“During the past week I have not been well, have suffered from fever and debility, but through the blessing of an ever-kind Providence I am much better today.”
This was his first and only written mention of his condition in these days.
Jackson, oblivious to critics, had some small adventures this week. He and Douglas, riding the lines one day, halted to pick berries on a hillside, though the young officer protested that enemy rifle fire was becoming dangerously warm. Jackson calmly sat his horse, eating berries, and then, Douglas wrote:
“He paused, and turning to me, with a large, shining berry poised between his thumb and finger, enquired maladroitly in what part of the body I would prefer being shot. I replied that primarily I’d prefer being hit in the clothes but if it was made a question of body, I’d prefer any place to my face or joints.…
“He said he had the old-fashioned horror of being shot in the back, and so great was his prejudice on the subject that he had often found himself turning his face in the direction from which the bullets came.”
The Yankee bullets drove Jackson away only when the horses became nervous. On this ride with Douglas, Jackson came upon General Toombs in an awkward position. Jackson saw that the picket lines of Toombs were not connected to flanking brigades, and were thus dangerously “in the air,” inviting attack. Jackson went to the headquarters of Toombs, whom he found stretched in a small tent, having a siesta. When aroused, Toombs said he had left the detail of placing pickets to a staff officer, who had turned it over to a field officer. Toombs said he thought the situation must be satisfactory. Jackson snapped at him and ordered him to go in person to rectify his front line. Toombs went off obediently, giving Douglas memories of past contrasts between this Georgian he had once heard in eloquent speech in the United States Senate, and his commanding general who had so recently been only a quaint and derided professor in Lexington.
On a hot afternoon of this week, Jackson did his only nonmilitary, nonreligious reading of the war, a sensational paper-backed novel, bound in garish yellow, and illustrated with fetching woodcuts. The General had halted beneath a tree for a noon nap, as he often did. When he awoke, he astonished his staff by asking if there was a novel about headquarters. It had been long before the war when he last read one, he said. A headquarters clerk, Hugh McGuire, passed a cheap book to Douglas, who handed it to Jackson. As the young officers watched, Jackson read through the short volume with the air of a man performing an essential duty. Now and then the staff saw the grim face smile. When he was done, Jackson returned the book, thanking McGuire and Douglas. “It’s been a long time since I read a novel,” he said. “And it will be a long time until I read another.”
The staff began to enjoy itself. At the end of a letter to Anna, Jackson had written: “Last week I received a present of a beautiful summer hat from a lady in Cumberland. Our Heavenly Father gives me friends wherever I go.… It would be delightful to see my darling, but we know that all things are ordered for the best.”
When the hat arrived, there was diversion at headquarters, for in a rare mood Jackson had tried on the hat before his mirror, and the comic appearance of the commander peering forth from beneath the broad straw brim set the officers to howling at the “caricature” he became. The General only glanced at his image, and passed the hat to Jim, who with ironic dignity bore it away on his finger tips; the hat was never seen again.
Jackson twice had encounters on the roads below Richmond. One night as he rode with his staff, he fell asleep in the saddle. Dr. McGuire often had to keep him on the horse by holding the General’s coattail, and despite a pact between them to reciprocate, McGuire never got such service from Jackson. On this night, going toward headquarters, Jackson was swaying in his saddle as the group passed the campfire of some stragglers who were cooking corn. One of these men came into the road and, failing to recognize the entourage, shouted to Jackson, “Hello! I say, old fellow, where the devil did you get your likker?”
The General started awake. “Dr. McGuire, did you speak to me? Captain Pendleton, did you? Somebody did.” He halted.
The soldier gaped. “Good God, it’s Old Jack!” He fled into the dark. The staff roared its laughter, and when the incident was explained to Jackson, he joined them. He quickly dismounted, however, tied Sorrel to a fence, and lay by the road for half an hour’s nap. It was almost 1 A.M. when he stirred.
