Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War Part 8

"He is one," was the reply, "who, if you order him to hold a post, will never leave it alive to be occupied by the enemy."

Harper's Ferry, the spot where the first collision might confidently be expected, was a charge after Jackson's own heart.

April 26.

"Last Sat.u.r.day," he writes to his wife, "the Governor handed me my commission as Colonel of Virginia Volunteers, the post I prefer above all others, and has given me an independent command. Little one, you must not expect to hear from me very often, as I expect to have more work than I ever had in the same length of time before; but don't be concerned about your husband, for our kind Heavenly Father will give every needful aid."

The garrison at Harper's Ferry consisted of a large number of independent companies of infantry, a few light companies, as they were called, of cavalry, and fifteen smooth-bore cannon of small calibre. This force numbered 4500 officers and men, of whom all but 400 were Virginians. Jackson's appearance was not hailed with acclamation. The officers of the State militia had hitherto exercised the functions of command over the ill-knit concourse of enthusiastic patriots. The militia, however, was hardly more than a force on paper, and the camps swarmed with generals and field-officers who were merely civilians in gaudy uniform. By order of the State Legislature these gentlemen were now deprived of their fine feathers.

Every militia officer above the rank of captain was deposed; and the Governor of Virginia was authorised to fill the vacancies. This measure was by no means popular. Both by officers and men it was denounced as an outrage on freemen and volunteers; and the companies met in convention for the purpose of pa.s.sing denunciatory resolutions.

Their new commander was a sorry subst.i.tute for the brilliant figures he had superseded. The militia generals had surrounded themselves with a numerous staff, and on fine afternoons, it was said, the official display in Harper's Ferry would have done no discredit to the Champs-Elysees. Jackson had but two a.s.sistants, who, like himself, still wore the plain blue uniform of the Military Inst.i.tute.

To eyes accustomed to the splendid trappings and prancing steeds of his predecessors there seemed an almost painful want of pomp and circ.u.mstance about the colonel of volunteers. There was not a particle of gold lace about him. He rode a horse as quiet as himself.

His seat in the saddle was ungraceful. His well-worn cadet cap was always tilted over his eyes; he was sparing of speech; his voice was very quiet, and he seldom smiled. He made no orations, he held no reviews, and his orders were remarkable for their brevity. Even with his officers he had little intercourse. He confided his plans to no one, and not a single item of information, useful or otherwise, escaped his lips.

Some members of the Maryland Legislature, a body whom it was important to conciliate, visited Harper's Ferry during his tenure of command. They were received with the utmost politeness, and in return plied the general with many questions. His answers were unsatisfactory, and at length one more bold than the rest asked him frankly how many men he had at his disposal. "Sir," was the reply, "I should be glad if President Lincoln thought I had fifty thousand."

Nor was this reticence observed only towards those whose discretion he mistrusted. He was silent on principle. In the campaign of 1814, the distribution of the French troops at a most critical moment was made known to the allies by the capture of a courier carrying a letter from Napoleon to the Empress. There was little chance of a letter to Mrs. Jackson, who was now in North Carolina, falling into the hands of the Federals; but even in so small a matter Jackson was consistent.

"You say," he wrote, "that your husband never writes you any news. I suppose you mean military news, for I have written you a great deal about your sposo and how much he loves you. What do you want with military news? Don't you know that it is unmilitary and unlike an officer to write news respecting one's post? You couldn't wish your husband to do an unofficer-like thing, could you?"

And then, the claims of duty being thus clearly defined, he proceeds to describe the roses which climbed round the window of his temporary quarters, adding, with that lover-like devotion which every letter betrays, "but my sweet little sunny face is what I want to see most of all."

Careful as he was to keep the enemy in the dark, he was exceedingly particular when he visited his distant posts on the Potomac that his presence should be un.o.bserved. Had it become known to the Federal generals that the commander at Harper's Ferry had reconnoitred a certain point of pa.s.sage, a clue might have been given to his designs. The Confederate officers, therefore, in charge of these posts, were told that Colonel Jackson did not wish them to recognise him. He rode out accompanied by a single staff officer, and the men were seldom aware that the brigadier had been through their camps.

