by Burke Davis
The 500 had reached the James without incident, but when Dahlgren tried to cross the river with the aid of a freed Negro, he ran into trouble. The spot to which the Negro took him was high and unfordable, and there were no boats. Dahlgren, in a nasty temper, hanged his guide and tried to approach Richmond on the north bank of the James.
Dahlgren ran into the outskirts of Richmond as the light began to fail, and was stung by infantrymen at every turn. He went northward, crossing a network of roads, but there was no escaping the Rebels. The column had broken in two, and 200 of them, at Dahlgren's heels, were off somewhere in the darkness.
By now, as Kilpatrick must have suspected, the cavalry regulars of the Army of Northern Virginia were on his trail. Stuart was too far away to reach him, but Wade Hampton, leading 306 men of the ist North Carolina, crept upon Kilpatrick's camp at Atlee's Station in the night while a snowstorm raged, ran up his artillery to close range, and blew the camp apart. Kilpatrick went into retreat, losing 87 men as prisoners, 13 3 horses, and much equipment. Hampton's men hung on Kilpatrick's rear the next day, until he retreated to Williamsburg. Nor was that all.
The Rebel advance drove Dahlgren and his little band off the main highways, as he made his way toward Gloucester Point. He crossed the Pamunkey and Mattaponi Rivers, and was seen by cavalrymen who were recruiting in the area. They laid a trap for him.
On the bitter night of March third Dahlgren ran into an ambush near King and Queen Court house, laid for him by Lieutenant James Pollard of the 9th Virginia with a few regulars and some of the Home Guard—about 150 men in all.
Dahlgren's half-frozen troops were almost in the midst of the Rebels before they were aware of danger. Dahlgren was one of the first to fall, shouting, "Disperse, you damned Rebels!" The Confederates stripped his body, taking the wooden leg as a souvenir and robbing his hand of a ring. The command surrendered, finding its escape impossible. Pollard took 135 troopers and 40 Negroes prisoner.
Soldiers found orders on Dahlgren's body, and reported them to Richmond. As Pollard's messenger made his way toward the capital he met some officers of the 9th Virginia, who listened eagerly to his news of the ambush and examined the papers found on Dahlgren's body. Colonel R. L. T. Beale remembered inspecting them:
"Nearly every paper had been copied in a memorandum book; they consisted of an address to the command, the order of attack ... upon the city of Richmond, enjoining the release of the prisoners, the killing of the executive officers of the Confederate Government, the burning and gutting of the city, directions where to apply for the materials necessary to setting fire to the city, and an accurate copy of the last field return of our cavalry made to General Stuart, with the location of every regiment."
Beale forwarded all papers to Richmond except the memorandum book, and when publication of the papers brought a furor of Confederate protest, Beale was interrogated by officers and asked to produce the book. General Lee wrote General Meade, asking if this type of warfare had his approval, and a denial was issued from Washington.
The raid ended in failure, but it had thoroughly aroused the capital and given it a new sense of insecurity. As Captain Myers of the cavalry wrote:
"The Yankee nation is indelibly disgraced by the objects of the expedition, and Stuart's laurels wilted by his failure to annihilate the whole party."9
Spring came on imperceptibly. Longstreet returned to the army from the west. The Yankees got a new commander in March, a stranger: U. S. Grant, who had been winning victories in the Western theater. He installed a new cavalry commander, Philip Sheridan.
Stuart wrote frequently to Flora, urging cheerfulness upon her, for her own letters were full of her fears. He once wrote that she must be gay at all costs. For one thing, she must never wear black, no matter whose death came next. He added:
There is an old lady here, who danced a jig with my great uncle at my mother's wedding. She wears a turban and is an elegant old lady. Major Venable remarked the other day that she is never so happy as when she is miserable. It reminds me of my darling, when she will insist on looking on the dark side in preference to the bright. . . . Have you heard the words of When This Cruel War Is Over?
He gave her brief glimpses of his camp life:
I think I will make Cooke write my reports when he comes back, I am so behind on them. I have brigade reviews every day .. . every General and Colonel in the infantry appears to have his wife along.
