Stonewall Jackson's Little Sorrel

by Sharon B. Smith

  Jackson ordered Little Sorrel saddled and ready to go well before dawn on December 12. The Confederate command thought and hoped that Burnside would not have his troops across and ready to attack that day, so Jackson, whose troops were spread over a twenty-mile front, had time to call them in. After dispatching couriers, Jackson mounted and rode north to confer with Lee and check various sites within Fredericksburg. He rode Little Sorrel back to his own lines to position troops, and then the pair traveled ahead of the Confederate lines, along with Lee and Stuart, to get a good view of the Federal troops, who were now completing two pontoon bridges in front of Jackson’s Second Corps.

  All agreed that the Federal forces were likely to hit hardest here. Jackson liked his position, with nearly a mile and a half of open fields between the river and his troops. But Longstreet’s First Corps, on a high ridge behind Fredericksburg, was even better off. After further work on positioning, Jackson rode south with topographer Hotchkiss to check on where the newly arriving divisions would be placed, then returned to a new campsite nearer to the expected center of action. Both Jackson and Little Sorrel had every right to be exhausted, but there was no sign of fatigue in either one of them.

  Hotchkiss observed Jackson whistling as they went along. After a day of sporadic artillery shelling, the foggy night was eerily quiet, and both general and horse apparently got a good night’s sleep.

  Well before dawn on Saturday, December 13, Jackson, his staff, and their horses were awake. Soldiers struck their tents, loaded the wagons, and everything unnecessary for battle went to the rear. The big sorrel went to the rear with Jim Lewis, and Jackson again mounted Little Sorrel. As usual, the horse showed no sign of having been heavily used for days. One thing was not usual, though: Jackson prepared for battle by dressing in the magnificent new gray general’s coat given to him the previous October by J. E. B. Stuart. He added a new gold-trimmed cap in place of the tattered blue hat from his Virginia Military Institute days.

  “Altogether he looked so spick and span that the boys could scarcely believe their eyes, so unlike was he to the battered, sunburnt Old Jack of the valley,” said aide James Power Smith in a memoir. “But the sorrel horse he rode and the same following of staff and couriers reassured the troops.”

  Former aide Henry Kyd Douglas, back with his original unit, was impressed with the sartorial splendor of the general, even though some the soldiers in his new command shook their heads at the change. Still, Douglas thought, the effect was altogether extraordinary.

  According to Douglas, even Little Sorrel looked better than usual, apparently also impressed with his rider’s appearance. That was high praise from a man who tended to be snobbish about horses.

  The warm days and cold nights ensured heavy fog every morning, and December 13 was no exception. Federal cannons began sporadic booming as Jackson rode north shortly after sunrise to confer with Lee, Longstreet, and Stuart, whose cavalry stood ready to protect the far right of the Confederate line. Stuart, always excited by the prospect of battle, was pleased to see Jackson in his handsome new coat. If he was less pleased to see Little Sorrel, he wisely said nothing about it. Artilleryman William Page Carter later claimed that he got his first-ever look at Jackson mounted on a “superb bay horse,” but other observers who knew Jackson better were convinced it was Little Sorrel that carried their commander.

  The fog began to lift slowly, and all four generals knew that their predictions were about to be confirmed. The initial attack would come against Jackson’s corps. Jackson remounted Little Sorrel and returned to his own troops shortly after 9:00 AM. An hour later, the fog had lifted entirely and Jackson, who had a magnificent view from an elevated position behind his troops, could see the spectacle of seventy thousand soldiers in blue ready to move ahead.

  A signal set the Union front lines in motion, and on they came. Fire from a two-gun battery of Stuart’s horse artillery, stationed at an angle to the passing Union troops, caused some damage and a great deal of confusion. The artillery action prompted an hour of heavy Federal artillery bombardment. Jackson remained on horseback in his exposed position, where he could see everything that was going on with the Federal attack.

  Federal pontoon bridges cross the Rappahannock as Jackson waits on Prospect Hill.