Jackson also clashed with a neighboring farmer, who, cursing in a loud voice, charged the General with a cane when he rode into a grainfield. The farmer was finally made to understand Jackson’s identity; but in Douglas’s version, he was not abashed and continued to scold Jackson for his bad example to his men. In the version given by Mrs. Jackson, who wrote from a distance, and always with a penchant for the inspiring story, the farmer simpered when told who Jackson was: “What! Stonewall Jackson? General, ride over my whole field; do whatever you like with it, sir!”
A day later Jackson, passing the place, pointed it out as the scene of the “severest lecture” he had ever had, adding that it had made him careful of private property.
On July eighth, as Lee began the full-scale movement back to Richmond, Jackson came near to insubordination. He once more advanced his favorite scheme: give him forty thousand men and he would invade the North. Now, with General John Pope in Federal command in Western Virginia, and McClellan cowed on the James, a blow into enemy country would be the best possible defense for the Confederacy. He pressed the plan upon Lee at some length. The commander gave no answer, asking time to think it over. Jackson determined to go over Lee’s head—impetuously, considering the tenor of the last meeting of President Davis and Jackson. Old Jack called the useful Boteler.
Colonel Boteler found the General excited.
“Do you know we are losing valuable time here?” Jackson asked. “We are repeating the blunder after the battle of Manassas—giving the enemy leisure to recover from his defeat while we suffer from inaction.” The thin voice rose. “Yes—we are wasting precious time in this malarial place, when we should be elsewhere. I want to talk with you about it.”
Jackson once more outlined his plan, saying that since McClellan was whipped, Richmond was safe—and that the time had come to launch the offensive Old Jack had proposed in May, while he was still in the Valley. He would follow any leader Davis would appoint, Jackson told Boteler; he asked his agent to go to the President and ask permission for the project. Jackson offered assurance that he sought no personal gain. Boteler was cautious. Why should the problem be taken to Davis, when the President would merely refer it to Lee? Why did Jackson not talk with Lee?
“I have already done so.”
“What does he say?”
“Nothing. Don’t think I complain of his silence; he doubtless has a good reason for it.”
“Then don’t you think General Lee is slow making up his mind?”
“Slow? By no means, Colonel. On the contrary, his perception is as quick and unerring as his judgment is infallible. But with the vast responsibilities resting on him, he is perfectly right in withholding a hasty expression of his opinions and purposes.”
Boteler recalled his outburst at a much later date, and it bears marks of cautious reflection. But there was even more. Boteler said this did not satisfy Jackson, who, far from being trapped into criticism of his commander, added:
“So great is my confidence in General Lee that I am willing to follow him blindfolded. But I fear he is unable to give me a definite answer now because of influences at Richmond.”
Boteler went to Davis with Jackson’s argument, but aroused no enthusiasm in the President, who thought decision should be delayed. Davis was already thinking of dealing with Pope in the northwest section of the state, and he was ready to send Jackson after the Union general.
On July tenth, Jackson’s corps arrived in the neighborhood of Richmond, and here the Reverend Dabney left the service. The staff did not seem unhappy to see him go. Douglas thought Dabney “too old, too rev
erend,… with no previous training … no experience.”
Jackson wrote: “It was with tearful eyes that I consented to our separation.” But Dabney, after three months’ service on the staff, was ill, and insisted that he must go. There were perhaps other reasons for his departure, for Dabney, who was to become an early Jackson biographer, wrote of his troubles at the opening of the Seven Days:
“Here we had a disastrous illustration of the lack of an organized and intelligent general staff.… As chief of Jackson’s staff, I had two assistant adjutant generals, two men of the engineer department, and two clerks.… For orderlies and couriers? A detail from some cavalry company which happened to bivouac near. The men were sent to me without any reference to their local knowledge, their intelligence, or their courage; most probably they were selected by their captain on account of their lack of these qualities. Next to the Commander-in-Chief, the chief of the general staff should be the best man in the country.”
