by Burke Davis
Esten Cooke said that Jeb's troops at Chancellorsville, "although quite enthusiastic about him, complained that he led them too recklessly against artillery; and it is hard to believe that, as an army commander, he would have consented to a strictly defensive campaign. Fighting was a necessity of his blood, and the slow movements of infantry did not suit his genius. "
Cooke said more with which Stuart probably agreed: "Some men are born to write great works, others to paint great pictures, others to rule over nations. Stuart was born to fight cavalry."
On May tenth Stuart wrote his cousin, the mother of Channing Price:
Let me share with you the deep grief. . . . The dear boy fell at my side, displaying the same devotion to duty, and abnegation of self which signalized his whole career.
As an Adjutant General he had no superior. ... He was known most favorably to General Lee, who knew and appreciated his worth. His career though brief was so spotless and successful that it is well to consider whether, amid the mutations
of human events, it is not better to have a career ended nobly, as his was, than to risk the fluctuations of fortune in an uncertain future
He was a universal favorite. ... I miss him hourly now.
His ready pen and fine perception saved me much labor, and contributed amazingly to the success of operations under my control
The staff wore mourning for thirty days for Channing, soon after it had removed black sleeve bands in memory of Pelham. The entire army mourned Jackson.
The camp where Stuart learned of Jackson's death was in a green valley overlooking the village of Orange Court House, a rich country of growing crops and plentiful farm animals—and pretty girls. The staff recovered overnight from Chancellorsville. Stuart, like Robert Lee, was unable to go to Richmond for Jackson's funeral. As Lee said, "Those people over the river are showing signs of movement."
Von Borcke became a ghost this week. He stopped in Verdiersville to call on the woman who had helped him escape Federal riders the summer before, when Stuart lost his hat on her porch.
The woman came to her door, glimpsed von Borcke, screamed, and fled into the house. The German entered, curious, and she handed him a newspaper. He read:
Among those who fell at the battle of Chancellorsville we regret to report the death of Major von Borcke
He found that the rumor had spread over the state, and he was hailed on the roads and in camp as one returned from the dead. Stuart got many letters of condolence, among them a request from Governor Letcher: Von Borcke's body should be forwarded to Richmond, where it would be given a burial of honor by Virginia. Letcher got a reply which the cavalry found hilarious:
Can't spare body of von Borcke. It is in pursuit of Stoneman.13
CHAPTER 16
Prelude to Invasion
FIGHTING joe Hooker was uneasy. His big orange observation balloons were in the sky over the Rappahannock from dawn to dusk in early June, and his officers questioned the aerialists almost desperately.
Hooker reported to President Lincoln on June fifth that new divisions had joined Lee: "This could be for no other purpose but to enable the enemy to move up the river ... a movement similar to that of Lee's last year."
Another Rebel invasion of the North, perhaps.
But though Hooker bridged the river the next day, he did not discover Lee's intention; he concluded that the enemy was still in front of him "in full force."
In fact, Robert Lee left the old Rappahannock battleground that day, going upriver behind his infantry near Culpeper, where Stuart's cavalry was resting.
Hooker had planned to strike Lee if he made any such move, and telegraphed Lincoln:
I am of the opinion that it is my duty to pitch into his rear.
Lincoln did not agree:
I would not take any risk of being tangled up on the river like an ox half jumped over a fence, and liable to be torn by dogs front and rear without a fair chance to gore one way, or kick the other.
Thus, in the first week of June, while Lee shifted his strength westward and held the Fredericksburg front with only A. P. Hill's men, Hooker waited.
Lee had grown stronger. Longstreet had returned and there were now three army corps, under Longstreet, A. P. Hill and Dick Ewell, the new lieutenant general replacing Jackson. Ewell had just rejoined the army, after recovering from his leg wound at Second Manassas. He returned with a wooden leg and a pretty bride.
