Jeb Stuart, The Last Cavalier Read online

  In later letters of the next two months to William were telling sentences:

  He would go to Fort Riley and with his family "quietly and calmly await the march of events," and:

  The moment she [Va.] passes the ordinance of secession, I will set out immediately for Richmond, and report in person to Governor Letcher, unless I am certain that my service would be more needed at some other point in the State

  If no war ensues upon Virginia's secession, I will quit the army, and if I can obtain no desirable position in her [Virginia's] regular army, I will resign and practice law in Memphis, Tenn I had rather be a private in Va.'s army than a general in any army to coerce her

  Col. Cooke will, I think, become a Missourian in the event of disruption, as he is perhaps more identified with that State than any other.

  Stuart had thus already reached a decision when he had an urgent letter from Flora's cousin, John Esten Cooke, the novelist, warning him that he and General Cooke would soon be enemies of the South if they did not act.

  Esten Cooke insisted that Stuart would draw none of the "prizes" of the Southern army if he lagged behind, and that the choice commissions were being gobbled up. Revolution would wait for no man, he wrote.

  Jeb reached Fort Riley from the frontier in early April and was there when the Southerners fired on Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor. It was April fourteenth; Virginia's convention was meeting, but there was no news of her secession. On April seventeenth, President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to maintain the Union and gave Virginia a quota of 8,000 men. The convention seethed, and late that night passed the Ordinance of Secession; approval by the people in May was thought to be a mere formality.

  It was enough for Lieutenant Stuart, who could now lose no time in returning East. As he and Flora began packing, he read his appointment as Captain, 1st U.S. Cavalry, which had been awaiting him at Fort Riley. He was not impressed. In the first days of May he passed through St. Louis with his family, and on May third wrote the Adjutant General, U.S. Army:

  Colonel: From a sense of duty to my native state (Va.), I hereby resign my position as an officer in the Army of The United States.

  On the same day he wrote General Samuel Cooper, Adjutant General of the Confederate Army:

  General: Having resigned my position (Capt. 1st Cavalry) in the U.S. Army, and being now on my way to unite my destinies to Virginia, my native State, I write to apprize you of the fact in order that you may assign me such a position in the Army of The South as will accord with that lately held by me in the Federal Army.

  My preference is Cavalry—light artillery—Light Infantry in the order named, but I would prefer a position as Assist. Adjt. Gen. or Topographical Engineer if such a position would give me greater rank. My address will be: Care Gov. Letcher, Richmond.

  His resignation from the U.S. Army was dated May fourteenth. He took his family by steamer to Memphis and then east by train. Somewhere on the way they met Flora's brother, John, who also cast his lot with the South. From the distant Northwest, Colonel Cooke wrote his distress: "Those mad boys! If only I had been there." His presence could hardly have deterred Stuart.

  While they were en route, Jeb's mother wrote in a fury of Southern patriotism to Colonel R, E. Lee, who was in Richmond mustering Virginia's army:

  The mother of Lieutenant Stuart (of the 1st Cavalry) begs leave to introduce herself to you in behalf of her son. He is most anxious to offer his services to his native state, and has been waiting at his post in the Far West of Kansas, to hear of the Secession of Virginia. I have written to him repeatedly and telegraphed to him also

  As soon as he hears of the Secession he will fly to place himself by your side. Can you save a place for him? He has been educated under your eye and was with you at Harpers Ferry. He is greatly attached to you and to all of your family. I am expecting him every hour with the greatest impatience. He has been long anxious to resign, but we advised him to await for the Secession of the State. Excuse me for troubling you if you please.

  Respectfully, Elizabeth L. Stuart.

  I have been waiting for you two months.12

  Stuart reached Richmond on May sixth and found an infantry commission awaiting him. The city was full of troops, spoiling for fight.

  CHAPTER 4

  First Blood

  STUART was not a stranger in swarming Richmond. He called at the home of his frontier friend and surgeon, Dr. Charles Brewer, who was now the husband of Flora's sister, Maria. The doctor was himself awaiting orders from the Confederate Army.

  Jeb visited family friends and stopped at the office of Robert E. Lee, already a general, with offices in the teeming building of the Mechanics Institute.

  He wrote Flora at one A.M. of May ninth: He must leave at once for the front, for he had been named Lieutenant Colonel of Virginia infantry, assigned to Harpers Ferry, where he would be second in command to Colonel Thomas J. Jackson, a strange, dedicated soldier who had come from Virginia Military Institute with his cadets.

