They Called Him Stonewall

by Davis, Burke;

  This morning, there had been some who were not so enthusiastic. A few companies of the Twenty-seventh Virginia Regiment had come to the end of their voluntary enlistment; they had signed in for a year, and that was up today. Their officers would not allow them to leave. The Conscription Act was now in force, and by law they must remain in the ranks. The men swore they would not fight one more day. Their colonel came to Jackson, who refused even to see him and, with the stern face set like stone, said, “Why does Colonel Grigsby refer to me to learn how to deal with mutineers? He should shoot them where they stand.” That was all.

  The mutiny went down. The entire regiment, under harsh orders, aimed muskets at the reluctant companies, which were given their choice: die on the spot, or take up their duties, immediately. Jackson had not even to watch it to make his iron will felt among the insubordinate troops. They surrendered.

  It had been a turbulent passage of days, but he seemed resigned to that. Surely nothing disturbed him today as he sat on his fence.

  Jackson was thirty-eight years old. Beyond a certain notoriety as an eccentric, he was now almost without reputation, though in the North they still frightened children with his name. He had few intimate friends, and but few, though select, admirers. He had not quite twelve months to live, a prospect which probably would not have caused him to panic if it had been revealed to him.

  “My religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed,” he had said. “God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that.”

  In officers’ quarters his friends sometimes defended him when he was attacked as a bumpkin Presbyterian fatalist, but some of his views made his case difficult for them. Long ago, when the war was only a dark vision looming over them all, he had chided those who feared secession was coming: “Why should Christians be disturbed about the dissolution of the Union? It can come only if by God’s permission, and will be permitted only if for His people’s good.”

  His troops gave him plentiful attention today, at their distance, but they had no conception of him as a Christian hero. They thought of their hides, trying to puzzle out what he would next ask of them. They still laughed a little over his message of congratulations on the little victory. That was fare for the draft dodgers and politicians in Richmond. They wondered, too, what he had been up to in the night. They knew that some of the engineers and a cavalry troop had been out in the storm, tearing down bridges, destroying culverts, rolling boulders down into, and felling trees across roads, for more than a mile at a stretch. They puzzled, unable to discern that their commander had already effectively blocked a junction of the three Federal armies in the region and set the stage for an assault upon General N. P. Banks and his army. It was too early to see that the enemy was already helpless.

  The General remained alone on this afternoon, and not one of his staff officers approached him. It was a singular staff. Some of them men of skill and experience, though not military men—an excellent map maker, a fine physician, a wagoner who knew his business from long training, a lawyer or two of promise, and a veteran theologian. But none were assistant generals. These were little more than errand boys, not consulted about the decisions of war, and seldom given more than glimpses of plans in the mind of Jackson. The staff was seldom enlightened until the driving marches were over, and the astonished Army of the Valley looked down upon its victims, the thunderstruck enemy.

  It was like Jackson to have chosen a preacher as his chief of staff. This one, the Reverend R. L. Dabney, was a major, a good enough camp officer, but with no military experience; and the younger men thought him stiff and a bit sour and less than able. There was constant talk among the boys of the staff that old Dabney should be retired. Sandie Pendleton did all the work of chief anyway. But Jackson fancied ministers, and he found Dabney good company, a distinguished Bible scholar, and an efficient chief, as well. The General left few details for others to attend to in the management of his little army.

  The General roused from his brief lethargy on the fence, instantly awake, pulling once more at his lemon. In the roadway, advancing toward him, was a sight such as he had never seen. Parade ground soldiers these were, filling the turnpike, more than three thousand of them, neat in new gray uniforms, flashing white gaiters, passing by the drab lines of his mountain-worn men. The General told himself that the newcomers could not have marched five miles this day, to be so fresh.

  They were a brigade of Louisiana troops, called to him from General Ewell’s command, about half of them Irish, half Creoles. Their boots fell as one on the sandy road, and the regiments wheeled off into the camping grounds, watched by Jackson’s open-mouthed troops. Almost before they had broken ranks, the new soldiers gathered about their regimental bands, which began to play polkas. The Army of the Valley crowded in to investigate its comrades in arms, shouting catcalls.