Culpeper County in June was like paradise for the cavalry corps. Stuart had moved his headquarters to Fleetwood Hill, four miles south of the Rappahannock above Brandy Station. Recruits flocked in, most of them on fresh horses from home. Grumble Jones brought his troopers from the Shenandoah, and Robertson came up from North Carolina. The month opened with 9,536 riders in Jeb's command. The Horse Artillery had grown, and had new horses. Forage was plentiful, grass was thick on the rolling plains. The army's infantry was comfortingly near at Culpeper.
Stuart ordered a celebration. The staff sent invitations to hundreds in adjoining counties. Hotels and homes for miles about were made ready. Von Borcke went on a flag-bedecked train to meet George Randolph, Stuart's friend, who was the former Secretary of War. Visitors came from as far as Charlottesville and Richmond, and cavalry escorts took them from the station to lodgings. General Lee, who had been urgently invited, seemed to be the only missing guest.
There was a ball in the county courthouse on June fourth, dimly lit by "a few tallow candles." The gay music of Sweeney's band continued for hours. It was late when Culpeper quieted for the night.
At eight A.M., his staff in new uniforms, Stuart led the way through the streets to the review field near Brandy Station. Trains halted on the adjoining tracks with crowded cars; the rest of the field was surrounded by wagons and carriages of guests. The 10,000 cavalrymen sat horses in lines almost two miles long, and at about ten o'clock Stuart galloped onto the field. His gunner George Neese gazed raptly from the ranks of the Horse Aurtillery.
"He was superbly mounted and his side arms gleamed in the morning sun like burnished silver. A long black ostrich plume waved gracefully from a black slouch hat cocked up on one side, held with a golden clasp.... He is the prettiest and most graceful rider I ever saw. I could not help but notice with what natural ease and comely elegance he sat his steed as it bounded over the field ... he and his horse appeared to be one and the same machine."
When Stuart and the staff had inspected the ranks they went to a natural reviewing stand, a small, steep knoll near the railroad where, Neese said, Jeb "wheeled his horse and sat there like a gallant knight errant, under his waving plume ... a chivalric cavalier of the first order."
Three bands played as the cavalry passed in review which Neese thought: "One grand magnificent pageant, inspiring enough to make even an old woman feel fightish."
The regiments charged with sabers and the artillery banged in mock battle. Women fainted. The show went on until four P.M.
There was a dance in the evening, but the crowd spurned the courthouse, von Borcke said: "As the night was fine we danced in the open air on a piece of turf near our headquarters, and by the light of enormous woodfires, the ruddy glare of which... gave the whole scene a wild and romantic effect."
On the eighth, they did it all over again, for General Lee came up. The ladies were gone, but infantrymen were on hand. Fitz Lee had sent John Hood word: "Come and see the review, and bring any of your people." And just as the troopers took the field, Hood arrived with his 10,000 behind him, winding up from the Rapidan.
"You invited me and my people," Hood said, shaking hands with Fitz, "and you see I've brought them."
There was a revival of the old jibes of infantry-cavalry rivalry.
"Well, don't let them holler, 'Here's your mule!' " Fitz said.
"If they do we'll charge you," Wade Hampton told Hood.
The scoffing infantry watched as the horsemen walked before Robert Lee—he had excused the gunners, and asked the cavalry not to tire their horses in mock ch
arges.
One Texas foot soldier growled, "Wouldn't we clean them out, if old Hood would only let us!"1 And there were catcalls reminiscent of D. H. Hill's old joke: "Standing reward of five dollars for anyone who finds a dead man with spurs on!"
Robert Lee had teased the resplendent Stuart as they rode to the field, Jeb's horse with a wreath of flowers around his neck, the gift of women friends: "Take care, General, that is the way General Pope's horse was adorned when he went to the battle of Manassas."
When caps and hats blew off the heads of parading cavalrymen, Hood's men scuttled on the field and carried them off in triumph.
Gunner Neese ended the day sadly, for he rode a long-eared mule in a gun battery, and when Stuart's sharp eye caught the incongruous sight, Jeb sent an aide to remove Neese and the mule from the handsome column.
Robert Lee wrote his wife:
I reviewed the cavalry in this section.... It was a splendid sight. The men and horses looked well. They have recuperated since last fall. Stuart was in all his glory.