There were now about 8,000 cavalrymen on the rolls, a miracle in itself. But Stuart was not satisfied. He sent a remarkable dispatch of instruction to General J. R. Chambliss:
April 4th, 1864 (Confidential)
General: I wish you to bear in mind a few considerations ... as the commander of the outposts on the lower Rappahannock.
Keep out scouts who will be competent. . . . Endeavor to secure accurate information and telegraph it clearly, avoiding the possibility of ambiguity for which telegrams are noted. It is very important to state time and place of enemy's movement. ... Bear in mind that your telegrams may make the whole army strike tents, and night or day, rain or shine, take up the line of march; endeavor, therefore, to secure accurate information... ·
Do not let a feigned movement deceive you...
Above all, Vigilance, VIGILANCE! VIGILANCE!10
CHAPTER 19
In The Wilderness
B. L. WYNN, a Mississippi sergeant, was in command of the Clark's Mountain signal post on the night of May third. He was asleep when one of his men shook him awake near midnight. "Look. Yanks moving."
It was true. Through his telescope Wynn saw dark forms slipping by against the distant campfires of the enemy, thousands of them, in regular order. Wynn flashed a message rearward toward the headquarters of General Lee. There was a quick reply:
See if they are going toward Germanna Ford or Liberty Mills.
Wynn could not make out the direction of the Federal advance in the darkness. The signal flares flashed through the night. At daybreak Wynn saw that the blue columns had turned downriver, and that the attack would be launched through The Wilderness. General Grant would be pushing across at Germanna Ford. It was quite a sight Wynn beheld: Miles of men and vehicles, an army of almost 103,000, with 50,000 horses and 4,000 wagons. General Lee waited south of the river with little more than half that force.1
Lee sent the infantry of Ewell and A. P. Hill into The Wilderness to meet the threat, down parallel roads through the overgrown hilly and gullied terrain. Stuart went at once to his picket line on the river, carrying only one courier with him. His staff had orders to break up the comfortable camp at Orange Court House.
The gunner George Neese, in the Horse Artillery, wrote in his diary:
May 4—I heard today that the Yankee army is crossing the Rapidan in great force, and that General Lee is on the march to meet it. If that is true, we will soon be in the middle of some bloody work. This evening at sunset we broke camp and are now marching to the front. Farewell, my peaceful cabin.
Stuart and his staff slept that night behind the pickets. The troopers were moving behind them, going to the right wing of the army.
Early on May fifth General Lee sent for Stuart to guide the infantry, and Jeb trotted along the Plank Road with A. P. Hill's corps until they met the enemy. General Lee came up about noon, when heavy firing broke out, and with Stuart, Ewell and Hill studied the situation. The Confederate infantry lay on either side of the Plank Road and confused fighting raged everywhere in the scrub. Ewell's men broke and streamed in panic down the road; John Gordon's men restored the line. The bloody fighting went on through the day.
The cavalry saw less of it than their commander. Private Hopkins wrote:
"It was mostly in heavy timber and thick undergrowth. The first day we did not see the enemy, but we knew he was there, for the woods were ringing with the sound of his guns, and bullets were hissing about our ears. We knew somewhere in front of us was the enemy, and it was our mission to find him. Suddenly we heard two shots: pop-pop. W
e all knew what that meant. The armies of Lee and Grant had met, and as far as I know, these were the first two shots fired in the battle of The Wilderness We took the hint and
halted. The regiment was dismounted and the led horses were taken back."
Gunner Neese had marched all night and was so sleepy that he dozed, almost falling from his horse. He was evidently near Stuart in the late morning, for he said:
"Today about 11 o'clock we sighted the first new goods of the season in the way of live bluecoats.... They opened fire with their artillery and fired on our cavalry at first sight and right away... and were trying to do some ugly work from the start. We put two of our rifled guns in position and replied. . . . Undoubtedly the Yankee batteries did the best and most accurate firing today that I have seen or been exposed to . . . their shrapnel shot exploded all around and over us, and the everlasting ping and thud of shells, balls and frag- ments filled the air with horrid screams for an hour "
Neese's battery fought in a field of dry broom sedge about two feet high, and the gunner was incensed as the "cowardly Yanks" set the field on fire.
