its territory.
The disparity of the strength of the two parties was pointed out at the beginning of the war. The geographical position of the Confederate States, it has been now shown, rendered them yet weaker for a defensive war; but to this species of resistance they were shut up. At the beginning of the campaign of 1862, they had experienced a farther diminution of strength, in the virtual loss of Kentucky andMissouri. A few of the chivalrous citizens of these States, accepting banishment rather than subjugation, followed the fortunes of the Confederacy; but their territories, their revenues, and their wealth were now in the hands of the oppressors. The military events which induced this result need not be detailed here; for they would lead too far away from the proper subject — the Virginian campaign. After this loss, which occurred before the struggle reached its acme, the Confederates States had about eight and a half millions of people, including among them nearly all the Africans of the South, with whom to resist twenty millions. This statement declares, more forcibly than any eloquence of words, the heroic character of the defence which they have since made.
Comparisons of present with past events assist us to appreciate the merit of the latter, by the help of the estimate established for the former in history. Let the defence of the Southern Confederacy against theUnited States, be illustrated, for instance, by that of Spain, in the Peninsular War, against the designs ofNapoleon, which were not unlike the aggressions of the Federals in iniquity. Spain then possessed about eleven millions of people, an army of one hundred and twenty-seven thousand men, and a navy superior to that of the United States, at the opening of this war. Her soil was open to the invader only at one quarter, for the sea which surrounds her was held [299] by the fleets of England, in conjunction with her own; and these reduced the navy of France to an absolute inactivity. Access to her wealthy colonies was open throughout the struggle, and no blockade obstructed the entrance of the British arms and supplies. On the other hand, the population of the. French Empire was double that of the Federal States, but the armies of the Emperor were not more numerous than those employed for our conquest. The vast difference against Napoleon was, that during the whole Spanish struggle, his strength was also tasked with gigantic wars elsewhere while the malice of the Federal has met no diversion from any other nation in its concentration upon the work of our destruction, and to his armies, equal to all the imperial legions, must be added the efforts of a great navy. Yet, with these relative means of aggression,Napoleon overran the whole territory of Spain, occupied her capital, and compelled her to a war of six years, in which she was seconded by the whole military power of Great Britain, to shake off his grasp. What, then, must have been the energy of the Southern character, as compared with the Spanish, or what the impotency of the Federal administration as compared with the French, to reduce the consequences of their invasion to so partial a limit, at the end of three years nf lavish expenditure and bloodshed?
The opening of the campaign of 1862 found the Federalists firmly seated upon the coast of South Carolina at Beaufort, and of North Carolina at Fort Macon, Newberne, and Roanoke Island. On the eastern borders of Virginia, they occupied Fortress Monroe, and Newport News, all the lower peninsula between the James and York Rivers, and the mouth of the Rappahannock. Near the ancient towns of Williamsburg and York, General Magruder, with a few thousand men, held their superior numbers at bay: and his guns maintained a precarious command [300] over the channels of the two rivers. Around Washington, swarmed “the Grand Army” of General McClellan, upon both banks of thePotomac; while its wings extended from the lower regions of the State of Maryland, to the Alleghanies. It was confronted by the army of General Joseph E. Johnston, with its right wing resting upon thePotomac to Evansport, and commanding the river by a formidable battery, its centre about Manassa's Junction, and its left at Winchester under General Jackson. This army was composed of volunteers enlisted for one year; and the hour when their term of service expired, was now fast approaching.
Neither State nor Confederate Government had yet adopted any permanent system for raising or recruiting armies. The Congress was just moving, under the impulse of threatening disasters, towards the adoption of a general conscription, which placed all the male white population, between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, in the military service.
But this law, while it promised ultimately to bring a multitude of new soldiers into the service, released a number of veterans, who were more than thirty-five years old. It moreover involved the reorganization of every regiment, by the election of new officers; a work which was in progress throughout the early months of the campaign. All the forces of the Confederacy, being volunteers, had claimed the republican privilege of election. The fruits of this vicious system of appointment were now becoming more painfully manifest; when to its other relaxations of authority were added the desire on the part of the officers to propitiate the favor of their soldiers by indulgence, in view of the approaching vote, and the disposition of other aspirants to oppose their pretensions to a re-election, by every species of cabal. The troops were chiefly raised by authority of the States: during the remainder of the war, they were to be [301] governed by that of the Confederacy. That power therefore proposed to introduce, along with their conscription, a uniform system for its armies. The 3rd of March, General Jackson, through a member of Congress from his Military District, urged the adoption of two principles: of which one was, that the right of electing should be arrested, save for the lowest rank of commissioned officers, third lieutenants: and that above that grade, all vacancies should be filled by promotion. The second was, that promotion should not be obtained by seniority, unless the applicant was approved by a Board of Examiners, whose rejection, when sanctioned by the Commander-in-Chief of a Department, should be final. Although the reorganization of the Virginia regiments, for the second year, was completed under laws of the State, without these wholesome regulations, they were soon after embodied in the laws of Congress. Their effect has been steadily to raise the efficiency of the officers, and thus, the discipline of the army. But during the first, and the greater part of the second campaign, the lack of competent and energetic officers for companies and regiments, was the bane of the service, and the constant grievance of the commanders. In many, there was neither an intelligent comprehension of their duties, nor zeal in their performance.
Appointed by the votes of their neighbors and friends, to lead them, they would neither exercise that rigidity in governing, nor that detailed care in providing for the wants of their men, which are necessary to keep soldiers efficient. The duties of the drill and the sentry-post were often negligently performed; and the most profuse waste of ammunition, and other military stores, was permitted. It was indeed seldom that these officers were guilty of cowardice upon the field of battle; but they were often in the wrong place, fighting as common soldiers, when they should have been directing others. Above all, was their inefficiency [302] marked by their inability to keep their men in the ranks “Absenteeism” grew under them to a monstrous evil; and while those who were animated by principle were bravely in their places on the day of action, every poltroon and laggard found a way to creep from the ranks. Indeed, it was no-rare thing to hear these leaders reason, that efforts to keep the latter class in their places were injudicious; because they would be of no use, if present Hence the frequent phenomenon, that regiments which, on the books of the commissary appeared as consumers of five hundred or a thousand rations, were reported as carrying into action two hundred and fifty, or three hundred bayonets. The thinness of these ranks must needs be repaired by the greater devotion and gallantry of the true men. They were compelled to take their own share of the bullets, and those of the cowards in addition: and thus, the blood which was shed in battle was almost exclusively that of the noblest and best, while the ignoble currents, in the veins of the base, were husbanded.
At the approach of the spring campaign, other causes, less discreditable, concurred to diminish the armies in Virginia. Furloughs were liberally given, in order to encourage the men to re-enlist with cheerfulness. A majority of the officers were at their homes, professedly engaged in collecting absentees, or in recruiting new men. The fevers of the previous autumn had decimated the most of the regiments. While, therefore, the diligence of the Federal Government was swelling the host of McClellanto two hundred and thirty thousand men, the command of General Johnston was absolutely diminished more than one half, when the season of activity arrived. It was manifest that he would be in no condition to cope with his adversary, in his present positions. His chief protection against a catastrophe had been, for some time, the condition of the roads, which [303] forbade campaigning. A winter and early spring of unprecedented rains had so softened the argillaceous soil of the Bull Run, that the two armies lay immovable, like two hostile ships fast grounded in a shoal of mud, a little too remote for combat.General McClellan was anxiously awaiting the first drying suns of March, to move his gigantic army forward to that triumph, for which he had been so assiduously preparing them for eight months; andGeneral Johnston was watching for the same juncture, to retire to a more interior line of defence.
The goal of the Federal advance was, of course, to be Richmond; and to its capture, every movement was to converge. General McClellan was to drive back the left wing of the Confederate army atWinchester, by — the forces under Shields and Banks, to insulate and overpower the right wing resting on the Potomac at Evansport, and to surround and crush General Johnston at Manassas, or else to force him toward Richmond, and pursue him. The army on the Peninsula, setting out from Fortress Monroe, was to press back General Magruder, and assail the capital from the East. The forces in theValley, having beaten General Jackson, were either to converge towards the rear of Manassa's Junction, by crossing the Blue Ridge, or else to march southwestward up that District, and at Staunton, meet a powerful force from the Northwest, which was preparing to advance from Wheeling, underGeneral Fremont. Staunton was manifestly one of the most important strategic points in Central Virginia. It is situated on the Central Railroad, and at the intersection of the great Valley Turnpike (a paved road which extends from the Potomac continuously to the extremity of Southwestern Virginia). It is also theterminus of the Turnpike to Parkersburg, in Northwest Virginia, and the focus of a number of important highways. Its possession decided that of the whole interior of the State, and of another avenue, the Central Railroad, [304] leading to Richmond from its western side. As this road, on its way to the capital, passes by Gordonsville, the intersection of the Orange and Alexandria road, on whichGeneral Johnston now depended as his sole line of communications, its possession by the Federalists would at once endanger that line, and compel him to seek a position still more interior. Moreover,Eastern Virginia, south of Gordonsville, was the great tobacco-planting region, and consequently, yielded no large supplies for the capital or armies. The great central counties, to which Staunton was the key, were the granary of the Commonwealth. There was, then, little hope that the capital, with the large armies necessary for its defence, when thus insulated from its sources of supply, and open only to the south, would endure a very long investment. Considering these things, and remembering that if Stauntonwere surrendered, the concentration of General Banks' and General Fremont's columns there must inevitably occur, thus placing a third army of commanding strength far in the rear of General Johnston's left, and of his temporary base, General Jackson declared that the defence of the Valley was essential to the defence of Virginia. Geographically, it is the heart of the State. Its vast resources were essential to our strength; and if seized by the enemy, would enable them to deal deadly blows. If they seated themselves in force there, they could not be dislodged, save at great cost; because no favorable base and line of operations against them, would remain to the Confederates.