Now, for good or evil, Dabney was gone. Sandie Pendleton became acting chief, and Jackson revealed another stern phase of his nature in a letter to Anna. His wife was seeking to get her brother, Lieutenant Joseph Morrison, a place on Jackson’s staff. The General declared: “If you will vouch for Joseph’s being an early riser during the remainder of the war, I will give him an aide-ship. I do not want to make an appointment on my staff except of such as are early risers; but if you will vouch for him to rise regularly at dawn, I will offer him the position.”
Joseph, fresh from Virginia Military Institute, was soon appointed, and within a few weeks joined the staff.
Jackson now made headquarters in a tent in the yard of a farmhouse some two miles from Richmond, on the Mechanicsville Road. He had declined a room in the house, saying that he would not interfere with the farm family. He was to remain here for about a week, with only two visits to Richmond. He went into the city for a brief talk with Lee one night. On Sunday, July thirteenth, he went in to church.
Early Sunday morning, Jackson rode into Richmond, accompanied by McGuire, Pendleton and Douglas. He led them to a Presbyterian church whose pastor was the Reverend Moses D. Hoge, where he took a side pew, as if endeavoring to avoid notice. At the end of the service, however, the congregation had recognized him as the hero of the Valley, and people crowded about him, pushing his staff officers into a corner. The young men finally got the General into the open, but no sooner had he reached the sidewalk than a lady ran up and led Jackson away with her. He returned in about fifteen minutes. (Mrs. Jackson wrote that this woman was the mother of a boy killed in the General’s ranks.)
The staff had numerous concerns in these days, in addition to the charms of the city. The army was alive with rumors and gossip, and feuds were growing. One had begun in a Richmond newspaper, which published an article praising General A.P. Hill—the reporter was with Hill’s staff—and criticizing Longstreet. This had reached the point of exchanged insults between the two generals. Longstreet had placed Hill under arrest.
The Valley soldiers took no part in this controversy, but another now rose in their midst. An officer of Ewell’s division, without the knowledge of Ewell, had gone to the War Department saying that the officers and men were dissatisfied under Jackson’s command. They wished to be transferred to some other general. The report spread through the city, and Ewell went immediately to General Samuel Cooper, the Adjutant General, to disclaim the report and request that the division be left under Jackson. Cooper assured him that no change was contemplated.
On the night of July thirteenth, just before they prepared to leave the Richmond area for a new theater of war, Jackson’s officers discovered the unspoken state of mind of their commander, who inadvertently revealed that he was looking backward.
McGuire, Crutchfield and Pendleton were in a room discussing the recent battles when Jackson passed through. One of the officers wondered aloud if it would not have been better for Jackson to have moved to the aid of Longstreet at the battle of Frayser’s Farm, and Jackson’s quick voice broke in: “If General Lee had wanted me, he could have sent for me.”
He could hardly have said with greater eloquence that his memories were yet in the humid swampland, and that the roaring jungles of the Chickahominy haunted him—though he was never to admit a failure, here or elsewhere.
15
THE DEBUT OF GENERAL POPE
On July twelfth, Lee had learned that a new Federal offensive was under way in northern Virginia, for General John Pope had taken Culpeper, introducing a grim method of waging war. Pope intended to live off the countryside and to scourge it; there were already tales of depredations in his wake. Lee moved with a swiftness indicating that the high command had long since reached a decision. He told Jackson to march immediately to the northwest.
Jackson was to take his men, including Ewell’s division, and go as far as Gordonsville, if possible. Lee expected a blow at the enemy but he left that to Jackson’s discretion. The orders were delivered on July thirteenth, and the following day found Jackson on the move. The Valley troops left behind many of their comrades, as well as the problem of defending Richmond against McClellan.
The first day’s march ended abruptly in a rainstorm, from which Jackson took shelter in a hospitable farmhouse. The morning found him in Ashland, where he chose one of a number of breakfast invitations and sat for a time in the parlor of a roadside home, bouncing a little girl on his knee and listening as an older girl played the piano. He puzzled the young lady and his officers, asking, “Won’t you play a piece of music they call ‘Dixie’? I heard it a few days ago and thought it was beautiful.”