Thomas Rosser's men had a sharp cavalry engagement with General Wilson far on the right, at Todd's Tavern.
The second day's onslaught by Grant was almost too much, for bluecoat charges drove the veteran Rebel infantry so hard that the men fled unashamed past General Lee, and the front was restored only by the timely arrival of Longstreet—and by Lee dashing toward the enemy himself, to be halted only by the frantic appeals of his troops. The armies grappled all day, and suffered fearful casualties. General Longstreet was badly wounded. The cavalry's share of it was a serious brush on the flank. Stuart still had found no opportunity to test the strength of the new Federal cavalry corps.
No one reported the day's passage more graphically than Stuart's gunner Neese, who fought on the flank with the Horse Artillery:
"The fierce, sharp roar of deadly musketry filled our ears from morning to night, and a thick white cloud of battle smoke hung pall-like over the fields
The smoke was so thick and dense sometimes during the day that it was impossible to discern anything 50 paces away, and at midday the smoke was so thick overhead that I could just make out to see the sun, and it looked like a vast ball of red fire. ... The country all along the lines, which is mostly timber land, was set on fire early by the explosion of shell and heavy musketry; a thousand fires blazed and crackled The hissing flames, the sharp roar of musketry, the bellowing of the artillery mingled with the yelling... the wailing moans of the wounded... all loudly acclaimed the savagery of our boasted civilization and the enlightened barbarism of the nineteenth century. Even the midday sun refused to look with anything but a faint red glimmer on the tragical scene being enacted in the tangled underbrush where the lords of creation were struggling and slaughtering each other like wild beasts in a jungle."
Late in the night, when the battle had died out, Neese watched the fires in the forest:
"The night is dark, and the woods around us are all on fire; all the dead trees scattered through the woods are ablaze from bottom to top, and the fire has crept out on every branch, glowingly painting a fiery weird scene on the curtain of night."
Daylight of May seventh brought calm; General Lee suspected Grant of a new maneuver, and he began to swing southward to Spotsylvania Court House, where he assumed Grant must strike next. By nightfall it was plain that Grant was moving; Lee's infantry was already on its way to intercept him.
In the meantime, Fitz Lee, with his division dismounted, was thrown in the Federal path. The troopers took terrible punishment, but were driven off only after daylight of May 8.
This morning found Stuart hastening toward Spotsylvania. Gunner Neese had a close look at him.
"Our orders to leave bivouac and hasten to the front this morning at daylight were urgent and pressing, and we had no time to prepare or eat any breakfast, which greatly ruffled some of our drivers. When we neared the enemy's line we awaited orders, and one of our drivers was still going through the baby act about something to eat and having no breakfast.
"Just then General Stuart and staff came along, rather on the reconnaissance order, and halted a moment in the road right where we were, and heard the gallant grumbling and childish murmuring of our hungry man."
But Jeb did not react as Neese expected. Stuart fished into his own haversack, pulled out two biscuits, handed them to the complaining driver, and trotted off under the stares of his astonished artillerymen.
Private Hopkins, going rearward with the Horse Artillery, was one of the first to see the working of Lee's strategy in withdrawing to Spotsylvania:
"When we fell slowly back, we looked behind us and saw a gorgeous sight. It was Grant's line of battle moving forward as if on dress parade, their brass buttons and steel guns with fixed bayonets glistening in the sun, their banners floating in the breeze. The first thought among the soldiers was, 'Has Grant stolen a march on Lee? Is Richmond doomed?' It certainly looked so, but we kept on falling back.
"As we entered the woods we suddenly came upon Lee's infantry lying down in line of battle, waiting the enemy's advance. As we approached them, word was passed up and down the line not to cheer the infantry. This was the custom in the face of a battle, when the cavalry, retiring from the front, gave way to the infantry.