The retreat of General Johnston from Manassa's Junction implied that of General Jackson fromWinchester, for reasons already explained (in Chap. VII.); and for the latter, no practicable line of operations would remain north of Front Royal and Strasbourg. These two villages, both on the line of the Manassa's Gap Railroad, marked the opening of the twin valleys, into [305] which the Masanuttin Mountains divide the Great Valley for fifty miles. The strategic question for General Jackson was, whether he should move to Front Royal, at the mouth of the Eastern Valley, or to Strasbourg, at the beginning of the Western, and on the great road leading to Staunton. At the beginning of March, this question was receiving careful discussion by letters between his Commander-in-Chief and him. The former advised that he should retire to Front Royal, and thence, up the south branch of the Shenandoah, because it was in the direction of his own intended retreat, and therefore upon convergent lines; because thus, the retreating wings would be prepared for a more rapid concentration than those of the invading army, and for a vigorous blow at each of them in turn: and because it was contrary to all sound discretion to allow the enemy to attain a point between the Manassa's Army and the Army of the Valley, from which he might act against them on interior lines. General Johnston accordingly enjoined onGeneral Jackson, not to permit the Federalists to insinuate themselves between Winchester and the Blue Ridge. Had there been no armies on the theatre of war, save those of McClellan and Johnston, Banksand Jackson, these views would have been correct. But General Jackson declared his preference for a retreat up the main Valley, in the direction of Staunton. That place, he argued, would be the object ofBanks's endeavors, rather than a junction with MOClellan in front of General Johnston; because, by approaching Staunton, he threatened General Edward Johnson's rear, and compelled his retreat without a blow; he thus opened the way for General Fremont's unobstructed advance, and effected a junction with him; and he placed himself, in redoubled force, so far in the rear of General Johnston's left, and so near his line of communications, as to necessitate his retiring without battle, and yielding to McClellanthe vast and [306] precious circuit of country which has been described. For this reason, he said the main Valley must not be left open to General Banks. But unless the Confederates from Winchestermoved so decisively towards the Blue Ridge, as to leave the road to Staunton undefended against him, they could not effect General Johnston's purpose, of converging on lines shorter and more concentric than those of the enemy's advance. Indeed, since a short march from Charlestown, by the way ofBerryville and Milwood, would place General Banks at the fords of the Shenandoah, and on the main roads from Winchester to Manassa's, if that purpose were to be the dominant one, the Confederate army ought to move that very day, not towards Front Royal, but directly towards Manassa's. If such an object were in view as dictated the masterly strategy of July, 1861 [to make an immediate concentration, and fight a successful battle for the retention of Manassa's Junction], then this would be the proper movement; but in no other case. On the other hand, he declared that he did not believeGeneral Banks could cross the Blue Ridge, to bear upon General Johnston, while he remained in theValley near him, acting upon the line of communications with Staunton, and continually threatening his right. General Jackson therefore desired to be permitted to retire to Strasbourg; but he closed his manly argument with the assurance, that he should promptly and cheerfully obey the wishes of hisCommander-in-Chief, whatever they might be. General Johnston conceded to him the exercise of his own discretion; and he made preparations to retreat, when it became necessary, up the Valley, by sending his stores and sick to Mount Jackson, forty-five miles above Winchester. It will appear how far events confirmed his speculations.
To a friend in the Confederate Congress, General Jackson thus disclosed his own wishes. Speaking of the Valley of Virginia, [307] he says:--
What I desire is, to hold the country as far as practicable, until we are in a condition to advance; and then, with God's blessing, let us make thorough work of it. But let us start right ...
In regard to your question as to how many troops I need, you will probably be able to form some idea, when I tell you that Banks, who commands about 35,000 has his Headquarters in Charlestown, and that Kelly, who has succeeded Lander, has probably 11,000, with his Headquarters near Paw Paw. Thus you see two Generals, whose united force is near 46,000, of troops already organized for three years or the war, opposed to our little force here; but I do not feel discouraged. Let me have what force you can. McClellan, as I learn, was at Charlestown on Friday last: there may be something significant in this. You observe then, the impossibility of saying how many troops I will require, since it is impossible for me to know how many will invade us. I am delighted to hear you say Virginia is resolved to consecrate all her resources, if necessary, to the defence of herself Now we may look for war in earnest.
You ask me for a letter respecting the Valley. I am well satisfied. that you can say much more about it than I can, and in much more forcible terms. I have only to say this; that if this Valley is lost, Virginia is lost.
Very truly, your friend, T. J. Jackson.
Chapter 10: Kernstown.
By the 11th of March, 1862, General Jackson had removed all his sick and supplies to Mount Jackson, and had gathered in all his troops from the outposts to Winchester. He now had only the First, Second, and Third Virginia Brigades, the last containing two small regiments, Colonel Ashby's regiment of horse, and six batteries of field artillery. On that day, General Banks approached within four miles ofWinchester, on the north, and General Jackson went out and offered him battle. This challenge Banksdeclined, although his force present on the field was fourfold, and preferred to await the arrival ofGeneral Shields with his reserves. The Confederates, therefore, returned in the evening to their camp around the town, and General Jackson assembled the commander and colonels of the Stonewall Brigade, as a council of war, to lay before them a daring project which he had conceived. While he was awaiting them, he went to take his supper with the hospitable family whose board he frequented, and appeared in their parlor with his military cloak, spurs, sword, and haversack. His spirits were unusually bright and genial, and his countenance glowed with animation. His friends, on the contrary, were oppressed with gloom; for they could not but see that the movement of stores to the rear, which had been go complete, portended the evacuation of Winchester, and their surrender to the hated oppressions of the [309] enemy. To the inquiries of the ladies, he replied by a polite evasion, while he evidently sought to relieve their apprehensions. According to the usage of the family, the domestic devotions were to follow the meal; but the master, presuming that General Jackson must be too busy on this occasion to be delayed by them, paused to give him an opportunity to retire. He, however, requested the privilege of joining in them. At their close, he arose, asked that a lunch be placed in his haversack, and went away with a cheerful good evening,--merely saying that he hoped to dine with them on the morrow as usual. His friends, re-assured by his air, and by their implicit confidence in his prowess, went out to make a call. In an hour, the General returned, with a rapid stride, and gave the door-bell an energetic ring. Upon learning that the family were out, he left with the servants a request that their master should repair to his Headquarters immediately after his return; and they said that he looked anxious and hurried. His friend hastened down to his office, and found him prepared for mounting, striding across the room with rapid steps, and depressed with an inexpressible weight of sadness. General Jackson then explained that it was his plan to march the army back by night, after allowing them time to refresh themselves, to General Banks's front, and, having made his dispositions in profound silence, to begin a fierce attack upon him at the “small hours” of the morning. General Shieldshad not yet come within a supporting distance; but by the next day he would be united with his commanding general, and the odds would then be so enormous that it would be madness to resist them.General Banks had an army of new and unsteady troops, half intimidated by the fame and valor of theConfederates, while the latter were animated by a towering enthusiasm and confidence. He believed that the darkness, the suddenness and fury of his attack, the lack of experience in [310] evolutions among the Federalists, would throw them into confusion; and, by the vigorous use of the bayonet, and the blessing of the Providence in which he trusted, he should inflict upon them a great overthrow. He was exceedingly loath to leave the gallant, loyal, and generous town, with all the fine country around it, to their ruthless sway, without a struggle. But when he consulted his officers, he found them too reluctant, to permit him to hope for a successful execution of his plan. They argued that the troops had already marched ten miles to and fro that day, and the night attack would require a farther journey of six miles, after which they would reach the scene of action too much wearied to effect anything; and that there was at least a probability of an advance of the enemy from Berryville; which would place them, at the critical moment, upon the right and rear of the Confederates.
As he detailed these facts, General Jackson paced his floor in painful indecision, and repeated an expression of his bitter reluctance to leave Winchester without one brave stroke for its defence. Then passing full before the candles, he lifted up his face with a look of lofty determination, and his hand convulsively grasped the hilt of his sword, while he slowly hissed through his clenched teeth words to this effect: “But-Let me think-may I not execute my purpose still?” As he uttered this, his eye burned with a fire before which his friend, who had never seen the light of battle in his face, confessed he could not but tremble. Then releasing his sword, he dropped his head, and said, “No: I must not do it: it may cost the lives of too many brave men. I must retreat, and wait for a better time.” The air of grief again possessed him, and he proposed to return to his friend's dwelling, to take leave of his family. He bade them a sad farewell, but said he hoped a good Providence would enable him soon to return, and bring them deliverance. The next morning, [311] at dawn of day, the Confederate army left Winchester forStrasbourg, and at 9 o'clock, A. M., the column of General Banks began cautiously to enter it. As they approached, Colonel Ashby slowly withdrew his troopers into the streets, and then through the town, while he remained the last man, and sat quietly upon his horse, until the enemy had approached within a short distance; when he gave his defiant shout, and galloped away. The Federalists found not a single prisoner, horse, musket, or wagon, to enrich their conquest. The citizens of Winchester, who, saw their nervous timidity at the thought of Stonewall Jackson's proximity, and their ignorance of his real numbers, were convinced that, had the night attack been made, they would have been utterly routed. GeneralShields's troops were so far in the rear, that they did not begin to arrive until 2 o'clock, P. M., and it is therefore manifest that the affair would have been decided, before they reached the scene of action. But the panic among their friends would not have been slow to propagate itself among them.
General Jackson wished, after once surrendering the lower Valley, to draw the enemy farther into the country, and thus both to relieve General Johnston of their pressure, and to diminish the numbers with whom he would be required to deal in his front. After marching to Strasbourg, twenty miles aboveWinchester, the 12th of March, he retreated slowly to the neighborhood of Mt. Jackson, reaching it the 17th. There he received a despatch from General Johnston, dated March 19th, stating that it was most desirable the enemy's force in the Valley should be detained there, and prevented from reinforcingGeneral McClellan. To effect this, he requested General Jackson to return nearer the enemy, and remain in as threatening attitude as was practicable without compromising the safety of his army. TheCommander.in-Chief was completing that hazardous retreat [312] from Manassa's Junction to the south side of the Rappahannock, begun March 10th, by which he so skilfully delivered his army, and its wholemateriel, from the jaws of his powerful enemy. McClellan was also endeavoring to envelop him with his multitudinous hordes, and, to this end, was just drawing a number of regiments from the army of Banks, to aid in turning General Johnston's left. They had already begun their march, and were preparing to cross the Blue Ridge at Snicker's Gap, while their General, regarding Jackson as a fugitive whom it was vain to pursue, had returned to Washington to boast of his bloodless conquest, leaving the remainder of his army in charge of General Shields. Upon receiving the orders of his Commander-in-Chief, theConfederate General prepared for a rapid return towards Winchester. Leaving the neighborhood ofMount Jackson, March 22d, he marched that day to Strasbourg, twentysix miles; while Colonel Ashby, with his cavalry and a light battery of three guns, advanced before him, and drove the enemy's outposts into Winchester. The rapidity of this movement took them by surprise. The troops which remained withGeneral Shields were encamped below the town, and Ashby found only a feeble force in his front. With these he skirmished actively and successfully; and, in the combat, an exploding shell from one of his guns broke the arm of the Federal Commander. So audacious was Ashby's pursuit, that his scouts privately penetrated the town of Winchester, and communicated with the citizens. The latter, knowing that many regiments had been sent towards Manassa's, by Snicker's Gap, and seeing very few remaining near the town, assisted to confirm him in the impression of the paucity of the enemy's numbers. He accordingly sent back to General Jackson the assurance that there were but four regiments of infantry occupyingWinchester, and that they were preparing to return to Harper's Ferry: which [313] encouraged him, in turn, to push forward his whole force on the morning of the 23d. But the alarmed enemy had advanced all the forces encamped below the town, and had sent couriers to recall all those which were on their march towards Manassa's. When the General, therefore, reached Barton's Mills, five miles from the town, at noon of that day, he found Ashby pressed back to the highlands south of Kernstown, and confronted by considerable masses of the enemy.