  Alexander Gardner Photograph, Library of Congress

  Jackson was “calm and deliberate,” according to one observer. Little Sorrel, to the same soldier’s amazement, “had the appearance of dozing under the music of the guns.” Jackson may have been pretending to be more calm than he actually felt to reassure any troops and officers who could see him. But Little Sorrel was behaving exactly as he felt. An artillery barrage, no matter how heavy, wasn’t enough to excite him.

  The Union infantry renewed its forward advance, nearly breaking through a poorly defended Confederate sector, but Jackson’s repositioning of the Confederate troops forced the Federals to fall back. The attack on the southern front was over by early afternoon. The battle moved north to Longstreet’s line, where repeated Union attacks with fresh troops also failed. The two-pronged Union offensive in Fredericksburg proved to be a double disaster.

  As the second act of the Battle of Fredericksburg passed to the north, Jackson and Little Sorrel moved about their half of the field checking on human and equine casualties. Many artillery horses were lost, but the number of human casualties was far greater. Casualties in Jackson’s corps were nearly the same as those on the Union side, but Jackson’s came out of a total force less than half the size of the Union’s. In spite of the proportionally greater losses, Jackson was thinking about immediate counterattack.

  By late afternoon he knew it would have to be a night attack, something almost never done during the Civil War. He changed his mind after a renewal of Union artillery fire on his scattered command. If he had gone ahead with an attack, Little Sorrel would have gone along without resistance or complaint.

  During the day, Alexander Boteler, Jackson’s good friend and a member of the Confederate Congress, had arrived from Richmond eager to experience the Confederate success firsthand. After nightfall, Jackson and Boteler rode among the troops forming the right of the line, the area Jackson thought was most vulnerable to a possible renewed Federal attack in the morning. Boteler was a great admirer of the “patient, easy-going, and reliable” Little Sorrel. Although they probably didn’t talk about the horse that night, it was obvious to both men that Little Sorrel had fully lived up to his reputation.

  Jackson sent Boteler to his own tent with instructions for Jim Lewis to fix him supper and find him a place to sleep. The general himself returned after midnight, leaving his horse to Lewis for feeding and grooming. At 2:00 AM Jackson was awake again, and he was still awake when an aide to Maxcy Gregg arrived. Gregg, a brigadier general from South Carolina, had been critically wounded during the afternoon’s fighting and wanted to see Jackson once more before his expected death. Jackson asked Lewis to saddle Little Sorrel.

  A few minutes later when Jackson left his tent to mount his horse, he was annoyed to discover Big Sorrel waiting for him. According to an article Boteler wrote for a Pennsylvania newspaper twenty years later, Jackson demanded to know why Lewis had ignored his order. “Old Sorrel was dead tired ’cause you’d been riding him all day,” Lewis said, according to Boteler. “I sort of promised him some rest.” Lewis assured Jackson that he would come to the front himself with Little Sorrel as soon as he heard the first gun go off. With no further complaint, Jackson mounted the big sorrel and rode off to a deathbed visit with Maxcy Gregg.

  Jim Lewis, among many others, believed there would be no attack from the Union army in the morning, but Jackson, after visiting the dying Gregg, spent December 14 strengthening his right while his troops waited. Throughout the day, there was sporadic artillery fire from the Union side, answered even more sporadically by the Confederates, who were protecting their limited ammunition stores. It’s unclea
r if this prompted the return to action of Little Sorrel. If not, the big sorrel must have performed adequately.

  During the early morning of December 16, the chance of attack or counterattack passed when the Union army slipped away under the cover of the nightly fog. Rumor of a Federal crossing and attack twenty miles southeast in Port Royal had Jackson, again on Little Sorrel, leading his entire corps toward the east. When word came back that the rumor was false, it was dark and cold. The wagons carrying tents and food for both soldiers and horses were well out of reach.