Never was a commander who fell so far short of the popular idea of a dashing leader. This quiet gentleman, who came and went unnoticed, who had nothing to say, and was so anxious to avoid observation, was a type of soldier unfamiliar to the volunteers. He was duty personified and nothing more.

But at the same time the troops instinctively felt that this absence of ostentation meant hard work. They began to realise the magnitude of the obligations they had a.s.sumed. Soldiering was evidently something more than a series of brilliant spectacles and social gatherings. Here was a man in earnest, who looked upon war as a serious business, who was completely oblivious to what people said or thought; and his example was not without effect. The conventions came to nothing; and when the companies were organised in battalions, and some of the deposed officers were reappointed to command, the men went willingly to work. Their previous knowledge, even of drill, was of the scantiest. Officers and men had to begin as recruits, and Jackson was not the man to cut short essential preliminaries. Seven hours' drill daily was a heavy tax upon enthusiasm; but it was severely enforced, and the garrison of the frontier post soon learned the elements of manoeuvre. Discipline was a lesson more difficult than drill. The military code, in all its rigour, could not be at once applied to a body of high-spirited and inexperienced civilians.

Undue severity might have produced the very worst results. The observance, therefore, of those regulations which were not in themselves essential to efficiency or health was not insisted on.

Lapses in military etiquette were suffered to pa.s.s unnoticed; no attempt was made to draw a hard and fast line between officers and men; and many things which in a regular army would be considered grossly irregular were tacitly permitted. Jackson was well aware that volunteers of the type he commanded needed most delicate and tactful handling. The chief use of minute regulations and exacting routine is the creation of the instinct of obedience. Time was wanting to instil such instinct into the Confederate troops; and the intelligence and patriotism of the men, largely of high cla.s.s and good position, who filled the ranks, might be relied upon to prevent serious misconduct.

Had they been burdened with the constant acknowledgment of superior authority which becomes a second nature to the regular soldier, disgust and discontent might have taken the place of high spirit and good-will. But at the same time wilful misbehaviour was severely checked. Neglect of duty and insubordination were crimes which Jackson never forgave, and deliberate disobedience was in his eyes as unmanly an offence as cowardice. He knew when to be firm as well as when to relax, and it was not only in the administration of discipline that he showed his tact. He was the most patient of instructors. So long as those under him were trying to do their best, no one could have been kinder or more forbearing; and he constantly urged his officers to come to his tent when they required explanation as to the details of their duty.

Besides discipline and instruction, Jackson had the entire administration of his command upon his hands. Ammunition was exceedingly scarce, and he had to provide for the manufacture of ball-cartridges. Transport there was none, but the great waggons of the Valley farmers supplied the deficiency. The equipment of the artillery left much to be desired, and ammunition carts (or caissons) were constructed by fixing roughly made chests on the running gear of waggons. The supply and medical services were non-existent, and everything had to be organised de novo. Thus the officer in command at Harper's Ferry had his hands full; and in addition to his administrative labours there was the enemy to be watched, information to be obtained, and measures of defence to be considered. A glance at the map will show the responsibilities of Jackson's position.

The Virginia of the Confederacy was cut in two by the Blue Ridge, a chain of mountains three hundred and thirty miles in length, which, rising in North Carolina, pa.s.ses under different names through Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and Vermont, and sinks to the level on the Canadian frontier.

The Blue Ridge varies in height from 2000 to 6000 feet. Densely wooded, it is traversed in Virginia only by the Gaps, through which ran three railways and several roads. These Gaps were of great strategic importance, for if they were once secured, a Northern army, moving up the Valley of the Shenandoah, would find a covered line of approach towards the Virginia and Tennessee railway, which connected Richmond with the Mississippi. Nor was this the only advantage it would gain. From Lexington at its head, to Harper's Ferry, where it strikes the Potomac, throughout its whole length of one hundred and forty miles, the Valley was rich in agricultural produce. Its average width, for it is bounded on the west by the eastern ranges of the Alleghanies, is not more than four-and-twenty miles; but there are few districts of the earth's surface, of equal extent, more favoured by Nature or more highly cultivated. It was the granary of Virginia; and not Richmond only, but the frontier garrisons, depended largely for subsistence on the farms of the Shenandoah.