  A young officer approached Jackson, having been directed to the fence. He was not an ordinary soldier, this commander of the Louisiana Brigade, General Richard Taylor, only son of the late President, Zachary Taylor. He was a promising officer who had studied at Yale and Harvard, Edinburgh and Paris. A bayou planter and politician and already a man of wealth and influence.

  Taylor saluted Jackson.

  “Brigadier General Taylor, sir. Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth Louisiana.”

  A long pause ensued, with Jackson pulling at the lemon. Taylor gazed at the unkempt, sunburned beard, the thin, sharp nose and pallid lips, the tiny blue eyes set deeply, clouded as if with fatigue. Only those and the largest pair of cavalry boots he had ever seen. The voice, at last, was a squeaking drawl, like that of a woman.

  “How far have you come today?”

  “Keazletown Road. Twenty-six miles over the mountain.”

  “You seem to have no stragglers.”

  “Never allow them.”

  “You must teach my people. They straggle badly.” There was a subtle edge of irony, bespeaking disbelief.

  Taylor nodded courteously. Jackson’s glance wandered to the new brigade across the field, now dancing to the music of their bands, their arms around the waists of their partners, capering in polkas.

  “Thoughtless fellows for serious work,” Jackson said.

  “I hope our part of it can be done none the less well, for a little gaiety.”

  Jackson sucked at the lemon, glanced at Taylor and made no reply. The interview was over.

  When the General swung down from his perch, the new troops could see the remarkable gait of their commander, a graceless plodding step, as if he strode across a ploughed field. The impression was heightened as he rode out from headquarters.

  The horse was in its way as striking as the master; it contributed much to the general awkwardness of the pair. It was close-coupled and short, powerfully built, with a neck ludicrously large for so compact an animal; the coat needed attention, but in the May sunlight it gleamed in light tones. Little Sorrel, the troops called him; the staff called him Fancy, perhaps in irony. In his way of going he looked like a farm horse, but his gait was comfortable, and the General rode him without effort. The animal had huge, intelligent eyes, and was treated like a house pet. He had a habit of lying down like a dog on halts in the marching; Jackson often fed him apples at such times.

  Sorrel was a piece of war booty, taken from a trainload of Union mounts at Harpers Ferry the year before. He had been the General’s favorite horse from the first and was in use almost daily.

  This afternoon the horse gave the old troops an opportunity to initiate the strangers to the ritual of life in Jackson’s camp. The old troops raised a chorus of throbbing cries, halloos of greeting which swept from company to company, until the camp rang with them. At the outburst, Sorrel broke from his rolling gait into a canter. Jackson rode on as if he had heard nothing, giving no sign of pleasure or displeasure. The noise increased.

  The appearance of Jackson was the only sight which could call forth this particular wild medley, though the camp was full of call
s. The hungry men would always drop their duties, even if in ranks, and burst over the fields to chase a stray rabbit which bobbed into sight, and then they shouted in a similar way; thus there was the familiar saw in camp: “There goes Old Jack—or a rabbit.”

  Now, whether stirred by Jackson’s brief appearance or the impressionable new audience, the Valley army began to roar through its rowdy calls in earnest. At sight of an officer in new jack boots—though he had been about most of the day—the troops now began to shout: “Come on outa there! We can see yer arms stickin’ out! T’aint time to go in winter quarters!” Or they would spot a victim in a large hat, and scream: “Come on down outa there! Y’ ain’t hidin’! Yer legs is hanging out!” Or at the passing of a mustached man, the hoots would follow: “Take them mice outa yer mouth. See their tails drooping out!” Or: “Get on up outa that bunch of hair. We can see your ears aworkin’!” The gusts of crude humor swept the camp for an hour or more, ending in a furious storm of sound as the troops echoed through the woodland the calls of chickens, ducks and animals.