  When told by his staff that they were near the well-known Moss Neck Plantation, Jackson refused to impose on the owners, the Corbin family. He instead found a clearing that made an acceptable bivouac for the night near the south bank of the Rappahannock, about halfway between Port Royal and Fredericksburg. The rest of his corps found similarly cold spots within a few miles.

  “One young man there was disappointed and mad,” wrote James Power Smith years later, referring to himself, as he prepared for a cold, hungry night. An officer brought cold biscuits and ham, but apparently no hay, from the Moss Neck house. Jackson soon relented and allowed his staff to seek shelter for all of them in the house.

  Jackson, his staff, and their horses were warmly welcomed the night of December 16 by the Corbin family, consisting at the moment of five adult women, a fifteen-year-old boy, and three small children. Only a few older slaves remained of what had been a large contingent. The man of the house, Richard Corbin, was away with the army, but his wife, Roberta, and sister Kate managed to keep the house functioning. It was warm and there was ample food.

  The enthusiasm of the Corbins probably meant that Little Sorrel received at least some hay and grain that night and possibly a dry stall in the extensive Moss Neck stables and barns, almost empty of horses at this point in the war. A few days earlier, Roberta and Kate Corbin had been able to find only two riding horses, the remnants of a large herd, to ride out to get a distant glimpse of the action in Fredericksburg.

  The following morning, December 17, Roberta and Kate prepared an elaborate breakfast for Jackson and his staff. The women offered a wing of the big house to Jackson for use as a headquarters, but his wagons, carrying their tents and other equipment, managed to find their way to Moss Neck by noon and the general declined the offer. He told the Corbin ladies that he thought a general should share the living conditions of his men, much to the disappointment of his staff. They immediately set up their tents on the Moss Neck grounds.

  Although none of the journal keepers mention it, Little Sorrel and the other staff horses may have been allowed to remain in the nearly empty stables, protected from what turned out to be an exceptionally cold and snowy winter. But the horses enjoyed little rest during the next several weeks.

  For nearly a month, Jackson and the rest of Lee’s army were unsure if the Army of the Potomac planned to renew hostilities. Ambrose Burnside was sure he wanted to and where he wanted to do it, but he was entirely unsure just how to carry it off. The Confederates received several reports that the Union army had not yet gone into winter quarters, signaling the end of fighting until spring. The Second Corps was ready to act if necessary.

  As it turned out, Burnside did eventually move, heading northwest along the northern bank of the Rappahannock, intending to cross the river and attack the rear of the Army of Northern Virginia. But he waited too long to move and most of his army got bogged down in the mud, so he finally had to give up his plans for attack. The Federal forces went into winter quarters, and the Army of Northern Virginia did the same. The soldiers and officers of the Second Corps were especially happy, turning the extensive woods around Moss Neck into lumber for winter huts. Water from the river was clean, and the railroad depot at Guiney Station was only ten miles away, allowing for delivery of the limited food and supplies available to the army.

  Food for Jackson and his staff was not a problem. The days on either side of Christmas brought a deluge of gifts from Virginia citizens to Jackson’s tent. He had received the lion’s share of attention and public gratitude from the victory at Fredericksburg, a reality that must have annoyed James Longstreet, whose success had been equal and whose performance hadn’t included inadvertently leaving a gap between divisions that had been exploited by the Federals, if only briefly.

  Shortly before Christmas, three plump turkeys arrived at headquarters, followed by a ham, cakes, wine, biscuits, and pickles. Jackson’s staff, as well as officers from Lee’s and Stuart’s staffs, enjoyed a Christmas dinner more like a prewar celebration than what they had been expecting.

  A particularly fine gift arrived at Moss Neck at the end of the month. On December 31 an excellent bay mare arrived, the gift of several important political gentlemen from Staunton in Augusta County, complete with saddle, bridle, and other necessary equipment. Jackson immediately wrote a note of thanks, which the gentlemen made sure was published in the local newspaper a week later. What prompted the gift is unknown. Quartermaster John Harman, the man who chose the big and little sorrels from the rail car in Harpers Ferry, was from Staunton, and Jackson’s mapmaking friend Jedediah Hotchkiss was from a place just outside the town.