The enemy might have been a world away.2
Luther Hopkins, a boy trooper from Maryland, was relieved of picket duty on the river at three A.M., June ninth, and curled in his blanket a few yards from the ford. He had hardly closed his eyes when the watchman shouted, "Yankees! Great God, millions of em!
Horses splashed the ford as the camp scrambled to life. Pistol shots spurted up and down the river as pickets fell back, giving the alarm. The enemy was crossing in a dozen places, chiefly at Kelly's and Beverly's Fords.
Bluecoats came in sight, and the little picket company at Kelly's fired in an attempt to alert the main camp, a mile behind. A few men fell and the company ran.
As the pickets left the riverside woods, the first of the 6th Virginia came at a gallop among the trees; the 7th Virginia followed. The enemy slowed. "The roar of the guns in the woods at that early hour in the morning was terrific," Hopkins said. Fighting spread for three miles along the river.
George Neese was near the center of Stuart's camp, in the edge of a woods: "Just as we were rounding up the last sweet snooze for the night bullets from Yankee sharpshooters zipped across our blanket beds, and then such a getting up of horse artillerymen I never saw before. Blankets were fluttering and being rolled up in double quick time in every direction, and in less than twenty minutes we were ready to man our guns."
A half-dressed South Carolina gun crew pulled a cannon by hand to fire on the hidden sharpshooters. This halted the enemy for a few minutes and Neese thought: "If it had not been for that precious little check some of us would be on the weary road to some of Uncle Sam's elegant hotels specially devised for the royal entertainment of Southern rebels."
But Stuart was saved by his old antagonist, Grumble Jones, who mounted barefoot, hatless and coatless and got his brigade first into action. Colonel Elijah White of the 35th Battalion, with whom Jeb had squabbled in Maryland, was early in the thick of it.
Neese's gun battery joined Major Beckham's emplacement on a grassy swell in the open, but at first could not fire, since the field "was covered with a mingled mass, fighting and struggling with pistol and saber like maddened savages."
General Jones passed the cannoneers, and yelled to Captain Chew, "I'm not in command today, but do you see that gap in the woods yonder? I think the Yankees are bringing a battery in there. If they do, give 'em hell."
Canister cut down hundreds of Federals at point-blank range, but the blue tide was not to be stemmed so quickly. It lapped into the artillery camp and sent teams flying to the rear. A wagon of headquarters papers tipped over, and Federals picked up Major Beckham's official files. The battle spread.
Stuart had slept with everything packed except two tent flies, for General Lee had ordered him to cross the Rappahannock today to cover a northward movement of the infantry. He was very near the house called Fleetwood, on a hill with a long view to the river. When he woke to the sound of fighting, Stuart put his staff to work and waited impatiently for word from the front. Jones reported that the enemy, though in great force, seemed to be beaten off for the time at Beverly's Ford, and that he had taken position at Saint James Church. Stuart sent most of Wade Hampton's men to the scene.
The new Federal cavalry commander, Alfred Pleasanton, had thrown most of four divisions over the river in two columns, each supported by infantry. The quiet in Jones's front seemed to threaten danger from the other column, perhaps an attack in flank and rear. Jeb sent one of Hampton's regiments rearward and hurried the headquarters wagons away; there remained on Fleetwood Hill only couriers and his new adjutant, Major H. B. McClellan. Stuart went to the front at Saint James Church. Two subordinates had arguments with Jeb this morning. Von Borcke urged waiting for the enemy on Fleetwood Heights with both guns and horsemen. Stuart wanted to attack immediately and have done with it.
And General Jones, who saw bluecoats flanking the position from Culpeper, sent a courier to Jeb with a warning.
"Tell General Jones to tend to the Yankees in his front and I'll watch the flanks," Stuart said.
When Jones got this reply he snapped, "So he thinks they ain't coming, does he? Well, let him alone. He'll damned soon see for himself."