It was the Sabbath day; and if there was one principle of General Jackson's religion, which was more stringent than the others, it was his reverence for its sanctity. He had yielded to the demands of military necessity, so far as to march on the sacred morning, that he might not lose the advantages which opportunity seemed to place within his reach; but now a more inexorable necessity was upon him. It was manifest that Colonel Ashby had been deceived in his estimate of the force opposed to him; andJackson had reason to anticipate that General Johnston's desire to have the powerful army of Banksrecalled, was fulfilled too efficaciously for his own safety. The region about him, and in his rear, was a beautiful champaign, swelling with gentle hills: and on that side of Cedar Creek, twelve miles behind him, there was no defensible position against superior masses. The whole country was practicable for the manoeuvres of cavalry and artillery. To delay, therefore, was to incur the hazard of being enclosed in the overwhelming numbers of the enemy: already it was doubtful whether a prompt retreat would be safely concluded. General Jackson's resolution was therefore immediately taken, to assail the enemy on the spot, and win, if not a decisive victory, at least the privilege of an unmolested retreat, before the preponderance against him became more alarming than it already was. In the force with which he proposed to attack them, more than half the commissioned officers [314] were absent, either on furloughs or recruiting service; for a few days before, it was supposed that the cessation of the enemy's pursuit would allow a period of quiet, to be devoted to the needed work of reorganization. Many of the men were also at their homes; so that after deducting the stragglers lurking with the baggage train, the foot-sore, whom the rapid march had left behind, and a regiment detained to guard the equipage, there were but two thousand seven hundred of the little army left, to meet the enemy.
The great road crossing the Opequon Creek, a quiet mill stream, five miles from Winchester, proceeds thither over a series of long and gentle slopes, through a country smiling with fertility, and almost denuded of its forests. Two miles from the Opequon, after surmounting a moderate ridge, it reachesKernstown, a hamlet of a dozen houses, seated in the midst of meadows, three miles from Winchester. All the vicinity was divided into farms, by stone fences, which also lined the highway continuously. Here, there was nothing in the nature of the ground to offer advantage to the smaller force. A mile to the left, or west of the Turnpike, is a country road, which also crosses the Opequon, and passing through gently undulating farms, converges towards Winchester, in such a direction as to meet the main thoroughfare at the nearer side of the town. And west of this country road, there is an elevated ridge parallel to it, terminated at its rear, or southwestern end, by the Opequon, which curves around it. This range of hills, after running forward for two miles towards the town, sinks into the plain. Although elevated enough to command the whole neighborhood, it is not craggy, but so rounded, as to permit the ascent of artillery; and it is clothed with forests, with a few small fields interspersed, and notched by successive depressions, which descend into ravines between the lateral spurs of the hill. West of this ridge is another vale, [315] filled with meadows and farm-houses, among which the ascending course of the stream threads its way parallel to tie main crest. The larger part of the fields here, likewise, were enclosed by: fences of limestone, which, rising to the height of four feet, offered a very adequate breastwork against the fire of musketry. A mile west of the region last described, still another road passes in the direction of Winchester, called the Cedar Creek Turnpike. This route manifestly gave the enemy access to the left and rear of the Confederates.
General Jackson's plan was to contest the wooded ridge with the enemy; for upon it rested their right flank, and its heights gave their artillery commanding positions whence they could sweep all the champaign between it and the great road. With their wings thus supported, the one by the hills, and the other upon Kernstown, and their centre strengthened with fourfold numbers of infantry and artillery, an attack in front gave no promise of success. The only hopeful project for the inferior force taking the aggressive, was, to amuse the enemy's centre and left, while the main body availed itself of the covert and strength of the same heights, which were occupied at their northern end by them, and to direct the whole weight of the assault against their right. The obvious mode for effecting this would have appeared to be to ascend the ridge at its southwestern end, and thus proceed along its crest; but such a movement was forbidden by an extensive pond, formed on the Opequon for feeding a mill, whose waters embraced that extremity of the hill. General Jackson was compelled, therefore, to march his infantry and artillery obliquely from the great road to the hills, under a hot cannonade from the enemy, without the ability to return his fire at that time. But the movement was effected without loss, and without confusion. About 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the following dispositions were completed. On his [316] extreme right, which rested upon the turnpike in front of Kernstown, he posted Colonel Ashby, with his battery of three guns, all his cavalry, except four companies detached for the left, and four companies of infantry from the Stonewall Brigade. These were ordered to occupy the attention of the enemy's left by a constant cannonade, and to press them as opportunity might permit. Next to the turnpike was placed the 5th Virginia regiment, to hold a mile of space, and to watch the enemy's centre. Effective resistance from so small a force was, of course, not to be expected; but General Jackson relied upon his artillery, commanding the country along which they must advance if they assumed the aggressive from the centre, and yet more upon the engrossing occupation which he expected to give them upon their right wing, to hold that part of their army in check. Nor was he disappointed of this hope. His main line of battle was finally formed, with no small interval between it and the regiment last named, obliquely across the wooded ridge, with his left advanced. Next the right were the 42d and 21st regiments of Virginia Volunteers, and the 1st battalion of Virginia Regulars, composing the 2d brigade, under the command ofColonel Burks. Next to these on the left, was the Stonewall Brigade, with the 2d regiment on its light, and then the 33d, the 27th, and the 4th. The left of the infantry line was composed of the two regiments of the 3d brigade, the 37th and 23d, under the command of Colonel Fulkerson. These occupied the farther, or western, side of the ridge. Beyond the meadows which lay at its base, four companies of cavalry were stationed on a hill which overlooks the country to the Cedar Creek turnpike, to check the insults of the enemy's horse. The batteries were posted in the centre in front of the Stonewall Brigade; for their line passed across the higher grounds, most suitable for the position of artillery. [317]
Thus disposed, the little army advanced against the enemy, with its left continually thrown forward, through the alternate woods and fields which covered the sides and crest of the highlands. After a spirited cannonade, by which/several batteries of the enemy were silenced, the infantry engaged with inexpressible fury, at close quarters, the 27th regiment leading off. In some places, the lines were advanced within twenty paces, partially shielded from each other by the abrupt little ravines, where theConfederates, lying upon their breasts behind the protuberances of the ground, or retiring a few steps into the hollow places to reload, held their enemies at bay by their scathing discharges. As regiment after regiment came into position, their heroic General led them into the hottest of the fire; and wherever the line wavered under overwhelming numbers, he was present, to cheer the fainting men, and bring up the reinforcements. But he had no reserves, save the 5th Virginia, which was speedily released from its first position by the inactivity of the enemy in that quarter, and the 48th, left as a baggage guard. Only the former of these came up in time to share in the action, and was introduced to reinforce the 2d brigade between the 42d and 21st, where it bore its full share of the glories and dangers of the combat. On theFederal side, the superior numbers enabled them perpetually to bring up fresh troops. As one regiment recoiled, reeling and panicstruck, it was replaced again and again by another; and the officers, secure of victory from their preponderating force, were seen riding madly behind the wavering lines, goading their men to the work with the sabre. The Confederates, on the other hand, having no succors,. fought until they exhausted their ammunition. As the men fired their last cartridge, their officers allowed them to go to the rear; and after a time, the thinned lines presented no adequate resistance to the fresh crowds of [318] enemies. Near nightfall, General Richard B. Garnett, cor manding the Stonewall Brigade, in the centre, seeing his fire dying away for lack of ammunition, and his line pierced on his right, assumed the responsibility of authorizing a retreat of his command, without orders from General Jackson; and nothing now remained, but to protect the movement from more serious disaster.
Where every regiment fought with steady heroism, and none retired until they had fired the last round from their cartridgeboxes, detailed exploits can scarcely be singled out, without injustice to the men passed over in silence. But a few particulars, in which the actors possessed, not more courage, but more opportunity, should be described, as having a decisive influence on the battle. On the right,Colonel Ashby cannonaded the enemy continually with his three guns, with such audacity, as to win ground all the day from their multitudes. They advanced their infantry through a tract of woodland, to seize his pieces; when his four infantry companies, thrown forward as skirmishers, scoured the forest with enthusiastic courage, and repulsed the attacking party, until the artillery was again posted in a more secure position. Later in the day, this daring leader executed a cavalry charge against the extreme left of the Federalists, drove their first line back upon their reserves, and captured a few prisoners. In that quarter, they advanced no more during the day. Upon the left, where the advance was first confided to the 27th and 21st regiments, supported by Colonel Fulkerson, and Carpenter's and McLauchlin's batteries, the guns were advanced with great spirit under the eye of General Jackson, delivering an effective fire towards the right and front. The infantry engagement was opened by the 27th, seconded by the 21st; and these two regiments sustained the whole brunt of the fire with unsurpassed heroism, untilColonel [319] Fulkerson passed to their left, and the remainder of the Stonewall Brigade came up. Twice they routed their assailants in quick succession, and held the Federalist army in check while the line of battle was completed. In the centre, the 5th and 42nd regiments, with the batteries of McLauchlinand Carpenter, were the last upon the field. While the enemy pressed up to close quarters, and shot down the horses and gunners at the pieces, the latter replied with murderous discharges of canister shot, at the distance of a hundred paces. This determined resistance saved the batteries, with the exception of two guns, of which one was disabled, and the other entangled in a fence, and of four caissons, whose horses were slaughtered. On the left, Colonel Fulkerson, upon becoming warmly engaged, perceived between him and the enemy, a long stone fence, to which each party was advancing, intending to employ it as a breastwork against the other. The boldness of the Confederates secured them that advantage. Reaching the covert a moment in advance of the enemy, they fell upon their knees, and delivered a volley so withering, that the whole line before them seemed to sink into the earth. The larger part of the Federalists were indeed killed or wounded by that unerring fire; and the remainder, to escape instant death, prostrated themselves, and attempted to crawl to the rear. But in this endeavor, nearly all perished; the mountain riflemen picked them off with deadly aim, before they reached the shelter of the wood. The regiment thus annihilated was said to be the 5th Ohio. A New York regiment, coming to their aid, escaped with a fate little less terrible; for when they sheltered themselves behind another stone fence running to that occupied by Colonel Fulkerson at right angles, and endeavored to fusillade theConfederates from its shelter, that skilful commander moved a part of his line down, along his own defence, to a point below the juncture of [320] the two walls, whence he delivered an enfilading fire upon the exposed rear of the astonished Federalists. But finding the centre of the Confederate line broken, at nightfall he retired in good order, bringing off his two little regiments in safety. The four companies of cavalry upon the extreme left had been instructed by General Jackson to hold themselves prepared to charge the enemy should he retreat, or to protect the Confederate infantry, should it be forced to that alternative. They now rendered good service, by holding in check, and ultimately putting to flight, the Federal cavalry, which had made a circuit by the Cedar Creek turnpike, and sought to interrupt the retreat of their friends. But on the eastern side of the Opequon, a number of the fugitives found themselves enclosed, at dark, between the mill-pond and the enemy, and were thus captured.
