They Called Him Stonewall

by Davis, Burke;

  One of the night’s most voluble, blasphemous laborers was Major John Harman—Old John—the brassy-voiced quartermaster, who was all but carrying Jackson’s columns on his back over the poor Valley roads, heaving forward with his work gangs and squads of impressed soldiers the stupendous loads of ammunition and supplies. He had spent his civilian life as master of a line of drays and stagecoaches, and he knew the country as well as his work. Even in Jackson’s command he was a power unto himself, defiant of restricting authority, though devoted to the commander and the sacred calling of Yankee extermination. Tonight the lines were strung out for more than twenty miles behind the army, the heavy trains at the mercy of the elements in the boggy roads.

  Just before daylight, Jackson held a brief conference with Ewell, whose forces were to continue as the army’s vanguard. Jackson had puzzled for hours over the character of Banks as it related to the map of the rugged country about them and the move he was now likely to make. But of all this, not a word to Ewell.

  Ashby with his cavalry was to strike for Middletown at daybreak. And here Jackson was forced to reveal to Ewell more than a glimpse of his plans, for he had decided during the night to make a change in command. He had admired the hell-for-leather charge of Lieutenant Colonel Flournoy and his Virginia troopers about Cedarville, for the daring of that thrust had won the day for him. But he reasoned that a veteran like Brigadier General George H. Steuart of the Marylanders, with more than ten years in the old cavalry, would make better use of the mounted troops.

  Thus Jackson told Ewell that he was placing two of his cavalry regiments under Steuart, and ordered them to depart soon after Ashby, striking for Newtown, a point just above Middletown.

  General Taylor was to follow with his brigade, ready for action. Jackson’s main force was behind, but would come up as soon as possible. The entire command, in short, was to concentrate on the route from Strasburg northward to Winchester, in hope that the Federals would choose that alley of retreat.

  Jackson went with the vanguard, in a curious, impatient humor. Taylor assigned about one hundred men of the Louisiana Tigers to go with him, and they began to outdistance the larger column. Jackson no longer plagued the marching officers with commands to hurry forward. Instead, this morning, he seemed unsure of himself, and, when he reached Cedarville, sat by the road, looking as if he feared to leave the bridges which might offer Banks the chance to escape through Manassas Gap, if the Federal could summon courage for that bold move. At about nine o’clock Jackson had word from Steuart: Banks was preparing to leave Strasburg.

  Soon, with a battery of artillery and the gay Tigers of Rob Wheat at his heels, Jackson rode within sound of firing. It was not yet heavy, but it came through screens of woodland which filled this Valley almost as far as the turnpike to Winchester. The Tigers went up and were caught in the skirmishing. Prisoners told Jackson that he was facing a part of the Twenty-ninth Pennsylvania, and that a handful of New England cavalry—the First Maine and First Vermont—were fighting a delaying action. Halts became frequent, and the Federal carbines took their toll as the column pushed on.

  At last Jackson looked over fields and their stone fences to Middletown and a stunning spectacle, for as far as he could see, north and south along the pike, was a dust canopy, and beneath it flowed the dark column of the enemy, in full retreat toward Winchester. Jackson and his vanguard had taken six hours to cover the seven miles to Middletown. Banks was already ahead of him. How far, he could not yet know. But he did not hesitate.

  Before he knew whether he faced overwhelming infantry, or simply a wagon train on the move, Jackson dashed forward with his few men. The guns went to work, blazing from behind a fence. A party of Ashby’s wild cavalry cut the procession at the right, at the edge of the town, and Jackson saw the enemy train in convulsions. It broke in a thousand places, with wagons turning out, and small parties of men turning back on one another. Those who were able fled. Ashby went to the north, driving remnants of the enemy ahead of him. Smoke began to mount as Federals sought to burn their stores, but the Rebels were too quick. The Tigers were soon at the looting, diving in and out of the wagons like practiced despoilers, though at the approach of General Taylor they ceased and went sedately into line.