  Despite the presence of several ministers this week, there was the usual gambling. Visitors to the camp met dozens of men in the roadway: “Chance on a raffle, mister? Take a chance on a watch? Somebody’s gonter win a fine one.” In the grove were games of poker and chuckaluck, to which men turned avidly as soon as duty allowed. About the gambling games were the most profane of the foul-mouthed army, about which many a tender soldier was even now writing to his people back home. One soldier warned his wife never to come to the camp of the army: “Don’t never come here as long as you can ceep away, for you will smell hell here.”

  One chaplain complained he had never before heard such foul language, and that the very air seemed to swear. There was drinking, and gambling, and a few filthy, tousle-haired, slovenly women tagged along. Most of this was kept from Old Jack, who fought sinfulness with rigid bans, and his revivals.

  His soldiers, though they were not aware of it, were much like other regiments, both North and South; only their leader was different, and his talents had not yet become apparent. But it remained that he was molding them in his way, though there were particulars in which nothing could change them.

  They were lean and becoming leaner, and would carry no superfluous weight, for whatever reason. They slept in twos, each furnishing a blanket and an oilcloth, which they carried in rolls over their shoulders. Their bed, warm in any weather, consisted of an oilcloth on the ground and one on the top, with two blankets between.

  There were no overcoats, for they had long since been found unworthy of the effort of carrying them through good weather; they wore short gray jackets, many of them torn off raggedly at the hips. Beneath, they wore white cotton garments, for in these the lice were easier to control; and when the underclothes were taken off, it was forever. Washing seldom helped, since Jackson, with his swift movements, gave them little chance to prepare hot water.

  Officers could make the the men keep bayonets only by constant vigilance, and many went into battle without the blades of which their commander was so fond. They kept little else—no canteens, for tin cups tied to the belt were easier, quicker, lighter, more practical. Boxes for caps and cartridges went into the bushes, too; and revolvers, found useless, were sold, gambled away, or sent home.

  No soldiers ever marched in lighter order, for there was seldom anything in the thin blanket rolls but a few berries, persimmons or apples in season, and perhaps a bit of soap. They were ragged, vermin-infested, thin, pestered by the itch—but durable, and of a fierce, unbreakable morale. No one knew how, but they gained in confidence each week. They were not downcast even by Jackson’s painful “victory” at McDowell.

  Now, with the coming of General Ewell, they would be almost seventeen thousand strong. In Jackson’s own division, a dozen regiments, plus Ashby’s Seventh Virginia Cavalry, and five batteries of artillery. Ewell brought seventeen regiments of infantry, and two of cavalry, plus a few guns. Up the Valley, too, was General Edward Johnson, watching the enemy with twenty-five hundred men, ready to join an attack.

  Of these infantry regiments, seventeen were Virginian. There were five from Louisiana, two from Georgia, and one each from North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Maryland.

  By Union standards they were indifferently armed, with a bewildering variety of muskets and rifles and old household guns which had been converted the year before into modern weapons (by removal of the flintlock mechanism and drilling the barrels anew). There were already a few Yankee weapons scattered among the ranks, and in some brigades, where state governments or rich men had seen to their needs, there were shining new guns.

  As Jackson galloped to his cavalry screen, where he might see for himself what lay ahead, he carried in his pocket a dispatch from General Lee which might change the current of their affairs. And high time, Jackson thought. The words of the order were uppermost in his mind today:

  Whatever movement you make against Banks, do it speedily, and if successful drive him back towards the Potomac, and create the impression, as far as possible, that you design threatening that line.…

  Lee’s selection of a victim for Jackson referred to General Nathaniel Prentiss Banks, an energetic volunteer from a life of politics, former Congressman and Governor of Massachusetts. He was already a victim of a Jackson assault, and though courageous, he was something less than an imaginative student of war. He lay now at the town of Strasburg, behind entrenchments, his force cut in half by the transfer of General Shields to Fredericksburg. General Frémont, his little army once mauled by Jackson, was reorganizing to the westward. Altogether, the enemy could count fifty thousand to sixty thousand men—if they could be concentrated.