The girl protested that she had just sung “Dixie,” the oldest and most popular Southern war song.
“Ah, indeed,” Jackson said. “I didn’t know it.”
At a cottage on the dusty road, Jackson and his staff halted. A middle-aged woman emerged and, at the General’s request for water, brought him a big stone pitcher, without glass or dipper. Old Jack turned it up and drank for a long time. The woman, noting the air of respect the men had for this unprepossessing drinker, asked a cavalryman who he was.
The woman, evidently stricken to find herself in Stonewall’s presence, took the pitcher as in a daze, and to the surprise of the waiting thirsty, poured the water on the ground and disappeared into the house. She returned with a pail and dipper for the others, telling officers that no one else should ever drink from that pitcher; it was to be saved for her children and their heirs forever.
There were days of marching and waiting, with spies and scouts in advance to watch the invaders. One of the scouts was Captain John Mosby, who was sent to Jackson by Jeb Stuart. He was a handsome boy just out of a Federal prison, with a recommendation as “bold, intelligent, discreet.” And Stuart sent a question by Mosby: Had Jackson received the copy of Napoleon’s Maxims Stuart had sent earlier? Old Jack had indeed, but had not opened it, and at his death would leave unread these writings of his military model.
Jackson’s men approached Gordonsville, entertaining themselves with jests about the new enemy commander. Pope had arrived from the Western theater in gusts of oratory, reported to have said, “My headquarters are in the saddle.” Pope denied authorship of the striking phrase but did not halt its circulation. There was a report that Jackson, in reply to Pope, had shouted, “I can whip any man who doesn’t know his headquarters from his hindquarters.” But Kyd Douglas vowed Jackson had said no such thing; Old Jack, instead, had given only a grim smile upon hearing Pope’s declarations, hinting at bloody work ahead.
Pope had in fact, begun pompously. He had addressed his new regiments:
“Let us understand each other. I have come to you from the West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies.… I presume I have been called here to pursue the same system.… I hear constantly of ‘taking strong positions and holding them,’ of ‘lines of retreat.’… Let us discard such ideas. The strongest position a soldier should desire to occupy is one from which he can most easily
advance against the enemy.”
The army laughed over Dick Ewell’s reported reply: “By God, he’ll never see the backs of my men. Their pants are out at the rear and the sight would paralyze this Western bully.”
Jackson now had to deal with a bullying officer in his own ranks. Officers and men complained to him that General Winder was torturing his troops for the least infraction of discipline. Many men had been “bucked and gagged,” with arms tied beneath their knees and held by stakes, and with naked bayonets placed in their mouths. Jackson ordered an end to the practice, but Winder found other punishments, and Private Casler wrote in anger:
“General Winder would often have some of the men tied up by the thumbs at his headquarters all day for some small offense.
“He was a good general and a brave man, and knew how to handle troops in battle, but he was very severe, and very tyrannical, so much so that he was ‘spotted’ by some of the brigade; and we could hear it remarked by some that the very next fight we got into would be the last for Winder.”
The next fight was not far away.
As they marched farther from Richmond, the troops seemed to improve in morale and to forget the terrible fields of the Chickahominy. Jackson drilled them frequently, and officers were writing home that the army had not been in such fighting trim for many months.
On July twentieth, General Ewell revealed that his spirits were returning to normal, after describing to his sister, Lizzie, the horrors of the Peninsula, where it was “impossible for twenty miles below Richmond to get out of sight and smell of dead horses.” He then wrote of the enemy near by:
“The Yankees are now in Culpeper, and, I learn, are systematically destroying all the growing crops and everything the people have to live on. Sometime they ride into the fields and swing their sabers to cut down the growing corn. They seem bent on starving out the women and children left by the war. It is astonishing to me that our people do not pass laws to form regiments of blacks. The Yankees are fighting low foreigners against the best of our people, whereas were we to fight our Negroes they would be a fair offset. We would not as now be fighting kings against men, to use a comparison from chequers.”
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