  Jackson could not know that there was already failure in the road to the north of him, that the experiment with Steuart was not working out as it should. Steuart had cut this same long column, at Newtown, but in small force, and was even now being driven off at the appearance of a relief party sent by Banks.

  Jackson had no time for reflection, for a strange, broken, confusing battle was developing, as his men rounded up parties of the enemy and probed north and south, meeting tiny knots of resistance. Then, at a little after noon, Federal cavalry thundered into Middletown, two thousand strong, with a couple of guns behind. Their commander halted at first glimpse of the chaos along the road, but waved his men into a trot, and they came with drawn sabers.

  Jackson’s head was turned for this moment. He was off in the fields placing a couple of artillery pieces so as to cut off the Federals at the north. Kyd Douglas summoned Jackson’s bodyguard, which the General had evaded, and these men crouched behind a stone wall at the roadside. Someone dragged a wagon across the pike. Near by, artillery trained batteries on the solid blue column of horsemen, and Taylor’s Louisianans, now coming up, charged at a run. The village became a slaughter pen whose sight was to remain a memory with Jackson for life.

  The Union riders dashed into storms of flying metal; at the close quarters none could miss the massed targets, and, in a screaming of horses and men flailing in the trap, the Federal cavalry disintegrated.

  Jackson had returned to look at the scene, and, months later, when he made out his report, the vision of it crept in:

  In a few moments the turnpike, which had just before teemed with life, presented a most appalling spectacle of carnage and destruction. The road was literally obstructed with the mangled and confused mass of struggling and dying horses and riders.

  The Confederates found more of the pitiful novice cavalrymen in the gory roadway, boys who had died strapped to their saddles, their antique breastplates torn with shell. The sight sickened even young Douglas, who confessed to a regret that he had ordered the slaughter.

  The rear guard of the cavalry, now frightened and confused, milled in the roadway, turning as if to go back to Strasburg. At that instant Turner Ashby rode up, the swaggering cavalry chief on a sweat-gleaming black stallion, who within reach of Douglas and Jackson whipped out his saber, spurred the horse and sailed over the fence. He drove up the road, charging with his blade the two hundred or more enemy cavalrymen. Douglas thought he rode to certain death, but the sight of the reckless horseman seemed to demoralize the Federals. They fled with Ashby’s sword beating about at their rear, tumbling more than one man to the ground. The flight broke in many directions. Ashby trotted back with a squad of prisoners herded before him.

  Jackson turned on Ashby in an attempt at reprimand. “Ashby, you risk the success of the army with such foolish exposure—you must remember who you are, man.”

  Douglas grinned, and the cavalryman almost dared it, hearing in the commander’s voice the reluctance with which he denounced such bravery. Jackson turned from the scolding with a sheepish expression on the long cheeks.

  The General was now forced to an instant decision amid perplexing signs. To the south was the smudge of burning magazines and stores at Strasburg, fired by the Federals; to the north the enemy wagon train was disappearing. There was the frenzy of chase on every hand, as survivors of ruined wagons ran for safety. But where was Banks’s infantry? If it was behind the cavalry, and still to pass Middletown, Jackson must call up his main force and prepare for battle; if the bulk of the enemy force had gone north, then pursuit must be hurried. Jackson ordered a number of townspeople brought to him for questioning, and from their stories concluded that the regiments of Banks had moved toward Winchester. He turned into the Valley P
ike, pushing up his artillery and Taylor’s brigade.

  Through the afternoon he continued the slow, halting push until now, riding in fading daylight, he was less than a dozen miles from Winchester, still passing the litter of the Federal army at the roadside: wagons intact and ruined, Bibles, kettles, blankets, playing cards, letters, photographs, canned food, song-books. It was the debris of a panic-stricken opponent.

  Jackson was in a hopeful mood despite the escape of the enemy for the second day in succession. He looked forward to greater booty ahead, confident that his cavalry was playing havoc with the head of the Federal wagon train.