  This was a week in which it seemed that the Federal armies could do no wrong, and that no dangers were great enough to cause the Union anxiety. The rebellion seemed beyond the aid of its armies, let alone the puny force under Jackson. New Orleans had just fallen. The line of the Mississippi had crumbled along most of its length, with the bloody repulse of the Confederates at Shiloh. And Albert Sidney Johnston was dead, too. A vast army was creeping up the tidewater rivers toward Richmond, and Federal warships could actually be sighted from the city. It was growing late everywhere, it seemed.

  Jefferson Davis had decided to abandon the capital. Military stores were being evacuated, and the records of the Confederacy were packed for flight. Lee could see only a forlorn hope, that Jackson, if reinforced, might so menace Washington as to panic Lincoln and Stanton and the rest of the amateur war makers of the North, and induce them to relax their strangling coils. The eloquent implication was in Lee’s order to Jackson. There was not a word of the prospect to anyone else. Not an officer in Jackson’s command had an inkling of the stakes for which the army was to play.

  Jackson’s troops could not know what was afoot, but they guessed shrewdly why they lay in this spot, a crossroads vital in the Shenandoah Valley terrain. One road led eastward over the mountains toward Warrenton and Culpeper; the other northward toward Strasburg and Winchester. The men understood that their commander intended to keep them guessing. He was already far in advance of Federal intelligence, which still had him placed near Harrisonburg, three long marches to the south. The Union high command was so confident, in this moment, that General McDowell, with his forty thousand troops at their Potomac base on Aquia Creek, was launching a drive southward; he was to join McClellan before Richmond. That would be fatal to the Confederacy.

  Jackson moved through the short remainder of the day as if unaware of the guessing game he inspired. He had already sown confusion among his own people, as well as the enemy. Now approaching him in the Valley, for example, was his new lieutenant, General Dick Ewell, who was indulging in a high-pitched rage unusual even for him. Jackson had called him over the Blue Ridge from his camp near Culpeper, and after night-and-day marches, he had arrived at Conrad’s Store, a village rendezvous. But when he arrived, proud of the men who had suffered the forbidding roads,
Jackson was gone—no one knew where. Ewell burst into flights of profanity that revealed his decided gift for the art. His coming had been colorful.

  The troops were cold, for freezing rains had fallen overnight; yet they came down into Hawksbill Valley, led by Louisiana men under the Pelican flags, with bands blaring away at “Listen to the Mocking Bird.”

  Ewell was in such a state that he could listen to nothing.

  Major General Richard Stoddert Ewell—the army knew no other like him. An erstwhile cavalry captain in the Old Army with long service in the West, an untamed Indian fighter who preserved some of the atmosphere of the plains. Wherever he went, there tagged at his heels an overgrown Apache boy, whom Ewell called Friday, the bane of the army’s existence, hailed on all sides as the most accomplished thief among a band of professionals.

  Ewell sprang of a prominent Georgetown family and was descended of a hero of the Revolution. His appearance belied his gentle heritage and his West Point training as well. Small and short, bald as an egg, with a sharp, high-domed head and a wistful face with a long, swooping nose, he reminded almost everyone of a ridiculous bird. He had a habit of cocking his head on one side and then the other, as he cried out in his peeping voice. He lisped badly. In the midst of a rational conversation he was known to interrupt, squealing, “Now why do you suppose President Davis made me a major general anyway?”

  He had, like Jackson, a perverse intestinal ailment, as a result of which he would eat but one dish—the wheat cereal, frumenty. He was explosive, fearless, and a soldier who saw warfare as a simple matter, much as it had been on the plains. He knew Jackson slightly, had seen him in Mexico, and thought him a queer bird; he was aware that the Valley commander had enjoyed a reputation as a goose of sorts at the Virginia Military Institute. He thought, now, that he was beginning to understand.