  Both Harman and Hotchkiss had been home for Christmas, and both had spent time in town catching up with friends and acquaintances. Harman is more likely to have been the source of the idea that Jackson needed a better—or just an additional—horse, but Hotchkiss was closer to the general. Little Sorrel was due to turn thirteen early in 1863, and Hotchkiss and Harman may have realized that he shouldn’t be used quite so heavily.

  One of the two of them may actually have brought the gift mare to Jackson, since they arrived from Staunton at about the same time she did. But Hotchkiss, who was delayed a little and arrived just after the first of the year, doesn’t talk about the gift mare in his otherwise extensive diary entries for those days.

  There is no evidence that Jackson used the mare much during the next few months, but he did retain ownership of her and was grateful for the gift. Jim Lewis was also grateful, even though he now had more work to do. He often got to ride the extra horses, and the bay mare must have been better looking than the angular Big Sorrel.

  Little Sorrel’s reaction to the young interloper is unknown, but he probably accepted the new arrival with the same nonchalance with which he greeted every unexpected event. Most horses like to be around other horses, and the more the better. Some can become jealous of other horses, but it’s almost certain that the easy-going Little Sorrel was not one of the resentful ones.

  After a few days in his tent, Jackson became ill with a cold and earache. He acquiesced to his surgeon’s advice to accept the hospitality of the Corbins and move inside. He accepted the offer of the plantation’s office building and established his personal winter quarters there.

  Moss Neck Plantation, where Little Sorrel spent the winter months of 1863.

  Confederate Veteran magazine, January 1912

  The regiments of the Second Corps were scattered over a nearly twenty-mile area, and for Little Sorrel winter quarters didn’t mean an absence of work. Jackson spent hours in the saddle inspecting the fortifications at their positions. In January, before the worst of the winter weather set in, the division and regimental commanders drilled their troops and Jackson often rode out to watch them.

  He made frequent twenty-five-mile round trips to Lee’s headquarters, and he probably rode the sure-footed Little Sorrel when the weather was particularly bad. One day he and aide James Power Smith made the ride in the middle of a snowstorm.

  “A worse ride than that one,” Smith said later, “I have never had.” After meeting Lee, who was shocked that Jackson made the trip during such a storm, they turned around and rode back to Moss Neck. Little Sorrel, certainly Jackson’s mount that day, made the trip without incident.

  On February 6, Jackson received another welcome gift, which he described as an “excellent ho
rse” sent to him by Colonel Michael Harman and William J. Bell of Staunton. This was most likely the bay horse he named Superior, an animal that was to play an important role in the last few months of Jackson’s life. James Power Smith wrote many years later that Harman and Bell had presented Superior to Jackson the previous autumn in Winchester, but Jackson himself wrote a letter to his wife Anna on February 7, 1863, saying that the “excellent horse” had arrived the day before, so Smith apparently remembered the date incorrectly.

  Harman was the brother of Jackson’s quartermaster John Harman and had himself been a quartermaster with the Confederate army before becoming colonel of the Fifty-Third Virginia Infantry, part of Jackson’s Second Corps. Whether the mare that arrived five weeks earlier had failed to work out or he thought that Jackson needed a fourth horse, Michael Harman made sure he got a good one.

  Jackson was proud of Superior and rode him when he wanted to make a good impression. Shortly after receiving the horse, Jackson rode Superior to visit Lee’s headquarters, again accompanied by James Power Smith, who was not as impressed with Superior as Jackson was. After the meeting with Lee, Smith led Jackson to a shortcut that ran along the Rappahannock.

  “Before long we came to a wide ditch,” Smith wrote, “difficult at any time, but especially so with its banks covered with snow.” Smith crossed easily, then looked back to see Jackson trying to coax Superior across the ditch. “What do you think of your bay now?” he claimed to have asked Jackson. The general, he said, laughed heartily.