Captain Frank Myers, riding with Jones, said, "And he did see, for about 1 o'clock the flanking force appeared exactly in rear of Stuart's headquarters."3
Major McClellan also discovered the Federal flank attack boring in from Kelly's Ford. He scoffed at a scout's first report, thinking that General Beverly Robertson would have stopped any advance in that quarter. He sent the courier for a closer look, and the man returned at a gallop. "In five minutes, Major, you can see for yourself!"
McClellan saw a blue column already near the railroad station at Brandy. Within a few minutes the enemy would occupy Fleetwood Heights, the key to the landscape. McClellan called up a gun which had only a few defective shells and some round shot in its chests; it fired a few rounds at the enemy. McClellan also sent couriers for Stuart—all the couriers. The Federals hesitated, puzzled at sight of the lone officer and a single gun on the heights, then pulled up guns and began shelling the hill.
A North Carolina officer found Stuart incredulous. Jeb turned to James Hart of the artillery: "Ride back there, Captain, and see what all this foolishness is about."
Jeb heard the cannon in his rear before Hart was out of sight . and sent the nearest regiment racing for the heights. The leading riders got there as the gun was firing its last shell, and blue troopers were coming in fifty yards below.
Jeb sent William Blackford down the front: "Order every regimental officer to get to Fleetwood at the gallop." The engineer passed the order and went rearward as thousands of riders wheeled: "It was a thrilling sight to see these dashing horsemen draw their sabers and start for the hill a mile and a half in rear at a gallop. The lines met on the hill. It was like what we read of in the days of chivalry, acres and acres of horsemen sparkling with sabers . . . flags above them, hurled against each other at full speed and meeting with a shock that made the earth tremble."
Colonel Calbraith Butler, leading the Carolinians, was knocked from his horse by a shell; his leg was gone. The same shell struck young Captain Farley. Both went to the rear in an ambulance.
Stuart watched anxiously as the enemy were driven back. "Blackford, watch with your glasses and tell me if you see infantry coming." The captain soon saw marching Federals in the distance, and Stuart sent him the six dusty miles to Longstreet. Within an hour gray infantry was in sight. General Lee was with them, but this was the cavalry's day, and both blue and gray foot soldiers waited, watching.
Luther Hopkins, who had seen the start of this inferno, looked in surprise: "I did not suppose that General Lee was within thirty miles of us. Toward sunset I saw him come riding across the fields on Traveller, accompanied by his staff. He seemed as calm and unconcerned as if he were inspecting the land with the view of a purchase."
But Lee had been shaken. He met soldiers carrying back h
is son Rooney, who had a serious wound. There were casualties everywhere in the cauldron on Fleetwood Hill.
Batteries and cavalry regiments fought for life in clouds of dust.
The decisive charge was made by some of Hampton's men, chiefly the 1 st North Carolina. Major Hart of the artillery watched:
"The whole plateau east of the hill and beyond the railroad was covered with Federal cavalry. Hampton, diverging toward his left, passed the eastern terminus of the ridge, and, crossing the railroad, struck the enemy in column just beyond it. This charge was as gallantly made and gallantly met as any... ever witnessed. Taking into consideration the number of men (being nearly a brigade on each side) it was by far the most important hand-to-hand contest between the cavalry of the two armies. As the blue and gray riders mixed in the smoke and dust of that eventful charge, minutes seemed to elapse. ... At last the mixed and disorganized mass began to recede, and we saw that the field was won to the Confederates."4
At almost the same moment the Cobb Georgia Legion and the 1 st South Carolina had struck the enemy, Colonel P. M. B. Young leading the men over Fleetwood Heights. Young's men used only sabers: "I swept the hill clear of the enemy, he being scattered and entirely routed. I do claim that this was the turning point of the day in this portion of the field."
Even in darkness the defiant Federal guns did not cease until they were ridden down and crews had been killed with pistols. Sponge staffs knocked many riders from their saddles. The enemy at last left the field.
Stuart's scout, Farley, left memories with the staff. Soldiers sent by Colonel Butler to help the young man carried him off in "an old flat trough." Farley was in great pain, but kept smiling.