The infantry retreated a few miles to the neighborhood of Newtown, while the cavalry of Colonel Ashbytook its station at Barton's Mills, a mile in the rear of the field of combat, and held the enemy in check until 10 o'clock of the next morning.
General Jackson himself, begging a morsel of food at the bivouac fire of the soldiers, lay down in the field, to snatch a few hours' repose, a little in the rear of his outposts.
Such was the battle of Kernstown,--in which twenty-seven hundred Confederates, with eighteen guns, attacked eleven thousand Federalists, and almost wrested the victory from their hands. For GeneralJackson estimated their force actually engaged at that number, besides heavy reserves upon their left which were not brought into action. The next morning, while remarking upon the struggle, he said: “Had I been able to bring up two thousand more men, I should have beaten them.” The officer to whom he spoke replied by referring to the dense masses of unbroken infantry hanging behind Kernstown, and expressed the opinion that any success won by so small a force [321] must have been unavailing, because these reserves, by threatening his right, would have compelled him to arrest his career. Jacksonanswered: “No; if I had put the men engaged to flight, they would all have gone together.” The troops marshalled against him were unquestionably the best in the Federal army, composed chiefly of hardy Western men, habituated from childhood to field sports and the use of fire-arms; and while those who have a visible odds of four to one upon their side deserve but little credit for their boldness, and would have no excuse for their panic, the perseverance with which the Federal regiments brought their weight of numbers to bear against the Confederates, notwithstanding bloody losses, is some testimony to their manhood. General Jackson's loss was eighty killed outright, three hundred and seventy-seven wounded, and two hundred and sixty captured,--making a total of seven hundred and seventeen, or more than one fourth of the whole force engaged. The loss of the enemy was never divulged; but there are reasons for believing that it was nearly quadruple that of the patriots. Their officers reported their killed as four hundred and eighteen. The loyal citizens of Winchester were permitted to perform the last offices to theConfederate dead upon the field of battle; and, as they collected the glorious remains, they had an opportunity to observe that the slain invaders lay four times as thick. Hundreds of corpses were sent by railroad to their northern friends for interment, and many more must have remained, unhonored and forgotten, to find their common tomb in the pits of the battlefield. The generous women of Winchesterdemanded and obtained leave to carry their ministrations of love to the Confederate wounded in the hospitals of the enemy,--for many of the captives were also wounded,--and thus they were enabled to estimate the numbers of disabled men belonging to the other party. The unfortunate 5th Ohio, in particular, filled hundreds [322] of cots with its wounded. From the testimony of these witnesses, it is believed that as many men were disabled by Jackson in the enemy's ranks as he had soldiers in his own. Their greater loss is to be accounted for by his skill in handling his forces, by the superior accuracy of the Virginians' aim, by their discipline and deliberate courage, and by the density of tile enemy's ranks, which hardly permitted a well-directed shot to miss its object.
This was the first pitched battle in which General Jackson had supreme command, and it was fought exclusively by Virginians, except that a few Marylanders participated in its dangers. Its effect was to raise the estimate of the prowess both of soldiers and leader to an exalted height; and from this day, the great qualities of the Virginian soldiery, depreciated at first by their own Southern brethren, but illustrated and redeemed at Manassa's, have shone forth unquestioned by all. Kernstown has remained, among the many more bloody days, when greater hosts pursued the work of slaughter in this sanguinary war, a name expressive of the sternest fighting, to the Confederates, to spectators, and to the Federalists. The soldiers of the old Jackson division, when describing the horrors of some subsequent struggle, are wont to say that it almost reminded them of Kernstown. The peaceful citizens of Winclester, who have met the strange fate of having their ears grow more familiar with the sounds of battle than those of many a veteran, still declare that none of the tempests of war which have howled around their devoted town raged like that of Kernstown, with cannonade so fast and furious, and such reverberating roars of musketry. The Federal soldiery, after timidly pursuing the Confederates the next day for a few miles, returned to their quarters, with no triumph upon their tongues, or in their countenances. Their commander, with the usual [323] gasconade of the Federal Generals, claimed a brilliant victory; but his boasts awoke no answering enthusiasm among his followers. The deadly energy of Jackson's blows filled them with gloom and dread, as they asked themselves, what was the task which they had undertaken, in seeking to conquer this people in their consolidated strength, whose resistance, in their weakness and disorganization, was so terrible. To this sombre impression, the spirit of the captives and the oppressed people contributed no little. The former, as they passed through the streets to their prisons, were joyous and defiant, the sympathies of the patriotic multitude converted their progress rather into an ovation than a defeat, and they rent the air with shouts for their country and General, which their gloomy captors, durst not suppress. The very scenes upon the field of blood, harrowing as they were, intimidated the Federal spectators. The regiments which suffered most inJackson's command, were raised in the lower Valley, and in the town itself. As soon as the permission was given to the Mayor and citizens, to bury the dead of their defenders, they flocked thither upon this errand of grief and mercy. The cultivated and accomplished female, the minister of religion, the tottering grandfather, were seen together, in all the abandon of their anguish, running to and fro, pouring water into the parched lips of the wounded, composing the convulsed limbs of the slain into decency, and looking eagerly into every begrimed and haggard face of dead or dying to recognize a son, a husband, or a brother. Yet, amidst all these horrors, the very women were as determined as the brave men whose fate they bewailed, and arose from beside the corpses whose discovery had just informed them of their bereavement, to declare to their invaders that none of these miseries, nor death itself, should bend their souls to submission. Yet these same women, with a generosity equal to their heroism, [324] divided their cares and gifts between wounded friends and foes in the hospitals where they languished together.
General Jackson had directed his wounded to be gathered at the village of Middletown, eight miles above the field of battle. Intending to retreat to a strong position above Cedar Creek, and there stand on the defensive, he had instructed his Medical Director to collect every vehicle which was available, and send the sufferers to the rear, before the army retired. The morning was approaching, and that officer, after working all the night at the humane task, and employing every carriage which he could procure, found a large number of wounded awaiting removal still. On meeting the General, he informed him of this, and added that he knew not where the transportation was to be obtained, and that unless some expedient were discovered these brave men must be left to the enemy. General Jackson ordered him to have the necessary vehicles impressed from the people of the vicinage. “But,” said the surgeon, “that requires time; can you stay to protect us?” “Make yourself easy,” said Jackson, “about that. This army stays here till the last wounded man is removed.” And then, with a glow of passion suffusing his face, he cried; “Before I will leave them to the enemy, I will lose many men more.” It was such traits as these, which made him the idol of his soldiery. It is related of the great Bruce, that, while retreating before his enemies, in his expedition to Ireland, the distress of a poor laundress, who was too helpless to follow the army, and was therefore about to be abandoned to the savage pursuers, touched his heart. He halted the host, and said; “Gentlemen, is there one of us who was born of a woman, so base as to leave this poor soul to her fate? No: let us rather die with her.” And he then drew up his men in line of battle, to await the enemy; but they, supposing he had received reinforcements, or was more powerful than [325] his former retreat indicated, recoiled, and feared to assault him. In like manner, the bold front which Jackson assumed, held the enemy at a respectful distance. They did not venture to annoy him, save by a few cannon-shot; and, after the first day, discontinued their pursuit. He retired to the neighborhood of Woodstock; and thus, in three days, his army marched seventy-five miles, and fought a hardly contested pitched battle.
The battle of Kernstown, was technically, a victory of the Federalists. They held the field, the dead, and the wounded. But, like those of Pyrrhus at Heraclea, and of Cornwallis at Guilford, it was a victory with the results of a defeat. The conquerors, crippled by their losses, and terrified by the resistance which they met, dared not press the retreating Confederates. But above all, the object of the battle was won by General Jackson. The Federal army in the Valley was detained there, and the troops which were on their way to Manassa's to increase the embarrassments of General Johnston, were recalled. The army of the latter extricated itself from its perilous situation, and retired in safety behind the Rappahannock, while McClellan, foiled in his plans, arrested his advance at Manassa's, and began to consider the policy of transferring the campaign to the Peninsula.
Yet, General Jackson was not satisfied with the results, and insisted that a more resolute struggle for the field might have won it, even against the fearful odds opposed to him. The chief error of the battle, he believed, was the unexpected retreat of the Stonewall Brigade from the centre; for this necessitated the surrender of the field. His disapprobation was strongly expressed against its brave General, Garnett, nor was he willing to accept the justification, that their ammunition was expended. A regiment of reserves was at hand, and the bayonet, his favorite resource, yet remained to them; aid he [326] did not consider all the means of victory as exhausted, until the naked steel was employed. Justice to one now dead, requires that these facts should also be stated: that General Garnett's gallantry was declared by the officers of his brigade, to be conspicuous on this bloody field; that they concurred with him in the opinion, that the troops were not withdrawn too soon to save them from destruction; and that proceedings against him were dismissed, and he was again employed by the Government in a most honorable post, in which he surrendered his life at the battle of Gettysburg. It is neither necessary nor practicable to pass a correct judgment upon the question, whether General Jackson's animadversions upon his conduct at Kernstown were erroneous. It is enough to testify, that all men regarded them as consistent with the justice of his intentions. This instance may serve to show Jackson's rigid ideas of official duty, which were always more exacting, as men rose in rank.