  As he went to the north he stopped but once, to dismount and take a cracker from a Federal wagon, brushing half-heartedly at its unclean surface, and he rode, crunching the hard bread, like a Quixote on a slow-moving Rosinante, though utterly unaware that some of his classical-minded staff had compared him to the comic Spanish knight.

  A fresh disappointment met him at the village of Newtown. He approached the place convinced that Banks, if he reached Winchester at all, would limp in without a wagon train, and thus be ready for the kill.

  Jackson already planned the coup.

  The rising growl of an artillery duel startled him, and he urged Sorrel into a gallop. He found two guns of the Rockbridge Artillery engaging the enemy at the village. The guns, he saw, were without infantry support.

  His artillery chief, Colonel Stapleton Crutchfield, was in a rage over a wasted opportunity. He shouted his explanation to Jackson:

  Ashby’s men had fallen upon the leading section of Banks’s train here and with a few wild shots had thrown it into flight. The wagons of sutlers were among the stores and were crammed with luxuries. The undisciplined troopers could not then be driven forward to strike the enemy. They turned aside by the hundred, to eat, or take horses, some of them swarming away like gypsy bands, leading stolen horses by the reins. Some infantrymen had come up at last, but when they sighted the wagons it was all over with them as well.

  They went to the looting, and the guns were left without support. The running fight from Middletown had brought confusion, the advance was slowed and dissipated. Even now, as he sought Ashby, Jackson could find only fifty of the troopers; their commander was forced to admit that the rest had flown. It was to be weeks before some returned from their homes, where they had taken the horses.

  Jackson had the looters driven from the wagons, but there was little time to deal with undisciplined men; the General made a mental note to have these troops punished in one of his strange morale-building ways: they were no longer to march in the van of the Army of the Valley.

  Men grumbled behind his back at manifestations of his concern for the wagons: “Damned old wagon-hunter don’t care for our bellies—all he’s looking is his durned lemons.” There were many who referred to him thereafter by a wry nickname: Lemon Squeezer.

  Even his rage this evening did not prevent his remarkable and familiar gesture when an officer called a joke to him: Stonewall replied by throwing back his head with an exaggerated snap and gaping his mouth in a silent, tight-lipped mask of laughter.

  The approach of the Stonewall Brigade drove the Federal artillery from the road, and as darkness fell the route-step battle became a nightmare for the weary troops. The Federals fought their rear-guard action with skill. There were frequent halts while skirmishers turned out to unroll a new line of battle. Each volley from the front threatened panic, and the leaders were driven back upon the column. Many veterans were to speak of the night as the most trying experience of the war; casualties were few, but the action was constant, and halts continued until dawn. In each brief halt, the troops sought rest. Men fell asleep holding to their muskets. Hundreds fell away in the darkness.

  Jackson rode with Taylor for much of the way. The young officer overheard the conversation between Jackson and Old John Harman, when the quartermaster came up to report. Harman said the army’s wagons were far back in the valley and that a bad road blocked his every effort to move them up.

  There was quick anxiety in Jackson’s voice.

  “The ammunition wagons?”

  “All right, General. They’re here. I put double teams on them and brought them through.”

  A sigh of relief. “Ahhh.” As if Jackson had no concern for other supplies.

  Taylor sought to make a joke of it, saying to Harman, “Never mind the wagons, John. There are stores aplenty in Winchester, and the General has invited me to breakfast there tomorrow.”

  Taylor felt a quick, restraining hand on his sleeve, a warning from Jackson, who feared to tell anyone the least of his plans, and could not understand the jest. Remembering, Taylor wrote: “Without physical wants himself, he forgot that others were differently constituted, and paid little heed to commissariat, but woe to the man who failed to bring up ammunition. In advance his trains were left behind. In retreat he would fight for a wheelbarrow.”

