Jeb Stuart, The Last Cavalier

by Burke Davis

  He went back with shells bursting about the speeding, plunging ambulance. When he could bear it no longer, von Borcke forced himself erect and put his pistol at the frightened driver's head. "You will slow down, shells or no, or I will kill you. Stop!" They moved at a more comfortable pace until they reached Dr. Talcott Eliason of the staff.

  A bullet had cut part of the windpipe and lodged in a lung. Eliason's face was grave.

  "I can't expect you to live till morning. I will attend to your last wishes."

  Von Borcke did not flinch; he wrote some orders for ordnance wagons to move up to the front, and went then to Eliason's house, where he was put to bed in the parlor and given opium. Members of the staff who came in after the fight disturbed him only slightly; he could hear them:

  "Is he alive yet?"

  "Yes, but he won't live over night."

  When Stuart bent over him, von Borcke felt two tears drop on his face. "Poor Von," Stuart said, "you took this wound for me."

  The German slept all night and awoke refreshed. Eliason was amazed.

  There was heavy cannon fire all day, for Stuart was being pushed nearer Upperville and the fight roared on after dark.

  Stuart came to the Eliason home to see von Borcke: "I may be forced back past Upperville tomorrow. I'll send an ambulance for you if it comes to that."

  The German could hardly be kept in bed the next day, for stragglers ran through town, firing increased, wounded men passed, and no word came from Stuart. Von Borcke kept a courier running to and from the street. Scheibert came the long distance from Longstreet's headquarters with an ambulance, offering to take him off, but von Borcke would not leave without word from Jeb, and they waited until a cavalryman ran in with a message: Stuart had waited until the last moment, hoping to save von Borcke a move, but he must now leave at once.

  The ambulance got away under fire once more, with enemy riders in the street, and von Borcke was taken two miles to a plantation house and hidden in an upper room. Yankees searched the house, but did not find him, though he waited with a cocked pistol and saber on his bed. They stayed for half an hour, and he heard them:

  "We've searched every house in Upperville. There's some big Rebel officer wounded. We think it may be Stuart. They saw him fall. He must have been buried before they ran."

  Stuart, Wade Hampton and Robertson visited von Borcke the next day, June twenty-first; he had recovered his voice a bit, and could croak to them. He told them goodbye with a long face. He ate a little food that day, and sat on the porch.

  Jeb had fought against odds and bold, confident, well-led columns. He had fallen back some six miles, but still screened the valley behind him, halting Pleasanton at the gaps. Blackford noted that the improvement of enemy cavalry was enormous, mainly in the heavy fire from long-range carbines, and horse artillery that was a match for Stuart's own. These cavalrymen fought as if they had been taken from infantry regiments, for they knew how to fight with horses left behind.

  June twenty-first found the vast theater of Northern Virginia ready for a new act: Lee's infantry thronged in the Shenandoah Valley from Winchester to the Potomac. East of the Blue Ridge and the little Bull Run Mountains, Hooker moved slowly, waiting to see where Lee led. Stuart still held the mountain ridges between the two armies.

  On this day, with one of his units camped on the old battlefield at Sharpsburg, Maryland, Dick Ewell notified General Lee he was ready to move north. He was ordered to march on, though Lee had not chosen his final goal: "Your progress and direction will, of course, depend upon the development of circumstances. If Harris-burg comes within your means, capture it."

  Ewell's men hurried, and Longstreet's corps crossed the Potomac behind them, embarrassing some Maryland women as they splashed from the deep ford, carrying their trousers overhead.

  On the flank, hourly farther in rear of the infantry, Stuart watched. He had an explanation for Major McClellan on the fighting at the mountain passes, where he had watched, but left actual control to regimental and brigade commanders. McClellan asked why he had done that.

  "I gave them all the instructions they needed, and I wanted them to feel responsibility come down on them. Then they could have whatever honor there was on the field."

  For the three days of hard fighting he had paid with 510 casualties, 65 of them dead; the Federal loss was over 800.