On the 1st of April, the army retreated to a range of highlands overlooking the North Branch of theShenandoah, five miles below the town of Newmarket, called Reede's Hill. The stream is bordered here by a wide expanse of fertile meadows, over which this hill dominates; and artillery posted upon it commands the bridge by which the great highway crosses it. The Federal forces, again under the command of General Banks, now advanced by slow and cautious steps to the opposing hills, whence, for many days, they cannonaded the Confederates without effect. General Jackson, meantime, keepingColonel Ashby in front, busied himself in refitting his crippled artillery, and recruiting his forces. The 10th Virginia regiment joined him, and was assigned to the 3d brigade, to which BrigadierGen-eral Wm. B.Taliaferro was now promoted. His men returned rapidly from hospitals and furloughs, and a multitude of new recruits poured in, inspired by the growing fame of the General, [327] and the urgency of their country's danger. Especially was the enthusiasm of the people stimulated by the chivalrous and modest courage of Ashby, whose name roused the thrilling hearts of the youth, like the peal of a clarion. His regiment of troopers was speedily swelled to twenty-one companies, and more than two thousand men. Including these, General Jackson's aggregate force now mounted up to more than eleven thousand. But the irregularities and official neglects which have been described were still lurking in all the regiments, and prevalent in the cavalry. Colonel Ashby had little genius for organization and discipline; tasks which, at best, are arduous in a force continually scattered upon outposts, and harassed by hardships, and which were impracticable for a commander seconded by few competent officers, and compelled to launch his raw levies at once into the employments of veteran troopers. The continuance of this imperfect organization was caused by the indiscreet action of the War Department itself. The Secretary, dazzled by Colonel Ashby's fame and exploits, had given him independent authority to raise and command a cavalry force. When General Jackson attempted to stretch his vigorous hand over that part of his army, so as to bring order out of confusion, he was met with a reference to this separate authority, and a threat of resignation. Knowing Colonel Ashby's ascendancy over his men, and finding himself thus deprived of legitimate power, he was constrained to pause, and leave the cavalry unorganized and undisciplined. Colonel Ashby and a Major were the only field-officers for the twenty-one companies; nor had they any regimental organization whatever. The evils and disasters growing out of the crude condition of this force will manifest themselves in the subsequent narrative. They give a valuable illustration of the importance of those principles of military order and subordination, established by experience, [328] and of the danger of such departures from them as that of the Secretary of War in making Colonel Ashby independent of his commanding General. Of his great command, one half was rarely available for duty, while the remainder were roaming over the country, imposing upon the generous hospitalities of the citizens, or lurking in their homes. The exploits of their famous leader were all performed with a few hundreds, or often scores, of men who followed him from personal devotion rather than the force of discipline. Thus, the effective force which General Jackson was now able to wield against the enemy, may be correctly estimated as seven or eight thousand men, with thirty guns.
The position on Reede's Hill, with so strong an artillery, was impregnable in front. But while, on the right, it was supported upon the Masanuttin Mountain, on the left it could be turned with facility by fords of the North River, above the main bridge, which were practicable in all dry seasons. Luckily, the melting snows of the western mountains concurred with the rains of spring, to swell the current, andGeneral Jackson continued to hold the position until he should be more seriously menaced by Banks. Its chief value to him was in the fact, that it covered the juncture of the great Valley turnpike, at New Market, with that which leads across the Masanuttin, by Luray, the seat of justice for Page County, toCulpepper. The Headquarters of General Johnston, with the army of North Virginia, were now at that place, about fifty miles distant from General Jackson; and it was desirable to hold possession of the route, that a speedy union of the two armies might be effected, should necessity demand it. The next movements thence inaugurated a new arrangement of the forces upon the theatre of war. The chapter will therefore be closed with a few brief extracts from General Jackson's [329] letters to his wife, illustrating the events which have just been narrated.
March 24th, just after the battle of Kernstown, he wrote:
Our God was my shield. His protecting care is an additional cause for gratitude.
. . .. “My little army is in excellent spirits: it feels that it inflicted a severe blow on the enemy.”
April 7th. “I trust you and all I have in the hands of an ever kind Providence, knowing that all things work together for the good of his people. So live that your sufferings may be sanctified to you; remembering that our light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” [In allusion to the illness of his wife.] “Our gallant little army is increasing in numbers, and my prayer is, that it may be an army of the living God, as well as of its country. Yesterday was a lovely Sabbath day. Though I had not the privilege of hearing the word of life, yet it felt like a holy Sabbath day, beautiful, serene, holy and lovely. All it wanted was the church bell, and God's services in the sanctuary, to make it complete ..... After God, our God, again blesses us with peace, I hope to visit this country with you, and enjoy its beauty and loveliness.”
No Christian reader can fail to note here, the parallelism between these sentiments, and those of the ancient warrior-saint, in similar circumstances. “How amiable are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.”
April 11th. “I feel much concerned at having no letter this week, but my trust is in the Almighty. How precious is the consolation flowing from the Christian's assurance, that ‘all things work together for good, to them that love God.’ ” [330]
“ God gave us a glorious victory in the S. W. (Shiloh), but the loss of the great Johnston is to be mourned. I do not remember having ever felt so sad at the loss of a man whom I had never seen.”
In explanation of his Sabbath attack at Kernstown, he wrote:
You appear greatly concerned about my attacking on Sunday. I was greatly concerned too; but I felt it my duty to do it, in consideration of the ruinous effects that might result from postponing the battle until the next morning. So far as I can see, my course was a wise one; the best that I could do under the circumstances, though very distasteful to my feelings, and I hope and pray to our Heavenly Father, that I may never again be circumstanced as on that day. I believed that so far as our troops were concerned, necessity and mercy both called for the battle.
“ I hope that the war will soon be over, and that I shall never again have to take the field. Arms is a profession that, if its principles are adhered to for success, requires an officer to do what he fears may be wrong, and yet, according to military experience, must be done, if success is attained. And this fact, of its being necessary to success, and being accompanied with success, and that a departure from it is accompanied with disaster, suggests that it must be right. Had I fought the battle on Monday, instead of Sunday, I fear our cause would have suffered; whereas, as things turned out, I consider our cause gained much from the engagement.”
For his achievement at Kernstown, the Confederate Congress rewarded him with the first of those honors, which were afterwards showered so thickly upon him. The following Resolutions of Thanks were unanimously passed:
1. “Resolved by the Congress of the Confederate States, That the thanks of Congress are due, and are hereby tendered [331] to Major General Thomas J. Jackson, and the officers and men under his command, for gallant and meritorious services, in a successful engagement with a greatly superior force of the enemy, near Kernstown, Frederick Co., Va., on the 23d day of March, 1862.”
2. “Resolved, That these resolutions be communicated by the Secretary of War to Major GeneralJackson, and by him to his command.” [332]
Chapter 11: McDowell.
From April 1st to April 17th, General Jackson occupied the position already described, upon Reede's Hill. Meantime, the grand armies of the Potomac had wholly changed their theatre of war. April 1st,General McClellan appeared at Fortress Monroe, on the eastern extremity of the peninsula between theJames and York Rivers, and began to direct the approaches of his mighty host against Richmond from that point. On the 4th, he appeared before the lines of General Magruder, at Young's Mill, while at the same date, the troops of General Johnston were pouring through Richmond, from their lines behind theRappahannock, to reinforce their brethren defending the peninsula. General Jackson's prospect of a junction with the main army in Culpepper were, therefore, at an end; and his movements were thus rendered, for a time, more independent of the other Confederate forces. The correctness of his reasonings upon the probable movements of the Federalists was now verified. He was convinced thatStaunton would be the aim of General Banks, if he were guided by a skilful strategy; and the Official Report of General McClellan, since published, shows that his instructions to that General were, to press to that point as soon as his means would permit. The forces at his disposal now amounted, according toGeneral McClellan, to 25,000 men, besides General Blenker's Division of 10,000 Germans, which, [333] having been just detached from the Federal Army of the Potomac, to reinforce General Fremontin the Northwest, was ordered to pause at Strasbourg, and support General Banks during the critical period of his movement. For the rest, the position of the Federal forces in Virginia was the following:General Fremont, in command of the Northwestern Department, was organizing a powerful force atWheeling, while General Milroy, under his orders, confronted the Confederates upon the Shenandoah Mountain, twenty miles west of Staunton, and considerable reserves, under General Schenck, were ready to support him in the Valley of the South Branch. At, and near Manassa's Junction, were stationed forces amounting to about 18,000 men, guarding Washington City against an imaginary incursion of the dreaded Rebels; while the 1st Army Corps of General McDowell, detached from the grand army, against the urgent remonstrances of General McClellan, lay near Fredericksburg, to protect the capital in that direction.
On the side of the Confederates, were found the six regiments of General Edward Johnston, impregnably posted on the Shenandoah Mountain; the army of General Jackson at Reede's Hill; theDivision of General Ewell upon the Rappahannock, confronting the Federalists upon the Orange and Alexandria Railroad; and the command of General Anderson, about 10,000 strong, watchingFredericksburg. The whole remainder of the forces in Virginia was collected upon the peninsula, to resist the advance of McClellan.