"They opened their ranks and let us pass through, and we formed in line some distance behind them. The infantry was entirely concealed from the enemy's view, and up to this time I am quite sure Grant did not know that he was facing Lee's army at Spotsylvania Courthouse. He was soon to be undeceived in a manner most tragic."
U. S. Grant rode through The Wilderness in the night of May seventh with yellow storms of fire in the thickets around him. He left 18,000 casualties uncounted behind him, determined to hammer past Lee to Richmond. He knew only: "Our losses in The Wilderness were very severe."
He was accompanied only by a small cavalry escort. Federal infantry cheered madly at sight of him. Grant supposed that this was because the path led south, at last, and there was hope that the worst of the rebellion was over. He remembered the yells above all else:
"The cheering was so lusty that the enemy must have taken it for a night attack. At all events it drew from him a furious fusillade of artillery and musketry."
Grant rode the strange roadways, until he reached a fork and took the right, where scouts imagined they saw the tracks of Sheridan's cavalry. A picket came back with the tale that he had heard Rebels marching. Grant retraced his steps, and shortly after midnight was at Todd's Tavern.
His vanguard was pushing down the Po River, a slight but deep stream with high, overgrown banks which snaked down out of The Wilderness. Beyond it lay the village of Spotsylvania, the prize for which the armies raced.
It was not an imposing place: Three houses, a small church and a scattering of outbuildings sat on a level plain, surrounded by low hills. The land was barren and wild, chiefly covered in scrub oak, not more than fifteen feet high, but thickly tangled so that men could hardly push through it. There were rare clearings, occupied by mean houses.2
Confederates had begun to arrive in large numbers soon after Luther Hopkins and the artillery rode through the hidden infantry. Another gunner, Willie Dame, who went in with the crack Richmond Howitzers, recorded a hard night march, undertaken without sleep. The next day brought worse:
"The morning of May 8 broke, foggy and lowering, and found us still moving swiftly along . . . our battery seemed all alone on a quiet country road. The birds were singing around us, and it seemed to us, so sweet! Everybody was impressed by the music of those birds. The note of a bird was a sound we rarely heard.
"By and by the sun came out and began to make it hot for us. At last, just about 12 o'clock, our road wound down to a stream ... and then we went up a very long hill, a bank, surmounted by a rail fence on the left side of the road, and the woods on the other.
"Just as we got to the top (our battery happened just
then to be ahead of all the troops. ... a farm gate opened into a field, and there, covering that field, was the whole of Fitz Lee's division of Stuart's cavalry. These heroic fellows had for two days been fighting Warren's corps of Federal infantry, which General Grant had sent down to seize this very line on which we had now arrived. They had fought dismounted, from hill to hill, fence to fence, from tree to tree, and so obstinate was their resistance and so skillful the dispositions of the matchless Stuart, that some 30,000 men had been forced to take about twenty-six hours to get seven or eight miles, by about 4,500 cavalry This was a 'white day' for the cavalry."3
Stuart had spent most of the day as an infantry officer, herding Anderson's men toward Spotsylvania while Fitz Lee's weary troopers went back stubbornly, in lines so tight that only the full pressure of the oncoming Yankee columns pushed them across a road junction near Spotsylvania. Casualties were heavy, but when the dismounted troopers came within sight of the courthouse they saw the reassuring lines of Anderson's graybacks behind them, already digging in. Lee's objective was safe.
Pelham's old battery checked the first Federal rush at the courthouse. The four guns were under command of Captain P. P. Johnston, and though James Breathed had been promoted major of the battalion, he fought at Johnston's side. They tore up charges of Union cavalrymen and made a spectacular defiance of the enemy.
The guns barked steadily until the blue skirmish line, seeing the battery without apparent support, charged it with a yell.
Breathed and Johnston kept the guns hot until the last moment, and only when Federals were shouting for them to surrender from three sides did Breathed order the guns to the rear. The driver of a team fell under the fire, and Breathed jumped into the saddle and took the piece from the field. He soon outdistanced the enemy.