  On the morning of June twenty-second pickets came to Jeb with news that the enemy had left Upperville. Stuart advanced and camped at Rectortown. He puzzled over the disappearance of the bluecoats, who had evidently left him free to move.

  There was an order from Robert Lee to Stuart in the afternoon, enclosed in a dispatch packet from Longstreet:

  I judge the efforts of the enemy yesterday were to arrest our progress and ascertain our whereabouts. Perhaps he is satisfied. Do you know where he is and what he is doing? I fear he will steal a march on us and get across the Potomac before we are aware. If you find that he is moving northward and that two brigades can guard the Blue Ridge and take care of your rear, you can move with the other three into Maryland and take position on General Ewell’s right, place yourself in communication with him, guard his flank, keep him informed of the enemy's movements and collect all the supplies you can....

  But by the time Stuart read this, Ewell's advance was marching on Greencastle, Pennsylvania, far to the north. And Jeb did not yet know what Hooker was doing, down the slopes eastward, in Loudoun and Fauquier Counties.

  John Mosby returned to tell him.

  CHAPTER 17

  Gettysburg

  MOSBY had been to the very center of the Federal camps, prowling a rainy night in an oilcloth coat; he came away with two prisoners and a plan of campaign, which he put persuasively before Stuart:

  "Cut between the wings of Hooker's army by crossing the Bull Run Mountains and fording the Potomac at Seneca. The enemy are not moving—Hooker is still afraid Lee will strike him on the railroad, somewhere near Bull Run. It will be easy to flank them in one day, beating up wagons on the way. They will send their cavalry after you, which is what you want."

  Mosby's final word impressed Stuart: "The best way to protect Lee's communications is to assail Hooker's."

  Stuart agreed. He had talked over such a plan with General Lee, arguing that he could create a panic in Washington by taking the cavalry off, and could quickly rejoin the army in case of need.

  Then, on June twenty-second, having read with care Lee's letter of instructions, Jeb turned to the notes from Longstreet which accompanied it.

  Longstreet had written Lee:

  Yours of 4 o'clock this afternoon is received. I have forwarded your letter to General Stuart with the suggestion that he pass by the enemy's rear if he thinks that he might get through.

  There was also Longstreet's explanation to Stuart:

  General Lee has enclosed to me this letter for you, to be forwarded to you provided you can be spared from my front, and provided I think you can cross the Potomac without dis- closing our plans. He speaks of your leaving via Hopewell Gap

  in the Bull Run Mountains and passing by the rear of the enemy. If you can get through by that route I think you will be less likely to indicate what our plans are than if you should cross by passing to our rear. Please advise me of the condition

  of affairs before you leave

  N. B. I think that your passage of the Potomac by our rear at the present moment will in a measure disclose our plans. You had better not leave us, therefore, unless you can take the proposed route in rear of the enemy.

  Thus Stuart had orders to hurry northward and join Ewell, though both Lee's and Hooker's armies now lay between them, and equally positive orders to pass around the enemy rear and cross the Potomac. He had, in addition, Longstreet's approval of the rearward march. This course would place the Federal army between Lee's infantry and his cavalry, but in the evening of June twenty-second, in the camps in the mountains, this was not yet evident.

  Jeb wrote Flora during the da
y, and inserted a rather ruthless scolding, an effort to stop her anxious queries to headquarters when Stuart's letters were delayed:

  Don't be telegraphing General Lee's Staff or anybody else. If I am hurt you will hear of it very soon.

  There was a day's wait for the cavalry, for scouts confirmed reports that roads on the eastern slopes were full of enemy wagons, and that this, the most direct route to the river, was blocked. Night of June twenty-third brought a severe rainstorm. Stuart's troopers were scattered about Rectortown, where there was an old house at a crossroads. At bedtime Stuart went from the building into the drenching rain, unwrapped the oilcloth from his blanket and lay under a tree. Major McClellan tried to persuade him to use the house.