By the 17th of April, the fords of the North Fork of Shexandoah, above Reede's Hill, were becoming practicable; and General Jackson's position there was no longer secure. He therefore resumed his retreat on that day, and retired, by two marches, to Harrisonburg, the capital of Rockingham county, upon the great Valley Turnpike; while General Banks timidly pursued him. [334] From Harrisonburg, he turned aside to tile east, and passing the southern end of the Masanuttin Mountain, which here sinks into the plain, crossed the South, or main Fork of the Shenandoah River, at Conrad's Store, and posted himself in the valley of Elk Run, at the gorge of Swift Run Gap in the Blue Ridge. The highway toStaunton was now seemingly open to General Banks; but he durst not pursue it. This was indeed, one of the most adroit manceuvres of the great strategist. His position in the mouth of the mountain gorge was unassailable, and deprived his adversary of all the advantage of his superior numbers. Yet he threatened thence the Federal rear, the moment they attempted to advance upon Staunton; and thus arrested him as completely as though a superior force had been planted in his front. From his own rear, a good turnpike road led over Swift Run Gap, into Eastern Virginia, and to the Centcal Railroad, forty miles distant, atGordonsville; thus providing him supplies, a secure line of retreat, and communication with GeneralEwell in Culpepper. There was, indeed, one grave objection to the movement; but the manner in whichGeneral Jackson's insight into his adversary's character here modified his application of the maxims of the military art, most clearly displayed his genius. Had his enemy been enterprising, this objection would have been decisive; but knowing his slowness and timidity, he safely disregarded it. From Harrisonburg, a turnpike road leads southwestward to the Warm Springs, passing through Jennings' Gap in the Great North Mountain, which was not guarded by any adequate force, along the eastern base of theShenandoah Mountain, in the immediate rear of General Edward Johnson's position there. A forced march of little more than one day would have conducted General Banks to this spot; where proper concert with General Milroy, in front, would have ensured the destruction of the little army of Confederates. The two Federal forces [335] united would then have easily occupied Staunton, and made the Valley untenable for Jackson, thus deprived of the expected cooperation of Johnson. But the fear of leaving his rear exposed for a moment to the terrible Stonewall, together with the difficulty of passing the Shenandoah at Bridgewater, where the citizens had destroyed the bridge, were enough to deter General Banks from so promising a movement. General Jackson stated in his correspondence, that he foresaw the danger of such a manceuvre, and calculated the timidity of his opponent, as a sufficient defence.
About the time of his march to Swift Run Gap, an incident occurred which showed his decision. The elevated valleys of the Blue Ridge Mountain are inhabited by a poor, rude, and hardy people, little amenable to law, in the best times, who live as much by hunting as by agriculture. Among a part of these, an insurrectionary movement arose against the conscription; and a few score of the men assembled in one of their fastnesses, and prepared for a forcible resistance to the laws. General Jacksonat once sent a force and dispersed them, capturing some of the more daring. For this act of promptitude he received the thanks of the authorities.
In the previous winter, General R. E. Lee had been stationed next the President in Richmond, as general director of the operations of all the armies in the field. The high estimate held by General Jackson of his character and accomplishments was pleasantly illustrated by the manner in which he received the news of this appointment, at Winchester. Much had been said by his friends there, of the desire that he should receive reinforcements. One evening, at supper, he said, with a smile, to the lady whose hospitality he was sharing: “Well, Madam, I am reinforced at last;” and pointed her to a paragraph in the newspaper from Richmond just received, which announced the [336] appointment of General Lee as Commander-in-Chief. It was his wisdom and counsel, which he regarded as equivalent to new forces.
While General Jackson held Banks thus check-mated for a fortnight at Harrisonburg, he was busily corresponding with General Lee concerning the proper direction to be given to his, and the neighboring Confederate forces. Three movements were discussed by them, of which the first was, to draw GeneralEwell to Swift Run Gap, in order to hold General Banks in check, while General Jackson combined with General Edward Johnson to deliver a crushing blow against Milroy, and then associated his andGeneral Ewell's forces against Banks. The second was, to leave General Johnson for a little while, with a detachment from General Jackson's force intended to mask his withdrawal from Banks, to hold theValley as best they might; while he marched with General Ewell across the Rappahannock and made a vigorous onslaught against the Federalists upon the Manassa's Railroad, and at its Junction. It was hoped by General Lee, that the news of this attack, so far towards his base, would cause Banks's immediate retreat to Winchester, or even to the Potomac. The third project was to leave the same dispositions for the defence of the Valley, effect a junction with General Ewell at Gordonsville, and marching thence to Fredericksburg, unite with the forces of Generals Anderson and Field, and attack thie Federal army in that neighborhood. This assault gave promise of alarming the Government atWashington, of recalling Banks, and of disturbing the arrangements of General McClellan on the peninsula. As General Lee remarked, the dispersion of the enemy's forces clearly indicated the policy of concentration, to attack some one or other of their detachments. But he gave General Jackson full discretion to select the project which he preferred. He decisively chose the first. The secret history of [337] this movement is related here, because many have asserted, according to their hypothesis, thatGeneral Jackson was a mere fighter, and no strategist, that the plan of the Valley campaign was due to another mind. On the contrary, the choice was left wholly to his judgment; and the first among the three schemes, the one adopted, and so gloriously effected, was of his suggestion. It is easy to argue for his preference of it, after it. was so sanctioned by complete success. But the considerations which seem to have decided General Jackson to prefer it were such as these: That it made a more complete concentration of our strength, in that it included General Edward Johnson, who, upon the other plans, would have been left aside, with a detachment, also, of General Jackson's own army; that it provided a more complete protection for the Valley and Staunton, of which he so highly appreciated the strategic importance; and that, if successful, it would as effectually neutralize the Federal forces on theRappahannock, through the fears excited for Washington City, and thus assure the left flank of the army protecting Richmond against an assault from the direction of Fredericksburg.
General Ewell was accordingly withdrawn from the Rappahannock towards Gordonsville, and then, towards the eastern outlet of Swift Run Gap. He brought with him three brigades, those of Brigadier-Generals R. Taylor, Trimble, and Elzey, with two regiments of cavalry, commanded by Colonel Th. S.Munford, and Lieutenant-Colonel Flournoy, with an adequate supply of field artillery. The whole formed an aggregate of about 8,000 men, in an admirable state of efficiency. The afternoon of April 30th,General Ewell entered Swift Run Gap, and took the position which General Jackson had just left to march towards Staunton. General Banks had been deceived by feints of an attack in force in the direction of Harrisonburg, on the previous day, and on that morning; so that he received [338] no knowledge of the true direction of General Jackson's movement. The object of the latter was to reachStaunton by a route, which, while not so circuitous as to consume invaluable time, should be sufficiently so, to conceal his march from the enemy, and protect him from an attack on the road. The incessant rains of a late and ungenial spring had rendered all the roads, which were not paved, almost impracticable. After careful explorations, General Jackson determined to ascend the eastern or right bank of the Shenandoah river to Port Republic, a village seven miles from Harrisonburg, and then, instead of proceeding direct to Staunton by a road of twenty-five miles, to cross the Blue Ridge intoAlbemarle County, by Brown's Gap, and go thence to Staunton along the line of the Virginia Central Railroad. This route made three marches; but it completely masked his movement, and mystified both friends and foes; for no one, except the General's chief engineer, knew whether he was on his way to the east or the west.
In the midst of a dreary rain, the army left its comfortless bivouac on the Elk Run, and made a half march, between the river and the western base of the Blue Ridge, towards Port Republic. The stream is here separated from the declivities of the mountain by a plain of two or three miles in breadth, whose flat, treacherous soil, softened by the rains, was speedily converted by the trains of baggage and artillery, into a quagmire without apparent bottom. If the teamsters attempted to evade this by turning aside into the woodlands, as soon as the fibrous roots of the surface were, severed, the subsoil proved even more deceitful than the mire of the roads, and a few vehicles made the track impassable. The rivulets descending from the mountain were swollen into broad rivers, and the glades of the forest were converted into lakes. The straggling column toiled along through water and mud for a few miles, yet [339] enthusiastically cheering their General when he passed along it; and then bivouacked in the woods, while he, with his suite, found shelter in the hospitable mansion of General Lewis. In the morning, the clouds were gradually dispersed by the struggling sun; and General Jackson, having established his Headquarters in the little village of Port Republic, and having assigned to a part of his staff the duty of arresting all transit between his line of march and the enemy, returned with the remainder, and addressed himself to the arduous task of extricating his trains from the slough, which would have been to any other, a “slough of despond.” Each detachment was preceded by a large party of pioneers, who, with excessive toil, so far repaired the effects wrought by the wheels of the preceding one, as to pass, over another train. Whole road-beds formed of stones and brush-wood sunk into the quicksands, and others were placed above them, again and again. The General and his staff were seen dismounted, urging on the laborers; and he carried stones and timber upon his own shoulders, with his uniform bespattered with mud like a common soldier's. From Thursday afternoon until Saturday morning, the trains struggled along, sorely scattered and travel-soiled, until at length, all were assembled at the western opening of Brown's Gap. The energy and determination required to drive them, in a day and a half, through those sixteen miles of incredible difficulties, were equal to any display of these qualities, ever made upon the field of a great victory.
The mountain-sides afforded a road-bed so stony, that no floods could soften it; and on Saturday, the army passed over to Whitehall in Albemarle, by a track rough, but firm, cheered by a brilliant sun, and full of confidence and elation. The Sabbath morning dawned upon them clear and soft, in their pleasant bivouacs along the green meadows of Moorman's [340] river; and the General, after hard debate with himself, and with sore reluctance, gave the order to march again, surrendering the day of holy rest, which he would have so much enjoyed, to military necessity. General Johnston reported himself closely pressed by the enemy west of Staunton; and the crisis forbade the expenditure of a precious day. WhenGeneral Jackson had left the Great Valley Turnpike at Harrisonburg, to turn aside to Swift Run Gap, the people of Staunton, in their panic, supposed that he was gone to reinforce the army near Richmond, leaving them to their fate; and unauthorized messages from officers near Headquarters confirmed this erroneous construction of his movement. The consequence was a fit of alarm, in which public military stores were hastily removed or destroyed, and the most exciting news of the certain occupation ofStaunton by the enemy was sent to the force on the Shenandoah Mountain. General Johnson was detained from his command at the time; but the officer next in rank concluded that the juncture required immediate action, to rescue the army from capture. He therefore evacuated his strong position on the mountain, and retired to West View, only six miles west of Staunton, prepared to evade the approach of Banks, on that place, and retire to the Blue Ridge. Thus the advanced forces of Milroy were brought within ten miles of Staunton, and he was about to establish his communications with the Federalists atHarrisonburg. General Jackson therefore pressed forward from Whitehall to Staunton, reaching the latter place at evening on the Sabbath; to the unspeakable delight of the inhabitants, who had only heard that the army had disappeared again into Eastern Virginia, no one knew whither. By Monday evening, the whole army came up, and the junction with General Johnson was virtually effected.
Meantime, General Banks no sooner learned that General [341] Ewell had reached Elk Run, and thatGeneral Jackson had vanished thence, than he hastily evacuated Harrisonburg; and retreated toStrasburg, followed by the cavalry of Ashby. The imagination of the Federal leader was affrighted with the notion of an attack in front from Ewell, while the mysterious Jackson should fall upon his flank or rear, from some unimagined quarter. Yet his force present at Harrisonburg, about twenty thousand men, was superior to that of both generals united!