Moreover, if the Valley were occupied by the Federals, North-western Virginia would be cut off from the Confederacy; and Jackson's native mountains, inhabited by a brave and hardy race, would be lost as a recruiting ground.

In order, then, to secure the loyalty of the mountaineers, to supply the armies, and to protect the railways, the retention of the Valley was of the utmost importance to the Confederacy. The key of the communication with the North-west was Winchester, the chief town of the lower Valley, twenty-six miles, in an air-line, south-west of Harper's Ferry. From Winchester two highways lead westward, by Romney and Moorefield; four lead east and south-east, crossing the Blue Ridge by Snicker's, Ashby's, Mana.s.sas, and Chester's Gaps; and the first object of the Confederate force at Harper's Ferry was to cover this nucleus of roads.

During the month of May the garrison of the frontier post was undisturbed by the enemy. Lincoln's first call had been for 75,000 volunteers. On May 3 he asked for an additional 40,000; these when trained, with 18,000 seamen and a detachment of regulars, would place at his disposal 150,000 men. The greater part of this force had a.s.sembled at Washington; but a contingent of 10,000 or 12,000 men under General Patterson, a regular officer of many years' service, was collecting in Pennsylvania, and an outpost of 3000 men was established at Chambersburg, forty-five miles north of Harper's Ferry.

These troops, however, though formidable in numbers, were as ill-prepared for war as the Confederates, and no immediate movement was to be antic.i.p.ated. Not only had the Federal authorities to equip and organise their levies, but the position of Washington was the cause of much embarra.s.sment. The District of Columbia--the sixty square miles set apart for the seat of the Federal Government--lies on the Potomac, fifty miles south-east of Harper's Ferry, wedged in between Virginia on the one side and Maryland on the other.

The loyalty of Maryland to the Union was more than doubtful. As a slave-holding State, her sympathies were strongly Southern; and it was only her geographical situation, north of the Potomac, and with no strong frontier to protect her from invasion, which had held her back from joining the Confederacy. As only a single line of railway connected Washington with the North, pa.s.sing through Baltimore, the chief city of Maryland, a very hot-bed of secession sentiment, the att.i.tude of the State was a matter of the utmost anxiety to the Federal Government. An attempt to send troops through Baltimore to Washington had provoked a popular commotion and some bloodshed. Stern measures had been necessary to keep the railway open. Baltimore was placed under martial law, and strongly garrisoned. But despite these precautions, for some weeks the feeling in Maryland was so hostile to the Union that it was not considered safe for the Northern troops to cross her territory except in large numbers; and the concentration at Washington of a force sufficient to defend it was thus attended with much difficulty.

A single railroad, too, the Baltimore and Ohio, connected Washington with the West. Crossing the Potomac at Harper's Ferry, and following the course of the river, it ran for one hundred and twenty miles within the confines of Virginia. Thus the district commanded by Jackson embraced an artery of supply and communication which was of great importance to the enemy. The natural course would have been to destroy the line at once; but the susceptibilities of both Maryland and West Virginia had to be considered. The stoppage of all traffic on their main trade route would have done much to alienate the people from the South, and there was still hope that Maryland might throw in her lot with her seceded sisters.