  "No. The men must stay out in it, and I won't fare any better than they. You stay there on the porch, where you can take any dispatches that come in. You can strike a light better there."

  McClellan was soon aroused. A courier handed him a note which, he saw in candlelight, was marked "Confidential." The adjutant turned it thoughtfully, and, eying the sleeping Stuart, violated orders by opening the dispatch. He later wrote:

  "It was a lengthy communication from General Lee, containing the directions upon which Stuart was to act."

  He took it to Stuart at once, with his candle, and read it to him under the dripping tree.

  Near the end he read:

  If General Hooker's army remains inactive, you can leave two brigades to watch him, and withdraw with the three others, but should he not appear to be moving northward, I think you had better withdraw this side of the mountains tomorrow night, cross at Shepherdstown next day, and move over to Frederickstown.

  You will, however, be able to judge whether you can pass around their army without hindrance, doing them all the damage you can, and cross the river east of the mountains. In either case, after crossing the river, you must move on and feel the right of Ewell's troops.1

  Stuart gave McClellan "a mild reproof" for having opened the document, told him to keep it for the night, and fell asleep. He gave no sign that he did not fully understand and appreciate the perplexing orders which were to become the most controversial of his career.

  The morning was busy. Stuart left Grumble Jones and Robertson behind, because, he said, Jones was "the best outpost officer" in his command; these two brigades had more than 3,000 troopers. They were ordered to guard the passes and to follow Lee's army and join it when it had moved North.

  Jeb would take Colonel Chambliss with Rooney Lee's men, Wade Hampton and Fitz Lee—who was just now back after a month of painful rheumatic attacks.

  The day was spent in moving the three brigades to a rendezvous at the village of Salem, a little southwest. It was after midnight, June twenty-fifth, when they rode eastward toward the Army of The Potomac, about 2,000 strong. They were over the Bull Run Mountains by daylight. But at Haymarket, not far from the old Manassas battlefield, Stuart found a corps of blue infantry and went into a detour, camping for the night at Buckland.

  Stuart sent a note to Lee, advising him that Hancock's corps was moving north. But he sought no advice on the all-important detour of June twenty-sixth, which changed his direction. He did not so much as consult his brigadiers as he swung the column southward to pass around the enemy. He crossed the Occoquan at Wolf Run Shoals, and was now east of Hooker, with the whole enemy army between him and Lee.

  He turned north to Fairfax Court House, sweeping up a few prisoners as Hampton clashed with a small enemy party. The pace was slow.2

  The country had been stripped bare, and they had to halt three or four times daily to forage and graze horses. It had taken forty-eight hours to march thirty-five miles. In the evening of June twenty-seventh the hungry men halted several hours more, robbing the stores at Fairfax, and it was late when Stuart got them through Dranesville toward the Potomac.

  Campfires of the enemy were still warm here, so that the better fords near Leesburg were probably guarded. Stuart sent Wade Hampton's vanguard toward a little-known crossing, Rowser's Ford. The men started over early on June twenty-eighth. Stuart now knew nothing of General Lee's position.

  He had learned that Hooker was marching on Frederick, Maryland, but had no way to know that Ewell was seventy miles or more north of the river, at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and that Early was camped at Gettysburg. Jeb sent a courier westward to find General Lee and report on the Federal position; the message was not destined to be delivered.

  Stuart now had his hands full at the river. Not long after midnight Hampton's men were across, but the river was so wide and deep that Jeb doubted his guns and ambulances could pass over it. He called for volunteers for special duty, and the first man before him was Captain R. B. Kennon, a special courier. Stuart sent him across the river nearby to see if there were an easier way for the rest of the column. Kennon rode his thoroughbred, Big Indian. He never forgot the night:

  "The Potomac was about a mile wide, the water deep and the current strong. The horse swam magnificently. When he tired I would get off on a boulder, holding the bridle to let him rest. I reached the Maryland side. The night was calm, but no moon. Some rest for the horse was indispensable. However, as soon as the breathing of Big Indian came back to normal I sprang to the saddle and we took the plunge to return."