  It was a remarkable group which rode about Jackson—the commander and his staff, in the forefront of an army in night fighting, passed wagons put to the torch by the Federals, which would signal the people of Winchester of Jackson’s coming. Of the riders with Stonewall, only Ashby was alert, stiffly erect; this swarthy man with something of the Arab about his face was called the Black Knight by the younger officers. There was an unnatural grimness in him, understood only by those who knew of his vow to avenge the death of his brother at Federal hands. Sandie Pendleton, as always when sleepy, was irritable and snappish; Colonel Crutchfield, one of the army’s leading devotees of sleep, muttered his disgust: “This is uncivilized.” Dr. Hunter McGuire, the surgeon, said nothing, lost in his concern for his Winchester home. Douglas gave his attention to remaining awake.

  Fire flashed through the night, almost in their faces. Horses reared. Yankee skirmishers had ambushed them, lying behind a wall as Jackson’s party came. These men fled, to make another stand in the night. Jackson was sitting with some cavalry when a volley came. The horsemen reined in.

  “Charge them! Charge!” Old Jack yelled. And when the riders broke for the rear under another volley, all but riding down Jackson, his thin voice rose even higher in anguish: “Shameful! Did you see anybody struck, sir? Did you see a man hurt? Surely they need not have run, at least until they were hurt?”

  The way became easier until Kernstown, a village where Jackson had fought once before—tonight there was only a skirmish there. Officers came to Jackson frequently now, asking for a respite. Jackson refused to halt the column for the night. At last, long after 1 A.M., Colonel Sam Fulkerson found Jackson:

  “General, if I may be permitted to make a suggestion, I think the troops had better be rested for an hour or so; my men are falling by the roadside from fatigue and loss of sleep. Unless they are rested, I’ll not be able to put up more than a thin line tomorrow.”

  Every time his command halted, this officer said, it left dozens of men behind, fallen asleep in fence corners and brush heaps.

  Jackson did not cease to resist even then, though he was exceptionally fond of this brigade commander.

  “Colonel, I do not yield even to you in my feeling for these gallant men. But I am obliged to sweat them tonight, sir, so that I can save their blood tomorrow.

  “Just south of Winchester there is a line of hills—they must not be occupied by the enemy artillery. Our people must be there, and by daylight. I will give you two hours’ rest.”

  When the order was passed, the men fell into the road.

  Jackson agreed to leave Fulkerson’s men behind, and to take forward his own old brigade; but when he saw the men drop in their tracks, he changed his mind. The entire army fell asleep. Jackson himself was almost the lone exception.

  He dashed off a note to Ewell, who read it up front, on a parallel road, within sight of Federal pickets. It was only a rough sketch of the roads, streams and woods of country surrounding Winchester. In heavy outline was drawn the position of the troops of Banks, as well as Jackson’s own positio
n on the pike. Under this drawing was the laconic message:

  “Attack at daylight.”

  With his orders finished, Jackson took over the guard. Men who stirred in sleep saw him. He stood in front of the sleeping vanguard, without a coat to protect him from the heavy dew. For about an hour he stood—and could bear it no longer. He woke his officers and passed the word to march.

  Jackson’s task this Sunday was simple, but by no means easy. He was confident that Ewell, with his troops on the road from Front Royal to the east, would come in on his right as he stormed the town. He suspected that Banks would have taken the commanding heights, and that would mean serious fighting.

  The men were weary, but they went forward. They crossed a stream called Abraham’s Creek when it was scarcely daylight, with the stars fading over them, and approached the hills. Jackson was one of the first to see shadowy figures of Federals on the slopes.

  The timing was perfect. Ewell, with his one brigade and ten guns, swept down on the Federal positions just as Jackson was giving General Charles Winder his unmistakable orders: “You must occupy that hill.”

  The skirmish lines fanned up the slope, here and there driven back by savage blasts of artillery fire. Jackson’s guns came up, and for half an hour challenged the heavier Federals. Many batteries were blasted; some of the Rockbridge guns remained in place until their wheels were gone, and the horses dead, and few men were left to serve the hot barrels. But in the end the Union guns were overcome. It was Taylor’s men who finished them off.