The line was therefore left intact, and the company was permitted to maintain the regular service of trains, including the mails. For this privilege, however, Jackson exacted toll. The Confederate railways were deficient in rolling stock, and he determined to effect a large transfer from the Baltimore and Ohio. From Point of Rocks, twelve miles east of Harper's Ferry, to Martinsburg, fifteen miles west, the line was double. "The coal traffic along it," says General Imboden, "was immense, for the Washington Government was acc.u.mulating supplies of coal on the seaboard. These coal trains pa.s.sed Harper's Ferry at all hours of the day and night, and thus furnished Jackson with a pretext for arranging a brilliant capture. A detachment was posted at Point of Rocks, and the 5th Virginia Infantry at Martinsburg. He then complained to the President of the Baltimore and Ohio that the night trains, eastward bound, disturbed the repose of his camp, and requested a change of schedule that would pa.s.s all east-bound trains by Harper's Ferry between eleven and one o'clock in the daytime. The request was complied with, and thereafter for several days was heard the constant roar of pa.s.sing trains for an hour before and an hour after noon. But since the "empties" were sent up the road at night, Jackson again complained that the nuisance was as great as ever, and, as the road had two tracks, said he must insist that the west-bound trains should pa.s.s during the same hour as those going east. Again he was obliged, and we then had, for two hours every day, the liveliest railroad in America.

"One night, as soon as the schedule was working at its best, Jackson instructed the officer commanding at Point of Rocks to take a force of men across to the Maryland side of the river the next day at eleven o'clock, and letting all west-bound trains pa.s.s till twelve o'clock, to permit none to go east. He ordered the reverse to be done at Martinsburg.

"Thus he caught all the trains that were going east or west between these points, and ran them up to Winchester, thirty-two miles on the branch line, whence they were removed by horse power to the railway at Strasburg, eighteen miles further south."* (* Battles and Leaders volume 1.)

May 24.

This capture was Jackson's only exploit whilst in command at Harper's Ferry. On May 24 he was relieved by General Joseph E. Johnston, one of the senior officers of the Confederate army. The transfer of authority was not, however, at once effected. Johnston reached Harper's Ferry in advance of his letter of appointment. Jackson had not been instructed that he was to hand over his command, and, strictly conforming to the regulations, he respectfully declined to vacate his post. Fortunately a communication soon came from General Lee, commanding the Virginia troops, in which he referred to Johnston as in command at Harper's Ferry. Jackson at once recognised this letter as official evidence that he was superseded, and from that time forth rendered his superior the most faithful and zealous support. He seems at first to have expected that he would be sent to North-west Virginia, and his one ambition at this time was to be selected as the instrument of saving his native mountains to the South. But the Confederate Government had other views. At the beginning of June a more compact organisation was given to the regiments at Harper's Ferry, and Jackson was a.s.signed to the command of the First Brigade of the Army of the Shenandoah.* (* The Virginia troops were merged in the army of the Confederate States on June 8, 1861. The total strength was 40,000 men and 115 guns. O.R. volume 2 page 928.)

Recruited in the Valley of the Shenandoah and the western mountains, the brigade consisted of the following regiments:--

The 2nd Virginia, Colonel Allen.

The 4th Virginia, Colonel Preston.

The 5th Virginia, Colonel Harper.

The 27th Virginia, Lieutenant-Colonel Echols.

The 33rd Virginia, Colonel c.u.mmings.

A battery of artillery, raised in Rockbridge County, was attached to the brigade. Commanded by the Reverend Dr. Pendleton, the rector of Lexington, an old West Point graduate, who was afterwards distinguished as Lee's chief of artillery, and recruited largely from theological colleges, it soon became peculiarly efficient.* (* When the battery arrived at Harper's Ferry, it was quartered in a church, already occupied by a company called the Grayson Dare-devils, who, wishing to show their hospitality, a.s.signed the pulpit to Captain Pendleton as an appropriate lodging. The four guns were at once christened Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.) % No better material for soldiers ever existed than the men of the Valley. Most of them were of Scotch-Irish descent, but from the more northern counties came many of English blood, and from those in the centre of Swiss and German. But whatever their origin, they were thoroughly well qualified for their new trade. All cla.s.ses mingled in the ranks, and all ages; the heirs of the oldest families, and the humblest of the sons of toil; boys whom it was impossible to keep at school, and men whose white beards hung below their cross-belts; youths who had been reared in luxury, and rough hunters from their lonely cabins. They were a mountain people, nurtured in a wholesome climate, bred to manly sports, and hardened by the free life of the field and forest. To social distinctions they gave little heed. They were united for a common purpose; they had taken arms to defend Virginia and to maintain her rights; and their patriotism was proved by the sacrifice of all personal consideration and individual interest. Nor is the purity of their motives to be questioned. They had implicit faith in the righteousness of their cause. Slave-owners were few in the Valley, and the farms were tilled mainly by free labour. The abolition of negro servitude would have affected but little the population west of the Blue Ridge. But, nevertheless, west of the Blue Ridge the doctrine of State Rights was as firmly rooted as in the Carolinas, the idea that a State could be coerced into remaining within the Union as fiercely repudiated; and the men of the Valley faced the gathering hosts of the North in the same spirit that they would have faced the hosts of a foreign foe.