On Wednesday morning, May 7th, a day having been employed in collecting and refreshing the troops,General Johnson broke up his camp at West View at an early hour, and marched against the enemy, followed by General Jackson in supporting distance, with the brigade of General Taliaferro in front, that of Colonel Campbell next, and the Stonewall Brigade, now commanded by General Charles S. Winder, in the rear. The Corps of Cadets, from the Military Academy, forming a gallant battalion of four companies of infantry, under their teachers, was also attached to the expedition. The spruce equipments and exact drill of these youths formed a strong contrast with the war-worn and nonchalant veterans, as they stepped out, full of enthusiasm, to take their first actual look upon the horrid visage of War, under their renowned Professor.
The first collision with the enemy occurred about mid-day, at the intersection of the Harrisonburg and Parkersburg turnpikes. There a Federal picket was surprised, and nearly captured, escaping with the loss of a few men and horses. Their advanced posts at the eastern and western bases of theShenandoah Mountain were immediately deserted, with some military stores, and the position upon the top of the mountain, lately held by the Confederates; and they retired across the Bull Pasture Mountainto McDowell, making no other resistance to the advance of the Confederates, than a few ineffectual cannon shots. The [342] latter paused for the night upon both sides of the Shenandoah Mountain, with the rear brigades many miles behind the front. On Thursday morning, May 8th, the march was resumed early, with General Johnson's regiments still in advance, and the ascent of the Bull Pasture Mountain was commenced. This ridge, unlike its neighbors, has a breadth of a couple of miles upon its top, which might be correctly termed a table-land, were it not occupied by clusters of precipitous hills, which are themselves almost mountainous in their dimensions and ruggedness. The Parkersburg turnpike, proceeding westward, ascends to this table land, passes across it, and descends to the Bull Pasture River, by a sinuous course, along the ravines which seam the sides and top of the mountain alike; so that it is almost everywhere commanded, on one or both sides, by the steep and wooded banks of the valleys which it threads. On the right and left of the road, the western portions of the rough plateauwhich has been described, were occupied by pasture lands, covered with the richest greensward, with here and there the prostrate trunk of a forest tree long since girdled and killed. The chasm which separates the higher reaches of these lofty pastures, is a mile in width; and far down in its bottom, the turnpike descends toward the river, until it debouches through a straight gorge of a few hundred yards in length, upon the bridge. Artillery, planted upon a hillock beyond the river, commanded this reach of the road with a murderous fire.
Generals Jackson and Johnson having cautiously ascended the mountain, and driven away a picket of the enemy which quartered its top, proceeded to the western ridge of the pasture lands on the left of the road, and occupied the forenoon in examining the position of the enemy. The grounds here belonged to a patriotic citizen named Sitlington; while the rival heights, on the right of the turnpike, fed the cattle of a [343] proprietor named Hull. The latter were found to be occupied by two regiments of Federal riflemen; but the distance was too great for effective volleys. Beneath them lay the smiling hamlet ofMcDowell, crowded with Federal troops, stores, and artillery, while beyond, the champaign stretched away with a smooth and gentle ascent to the westward, for a number of miles. The edges of the vale next to the position of the Confederate Generals were fringed by a forest, which covered the steeper and more barren slopes of the mountain's foot. This wood was speedily found to be infested by the enemy's skirmishers; but a detachment of General Johnson's riflemen easily kept them at bay, and chastised their audacity whenever they attempted to advance from cover. The open field itself, of a mile's length, was heaved into confused and billowy ridges, presenting, on the whole, the concavity of an irregular crescent toward the west. The ravine by which the Confederates reached this field from the turnpike, is narrow and precipitous, and occupied both by the forest and by a stream of rude boulders, which the rains had precipitated from the ridge above. Yet it was judged that, by the strenuous exertions of men and horses, field guns might have been carried up after several hours' labor.
From the ridges of the pasture-field, General Jackson quietly watched the enemy far below him, for a number of hours; while they cannonaded him and his escort from a battery on the farther side of the vale, whose guns had their muzzles elevated toward the sky, and their trails thrust into trenches in the ground. It was no part of his purpose to engage them that day, nor on that ground. He had reason to hope that they were ignorant of his junction with General Johnson, and that they supposed they had only the six regiments of the latter to deal with. His troops had not all come up; and the Stonewall Brigade especially, was many miles in the rear. His purpose was to amuse the enemy, [344] while his engineers diligently explored the mountain to the right and left, for a road which might lead him to their rear. To the zeal of his artillery officers, who offered to bring up batteries, he quietly replied: “Thank you; not yet;” and at length added to one of them: “Perhaps Providence may open a way toward Monterey for you tomorrow.” （Monterey is the next village ten miles west of McDowell; and was in the enemy's rear.) In truth, his explorations had already been successful in leading him to a rude mountain road, practicable for artillery, which, passing far to the right of Hull's mountain pastures, enters the highway five miles in the rear of McDowell; and his orders were just issued to move a formidable park of artillery, with sufficient escort, by this road, during the night; who were to assume a good position behind the enemy. His preponderance of force would have enabled him thus to envelop and crush the army of Milroy.
But that officer had astuteness enough, though ignorant of these formidable preparations, to apprehend something of the danger of his position. If once the lofty fields occupied by Generals Jackson andJohnson were crowned with artillery, their plunging fire would have made the whole valley of McDowelluntenable for him; and the altitude forbade an effective reply. At mid-day General Schenck arrived with three thousand additional bayonets: and they resolved to take the initiative, and drive the Confederatesfrom their threatening position at once. How little purpose General Jackson had of commencing the action that evening, appears from the fact, that as the afternoon advanced, he had dismissed all his staff, save two members, upon different errands, with kindly instructions to seek the repose of their quarters when they had fulfilled those functions, and had sent orders to the Stonewall Brigade, which was at length approaching the top of the mountain, to [345] descend again, and seek a suitable encampment. But the advance of the enemy did not, for all this, find him unprepared. Although he had carefully avoided making any display of force upon the open hills, the regiments of General Johnson were close at hand, and the brigades of Taliaferro and Campbell within supporting distance. The aggressive intentions of the enemy now becoming manifest, the 52d Virginia regiment was brought upon the field, and posted upon the left, speedily followed by the 58th and 44th Virginia, and the 12th Georgia regiments. The 52d Virginia having been disposed as skirmishers, were speedily engaged in a brisk encounter with the enemy's skirmishers, whom they handsomely repulsed. The other three regiments then arriving, were soon afterwards posted as follows: the 12th Georgia on the crest of the hill, and forming the centre of the Confederate line, the 58th Virginia on the left to support the 52d, and the 44th Virginia on the right near a ravine.
General Milroy's advance now began in good earnest. He was protected in hiss approach by the convexity of the hills, and by the wood interposed in the Confederate front, until he emerged from it, and engaged their skirmishers. These he drove before him, and poured a galling fire into the Confederateright, which was returned, and a brisk and animated contest was kept up for some time; when GeneralJohnson's two remaining regiments, the 25th and 31st Virginia came up and were posted on the right. The fire was now rapid and well sustained on both sides, and the conflict fierce and sanguinary. The narrow and rough ravine by which the Confederate troops ascended from the left side of the turnpike to the field of battle, has been described. If the enemy advanced along the highway and seized its mouth, the results would be disastrous. To prevent the possibility of such a movement, the 31st Virginia [346] was posted on both sides of the road, between that point and the enemy. It was, not long after, ordered to join its brigade in action; and its place was taken by the 21st Virginia. To the commander of this regiment General Jackson gave his orders in person. They were, that he should avail himself of every inequality of the ground to protect his men, and then hold the turnpike against all odds, and at every cost.
The engagement had now not only become general along the entire line, but so furious, that GeneralJackson ordered General Taliaferro to the support of General Johnson. Accordingly, the 23d and 37th Virginia regiments were advanced to the centre of the line which was then held by the 12th Georgia, with heroic gallantry; and the 10th Virginia was ordered to support the 52d Virginia, which had already driven the enemy from the left, and had now advanced to make a flank movement on him. At this time the Federalists were pressing forward in strong force on the extreme right of the Confederates, with a view of turning that position. This movement was speedily detected, and met by General Taliaferro's brigade, and the 12th Georgia, with great promptitude. Further to check it, portions of the 25th and 31st Virginia regiments were sent to occupy an elevated piece of woodland on the right and rear, so situated as fully to command the position of the enemy. The brigade commanded by Colonel Campbell, coming up about this time, was ordered, together with the 10th Virginia, down the ridge into the woods, to guard against designs upon the right flank. This duty they, in connexion with the other force, effectually performed. The battle had now raged from half past 4 to half past 8 o'clock P. M., and the shades of night had descended. Every attempt of the enemy by front or flank movement, to attain the crest of the hills where General Jackson's line was formed, was signally and effectually repulsed; [347] and they finally ceased firing and retired from the field. During all the earlier portions of the engagement, the enemy's artillery on the farther side of the valley was actively employed in throwing shot and shell, until their infantry approached too closely. But the elevation of the mountain, and the shelter of the sharp ridges rendered their fire ineffectual. Only one of the Confederate slain lost his life by a cannon shot.General Jackson brought up no artillery; assigning as his reason, that in case of disaster, there was no road by which it could be promptly withdrawn. The battle may therefore be said to have been fought with musketry alone.
By nine o'clock, the roar of the struggle had passed away; and the green battle-field reposed under the starlight, as calmly as when it had been occupied only by its peaceful herds. Detachments of soldiers were silently exploring the ground for their wounded comrades, while the tired troops were slowly filing off to their bivouac. At midnight the last sufferer had been removed, and the last picket posted; and then only did General Jackson turn, to seek a few hours repose in a farmhouse at the eastern base of the mountain. The valley of McDowell lay beneath him in equal quiet. The camp-fires of the Federals blazed ostentatiously in long and regular lines, and their host seemed to be wrapped in sleep. At one o'clock A. M., the General reached his quarters, and threw himself upon a bed. When his faithful servant, knowing that he had eaten nothing since morning, came with food, he said, “I want none; nothing but sleep” --and in a minute, was slumbering like a healthy infant. The dawn found him in the saddle, and ascending the mountain again. When he reached the crest of the battle-field, he saw the vale beneath him deserted; the foe had decamped in the night, leaving their dead, and partially destroying their camp-equipage and stores. The pebbly bottom [348] of the neighboring stream was found strewn with tens of thou sands of musket-cartridges, and vast heaps of bread were still smoking amidst the ashes of the store-houses which had sheltered them. After marching west for a few miles, General Milroy sought the sources of the South Branch of the Potomac, and turned northward down that stream, along which a good highway led toward Franklin and Romney. His aim was to meet the reinforcements of General Fremont, which, he hoped, were approaching by that route, from the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The line of his retreat was marked by the graves of his wounded, and the wreck of an occasional carriage.