  When he reached the Virginia shore a man stepped from the bushes. Kennon recognized Stuart only when Jeb took the bridle.

  "Thank God," Stuart said. "I never expected to see you again."

  "Where did you come from, General?"

  "I've been here all the time. Can we make it?"

  "No." Kennon described the treacherous bottom, the depths and boulders. "It's no better than Rowser's Ford."

  Stuart felt the neck of the heaving horse. "What will you do? You've ruined your fine horse."

  Kennon said he would ride his servant's mount.

  Stuart spoke quickly: "Kennon, I'll take Rowser's Ford. You get what rest you can, and follow when you wake up, if you're able. You can catch us, even if we're over. I'll promote you major for this."

  He was gone. Kennon fell asleep, watched over by his slave, who waked him at daybreak and gave him coffee brewed from charred corn meal. The last troopers were just emerging from the river on the far shore.8

  The end of the crossing had been almost frantic. Gun carriages, caissons and limbers went under the current and damaged powder and shells. Men carried powder bags over in their hands on horses scarcely able to negotiate the crossing. By three thirty A.M. the bulk of the force was in Maryland.

  "No more difficult achievement was accomplished by the cavalry during the war," McClellan thought.

  The weary command rested on the northern bank. The vanguard caught a few sleepy Federal canal guards and broke the banks of the canal, draining it into the river. But the horses needed rest, especially those of the artillery, and the sun was high before the

  FATEFUL LINES OF MARCH TO GETTYSBURG

  June 25-July 2 1863

  column moved toward Rockville. They reached this town about noon; it was only fifteen or so miles from Washington.

  There were delays, but they seemed unavoidable. Hampton's troopers took a wagon train coming from Washington. Union soldiers in the rear fled until a wagon overturned, and others piled on it in a melee of frantic mules kicking long legs amid bags of grain. There was a chase of several miles.

  Stuart took 125 wagons without a thought that they might burden him, and his famished horses fed for hours from the oats of the captured train. Troopers loaded bags of grain across their saddles. There was another precious commodity aboard—bottled whisky.

  The men were beset by scores of pretty girls from the seminary in Rockville, who waved Confederate music and flags from windows and gathered in the streets, taking souvenirs from every soldier they could reach, snipping off many uniform buttons.

  Most of the day was spent in Rockville, for Stuart had some 400 prisoners, and paroled them with meticulous regard for the code of war. Officers were st
ill working on parole papers as the column moved, and spent ten or twelve hours on them in the villages of Brookeville and Cooksville. It was time wasted in the end, for the Federal government refused to honor the paroles and the freed men went back into the fighting ranks.

  As Stuart waited near Rockville on the twenty-eighth, Harrison, the scout, returned to the main army and reported to Longstreet at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania: The Army of The Potomac had crossed the river and was around Frederick, with Meade now commanding in place of Hooker. With the enemy almost upon him, Robert Lee learned for the first time that the Federals were north of the border. Not only had he heard nothing from Stuart; he did not know where the cavalry corps was even now. He called Ewell back from the North, just as he was moving toward Harrisburg, and began to concentrate his infantry in the hills west of Gettysburg.

  After daylight of June twenty-ninth Fitz Lee's men began tearing up tracks of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, after a night march of twenty miles. They added a few more prisoners, burned a bridge, and tried to capture a train, but those which puffed along the tracks were wary, saw the raiders far ahead, and backed to safety.

  After a few hours on the railroad Stuart led them to Westminster, a country town in central Maryland where they drove out two companies of Delaware cavalry as stubborn as any bluecoats they had met; the enemy fell back only after losing 67 of his 95 troopers. Two of the 4th Virginia's most promising young lieutenants were killed in the Westminster streets, Pierre Gibson and John Murray, and when women of the town begged to be allowed to bury the bodies, Jeb agreed.