In the first weeks of June the military situation became more threatening. The Union armies were taking shape. The levies of volunteers seemed sufficiently trained to render reconquest practicable, and the great wave of invasion had already mounted the horizon. A force of 25,000 men, based on the Ohio, threatened North-west Virginia. There had been collisions on the Atlantic seaboard, where the Federals held Fortress Monroe, a strong citadel within eighty miles of Richmond, and Richmond had become the capital of the Confederacy. There had been fighting in Missouri, and the partisans of the South in that State had already been badly worsted.

The vast power of the North was making itself felt on land, and on the sea had a.s.serted an ascendency which it never lost. The blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico were patrolled by a fleet with which the Confederates had no means of coping. From the sea-wall of Charleston, the great Atlantic port of the South, the masts of the blockading squadron were visible in the offing; and beyond the mouths of the Mississippi, closing the approaches to New Orleans, the long black hulls steamed slowly to and fro.

But it was about Mana.s.sas Junction--thirty miles south-west of Washington and barring the road to Richmond--that all interest centred during the first campaign. Here was posted the main army of the Confederacy, 20,000 volunteers under General Beauregard, the Mana.s.sas Gap Railway forming an easy means of communication with the Army of the Shenandoah.

Johnston's force had been gradually increased to 10,000 officers and men. But the general was by no means convinced of the desirability of holding Harper's Ferry. The place itself was insignificant. It had contained an a.r.s.enal, but this had been burnt by the Federals when they evacuated the post; and it was absolutely untenable against attack. To the east runs the Shenandoah; and immediately above the river stands a spur of the Blue Ridge, the Loudoun Heights, completely commanding the little town. Beyond the Potomac is a crest of equal alt.i.tude, covered with forest trees and undergrowth, and bearing the name of the Maryland Heights.

Jackson, without waiting for instructions, had taken on himself to hold and fortify the Maryland Heights. "I am of opinion," he had written to General Lee, "that this place should be defended with the spirit which actuated the defenders of Thermopylae, and if left to myself such is my determination. The fall of this place would, I fear, result in the loss of the north-western part of the State, and who can estimate the moral power thus gained to the enemy and lost to ourselves?"* (* O.R. volume 2 page 814.)

Lee, also, was averse to evacuation. Such a measure, he said, would be depressing to the cause of the South, and would leave Maryland isolated. The post, it was true, could be easily turned. By crossing the Potomac, at Williamsport and Shepherdstown, twenty and ten miles north-west respectively, the Federals would threaten the communications of the garrison with Winchester; in case they were attacked, the Confederates would have to fight with their backs to the Shenandoah, broad, deep, and unbridged; and the ground westward of Harper's Ferry was ill adapted for defence. Attack, in Lee's opinion, would have been best met by a resolute offensive.* (* Ibid pages 881, 889, 897, 898, 901, 923.) Johnston, however, believed his troops unfitted for active manoeuvres, and he was permitted to choose his own course. The incident is of small importance, but it serves to show an ident.i.ty of opinion between Lee and Jackson, and a regard for the moral aspect of the situation which was to make itself manifest, with extraordinary results, at a later period.

June 14.