The loss of the Confederates in this engagement was sixtynine killed, and three hundred and ninety-one wounded; making a total of four hundred and sixty men. The greatest carnage occurred in the ranks of the famous 12th Georgia regiment, which had thirty-five killed, and one hundred and forty wounded. This noble body, trained under the eye of General Edward Johnson, when Colonel, held the centre of the battle from the beginning to the end. But their heavy loss was also due to their own zeal and chivalry. Having been advanced at first, in front of the crest of the hills, where their line showed to their enemies from beneath, in bold relief against the sky, they could not be persuaded to retire to the reverse of the ridge, where many of the other regiments found partial protection without sacrificing the efficiency of their fire. Their commander, perceiving their useless exposure, endeavored again and again to withdraw them; but amidst the roar of the musketry his voice was lifted up in vain; and when by passing along the ranks he persuaded or entreated one wing of the regiment to recede, they rushed again to the front while he was gone to expostulate with the other. A tall Georgia youth expressed the spirit of his comrades, when he replied the next day to the question, why they did not retreat to [349] the shelter of the ridge behind them, whence they could fight the battle equally well: “We did not come all this way to Virginia, to run before Yankees.”
Just before the close of the engagement, General Johnson received a painful wound in the ankle, which, breaking one of its bones, compelled him to leave the field. General Jackson paid him the following merited tribute in his report: “General Johnson, to whom I had entrusted the management of the troops engaged, proved himself eminently worthy of the confidence reposed in him, by the skill, gallantry, and presence of mind, which he displayed on the occasion.” Colonel Gibbons, commanding the 10th Virginia, a Christian gentleman and soldier, beloved by all his comrades, fell dead as he was bringing his men into position; and he was the only person in his regiment who was struck. Colonel Harman, of the 52d Virginia, Colonel Smith, and Major Higginbotham, of the 25th, and Major Campbell, of the 42d Virginia, were wounded. At the beginning of the action, General Jackson was, for the reason stated above, accompanied by only two of his staff: Captain Lee, his ordnanceofficer, and Lieutenant Meade, his Aide. These two, by their zeal and courage, temporarily supplied the place of all; and Captain Leereceived a severe wound in the head. The Federal loss was estimated by General Johnson, who witnessed nearly the whole struggle, to be double that of the Confederates; but this reckoning was probably too large. Few prisoners were taken on either side; but among those captured by Jackson was a Colonel of an Ohio regiment. Some Quarter-Master's and Commissary stores, arms, ammunition, and cavalry equipments remained for the victors. The force of General Milroy was supposed to be 8,000 men. Of General Jackson's, about 6,000, or only half his force, were engaged.
From McDowell, General Jackson sent the following modest [350] and laconic despatch, the first of those missives which, during the remainder of his career, so frequently electrified the country with joy:
Valley district, May 9th, 1862.
To Gen. S. Cooper:
God blessed our arms with victory at McDowell yesterday.
T. J. Jackson, Major-General.
This announcement was received by the people of Virginia and of the Confederate States with peculiar delight, because it was the first blush of the returning day of triumphs after a season of gloomy disasters. The campaign had opened with the fall of Fort Donelson and the occupation of Nashville. The fruitless victory of Shiloh had been counterpoised in April by the fall of New Orleans, a loss as unexpected to the Confederates as it was momentous. On the 4th of May, while Generals Jackson and Johnson were effecting their junction at Staunton, Yorktown was deserted by the Confederates, and, on the next day,Williamsburg fell into their hands after a bloody combat. Or the 9th, Norfolk surrendered to the enemy, and, on the 11th, the gallant ship Virginia, the pride and confidence of the people, was destroyed by her own commander. The victory of McDowell was the one gleam of brightness athwart all these clouds; and the eyes of the people turned with hope and joy to the young soldier who had achieved it, and recognized in this happy beginning the vigor and genius of the great commander.
General Jackson immediately threw forward a few companies of cavalry under Captain Sheetz to harass the enemy's rear, and collected his infantry in the valley beyond McDowell to prepare for a close pursuit. The mountain passes by which General Banks might have communicated succors to Milroywere immediately obstructed, and an active officer was sent by a circuitous [351] route to the northern parts of Pendleton county, below Franklin, to collect the partisan soldiers of the mountains in the enemy's rear. They were exhorted to fill the roads with felled timber, to tear down the walls which supported the turnpike along the precipitous cliffs, and to destroy the bridges, in order that the retreat ofMilroy might be retarded, and the advance of Fremont to his aid checked, until his flying army was again beaten and dispersed. Saturday morning, the victors resumed their march, refreshed by a night of quiet rest, and pressed the enemy so hard, that General Jackson hoped in the afternoon to bring them to bay. Their rear-guard assumed a position, and held the Confederate cavalry in check. General Jacksondisposed his troops, and issued his orders for battle with a stern joy; but the slippery game soon continued its flight. The next morning was the Sabbath; but after anxious deliberation, the Confederate General concluded that the importance of overtaking the enemy, who would certainly not pause from any reverence for the sacred day, and of inflicting another disaster before the reinforcements of GeneralFremont arrived, required him to disregard its claims. When he began to urge the enemy again, theFederals resorted to the expedient of setting fire to the forests upon the mountain sides, in order to envelop their flight in obscurity. Soon the sky was overcast with volumes of smoke, which almost hid the scene, and wrapped every distant object in a veil, impenetrable to the eyes and the telescopes of the officers alike. Through this sultry fog the pursuing army felt its way cautiously along, cannonaded by the enemy from every advantageous position; while it was protected from ambuscades only by detachments of skirmishers, who scoured the burning woods on each side of the highway. As fast as these could scramble over the precipitous hills, and through the blazing thickets, the great column crept along the main road, like a lazy [352] serpent; their General often far in advance of its head, in his eagerness to overtake the foe. He declared that this smoke was the most adroit expedient, to which a retreating army could resort, to embarrass pursuit, and that it entailed upon him all the disadvantages of a night attack. By slow approaches, and constant skirmishing, the enemy were driven to the village of Franklin; when the double darkness of the night, and the fog, again arrested his progress.
When the morning of Monday arrived, General Jackson resolved to discontinue his pursuit of Milroy, and return to pay his respects to General Banks. Several considerations weighed together, to determine his judgment. He ascertained that his orders for obstructing the turnpike below Franklin had been disregarded by the citizens; and their supineness and timidity filled him with disgust. It was now obvious that his cunning adversary, with an unobstructed road for retreat, and all the advantages of a mountainous country for defence, would not be brought to a battle, until he had received the support ofGeneral Fremont. On the other hand, the concentration of the Confederates was only half completed, for the excellent division of General Ewell, was still to be associated with the forces of Jackson; and prudence dictated that the risk of such a collision as that, with Fremont and Milroy united, should not be taken without the advantage of all the strength attainable by him. Moreover, time was precious; for he knew not how soon a new emergency at Fredericksburg or at Richmond, might occasion the recall ofGeneral Ewell to the East, and deprive him of the power to strike any effective blow against GeneralBanks. The motive last mentioned was perhaps the most operative of all; for he knew that the loan ofGeneral Ewell's aid to him by the Confederate authorities at Richmond, was not entirely hearty, and that they did not wholly concur in his estimate [353] of the importance of protecting his District from invasion. But the conclusive reason, was a despatch from General Lee, May 11th, requiring his return. The same day General Jackson sent a courier to General Ewell, to announce his coming, who was commanded to ride post-haste with his message.
General Jackson, therefore, prepared to turn his face eastward again. He granted the soldiers the half of Monday as a season of rest, in lieu of the Sabbath, which had been devoted to warfare; and issued the following order to them.
“Soldiers of the army of the Valley and North West.” “I congratulate you on your recent victory atMcDowell. I request you to unite with me, this morning, in thanksgivings to Almighty God, for thus having crowned your arms with success; and in praying that He will continue to lead you on from victory to victory, until our independence shall be established; and make us that people whose God is theLord.”
“The chaplains will hold divine service at 10 o'clock A. M., this day, in their respective regiments.”
The different groups were accordingly soon assembled, beneath a genial sun, along the verdant meadows of the South Branch; and the neighboring mountains, which, on the Sabbath, had reverberated with the bellowings of cannon, now echoed the Sabbath hymns. The commanding General attended reverently the worship of a company of artillery near his tent. After midday, the camps were broken up, and the march was resumed for McDowell; which the army reached Wednesday evening. The next day's journey brought them to the Lebanon Springs, on the road to Harrisonburg; where they paused for a day, Friday, May 16th, to observe a season of national humiliation and prayer, appointed by the Confederate Government, for all the people and armies. On Saturday, an easy march was ended, in the beautiful region of Mossy Creek; where the troops, no [354] longer pressed by a military exigency, were allowed to spend a quiet Sabbath.
One incident remains to be mentioned, illustrating Jackson's iron will, which occurred while the army paused on this march, at McDowell. A part of the men of the 27th regiment, in the Stonewall Brigade, who had volunteered for twelve months, now found their year just expired. Assuming that the application of the late conscription to them was a breach of faith, they demanded their discharge, and laying down their arms, refused to serve another day. Their gallant Colonel Grigsby referred the case toGeneral Jackson for instructions. On hearing it detailed, he exclaimed, his eye flashing, and his brow rigid with a portentous sternness, “What is this but mutiny? Why does Colonel Grigsby refer to me, to know what to do with a mutiny? He should shoot them, where they stand.” He then turned to his adjutant, and dictated an order to the Colonel to parade his regiment instantly, with loaded muskets, to draw up the insubordinate companies in front of them, disarmed, and offer them the alternative of returning to duty, or being fusilladed on the spot. The order was obeyed, and the mutineers, when thus confronted with instant death, promptly reconsidered their resolution. They could not be afterwards distinguished from the rest of the regiment in their soldierly behavior; and this was the last attempt at organized disobedience in the army.