On June 14, Johnston destroyed the railway bridge over the Potomac, removed the machinery that had been rescued from the a.r.s.enal, burned the public buildings, and the next day retired on Winchester. His immediate opponent, General Patterson, had crossed the Pennsylvania border, and, moving through Maryland, had occupied Williamsport with 14,000 men. A detachment of Confederate militia had been driven from Romney, thirty-five miles north-west of Winchester, and the general forward movement of the enemy had become p.r.o.nounced.

June 20.

On June 20 Jackson's brigade was ordered to destroy the workshops of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway at Martinsburg, together with the whole of the rolling stock that might there be found, and to support the cavalry. The first of these tasks, although Martinsburg is no more than ten miles distant from Williamsport, was easily accomplished. Four locomotives were sent back to Winchester, drawn by teams of horses; and several more, together with many waggons, were given to the flames. The second task demanded no unusual exertions.

The Federals, as yet, manifested no intention of marching upon Winchester, nor was the Confederate cavalry in need of immediate a.s.sistance. The force numbered 300 sabres. The men were untrained; but they were first-rate hors.e.m.e.n, they knew every inch of the country, and they were exceedingly well commanded. Lieutenant-Colonel J.E.B. Stuart, who had been a captain of dragoons in the United States army, had already given token of those remarkable qualities which were afterwards to make him famous. Of an old Virginia family, he was the very type of the Cavalier, fearless and untiring, "boisterous as March, yet fresh as May."

Educated at West Point, and trained in Indian fighting in the prairies, he brought to the great struggle upon which he had now entered a thorough knowledge of arms, a bold and fertile conception, and a const.i.tution of body which enabled him to bear up against fatigues which would have prostrated the strength of other men. Those who saw him at this time are eloquent in their description of the energy and the habits of the man. They tell how he remained almost constantly in the saddle; how he never failed to instruct personally every squad which went out on picket; how he was everywhere present, at all hours of the day and night, along the line which he guarded; and how, by infusing into the raw cavalry his own activity and watchfulness, he was enabled, in spite of the small force which he commanded, to observe the whole part of the Potomac from Point of Rocks to beyond Williamsport. His animal spirits were unconquerable, his gaiety and humour unfailing; he had a ready jest for all, and made the forests ring with his songs as he marched at the head of his column. So great was his activity that General Johnston compared him to that species of hornet called "a yellow jacket," and said that "he was no sooner brushed off than he lit back again." When the general was subsequently transferred to the West he wrote to Stuart: "How can I eat, sleep, or rest in peace without you upon the outpost?"* (*

Cooke page 47.)

No officer in the Confederacy was more trusted by his superiors or more popular with the men; and Jackson was no more proof than others against the attractions of his sunny and n.o.ble nature. As a soldier, Stuart was a colleague after his own heart; and, as a man, he was hardly less congenial. The dashing horseman of eight-and-twenty, who rivalled Murat in his fondness for gay colours, and to all appearance looked upon war as a delightful frolic, held a rule of life as strict as that of his Presbyterian comrade; and outwardly a sharp contrast, inwardly they were in the closest sympathy. Stuart's fame as a leader was to be won in larger fields than those west of the Blue Ridge, and, although sprung from the same Scotch-Irish stock, he was in no way connected with the Valley soldiers. But from the very outbreak of the war he was intimately a.s.sociated with Jackson and his men.

Fortune seemed to take a curious delight in bringing them together; they were together in their first skirmish, and in their last great victory; and now, on the banks of the Potomac, watching the hostile ma.s.ses that were a.s.sembling on the further sh.o.r.e, they first learned to know each other's worth.

July 2.

On July 2 Patterson crossed the river. The movement was at once reported by Stuart, and Jackson, with the 5th Virginia and a battery, advanced to meet the enemy. His instructions from Johnston were to ascertain the strength of the hostile force, and then to retire under cover of the cavalry. Four regiments of his brigade were therefore left in camp; the baggage was sent back, and when the 5th Virginia had marched out a short distance, three of the four guns were halted.

Near Falling Waters, a country church some five miles south of the Potomac, Patterson's advanced guard was discovered on the road. The country on either hand, like the greater part of the Valley, was open, undulating, and highly cultivated, view and movement being obstructed only by rail fences and patches of high timber.