  There was good news in the letter. He had gone empty-handed to Richmond, but now his comfort in the field was assured: "Ma lets me have Jo as a Body servant for the war."

  It was a stroke of luck for him to have one of the Laurel Hill Negroes to serve him, since he had no slaves of his own. He had also made a trade of sorts. His cousin Peter Hairston would act as his aide and in return furnish Jeb a fine horse from his North Carolina stock.

  There was also a family matter of concern, the loyalties of Colonel Philip St. George Cooke:

  The greatest anxiety is manifested for your Pa to arrive. He is regarded as the ne plus ultra of a Cavalry officer—Why don't he come?

  Stuart left a brief glimpse of Lee on this day:

  Gen. Lee is very much harassed by the trifling duties he has to perform.

  He then gave the only explanation for his having landed in the infantry:

  As there is no post of Lt. Col. of Cavalry vacant I have been engaged as Col. of a Regiment from the extreme South West and from the counties in and about Danville.

  He wrote, almost petulantly, that he would "make no effort" to get his commission in the cavalry, but, "if offered by the solicitation of others I shall accept."1

  Harpers Ferry brought memories to Stuart. The armory buildings where John Brown had been cornered were swarmed by workmen who dismantled machinery. The place was alive with drilling troops, green, unsoldierly and sullen, for Colonel Jackson had ousted their militia officers to whom soldiering was a business of fancy uniforms and street parades. It had now become an outpost, with gun batteries frowning from the heights. The daring Jackson had actually invaded Yankee territory by seizing Maryland Heights across the Potomac. Jackson and Stuart understood each other. Jackson admired Jeb's credo: "If we oppose force to force we cannot win, for their resources are greater than ours. We must substitute esprit for numbers. Therefore I strive to inculcate in my men the spirit of the chase."

  Before May was out Stuart wrote Flora again, with Colonel Cooke still much on his mind:

  How I hope your Pa will resign. If he could only see things in their true and right light—which is difficult to do so far off-he would resign instanter. He is wanted here very much. He is highly complimented everywhere and would soon take a foremost stand in the State defence. Why don't he come?

  Despite Stuart's infantry commission, Jackson gave him cavalry, and provoked a quarrel by placing all horsemen of the outpost under Jeb's command. There was a protest from Turner Ashby, a mountain cavalryman who hurried to Jackson's headquarters and furiously demanded command of his own company. Ashby was older than Stuart and had come to the frontier before him. He thought he was entitled to first promotion. Jackson won Ashby's loyalty by countermanding his order and dividing the cavalry in two. Ashby thus escaped from Stuart's command.2

  Jackson himself was soon relieved from command, for Joseph E. Johnston arrived without notice in Harpers Ferry, under Confederate orders. Stuart welcomed Johnston as an old and valued fr
iend, and soon after his arrival got the commission he sought, Lieutenant Colonel of Cavalry.

  Stuart was not long in Harpers Ferry, for the cautious Johnston evacuated the town. And on June tenth Stuart wrote a friend of the first action along the Potomac above the abandoned outpost:

  The ball is open up here at Honey wood. I sent about 100 men to repel invasion by an irregular force—of canal hands from Maryland—My pickets had already killed several—nobody hurt on our side.3

  Stuart camped at Bunker Hill, nine miles north of Winchester, manning picket lines in the very face of the enemy. He wrote Flora on June thirteenth:

  If you could see the strawberries, bouquets and other nice things the ladies send me you would think me pretty well off. The young men of the regiment wonder why it is that I am the recipient of so much favor. They forget that rank will tell. . .. Kiss our dear ones a thousand times and keep them in mind of their Pa.

  Bunker Hill was like a nest of foxhunters. June opened with only twenty-one officers and 313 men in Stuart's command, which he called the ist Virginia. There was little rest for anyone. Every path and road south of the Potomac in that region was under guard.

  One of the young riders who joined him, a lawyer by the name of George Cary Eggleston, left a complaint. Eggleston came in with a company after a four-day march, having ridden twenty miles that day. The colonel assigned the new company a position and ordered its tents pitched. But the captain of the newcomers, "even worse disciplined than we were," scorned the muddy spot pointed out by Stuart, and moved his men to a place of his choosing. Stuart scolded the captain severely, returning him to his men with the conviction that "all West Point graduates were martinets."

  Stuart had more in store for this company. The weary men had visions of a long rest and a night's sleep, but Stuart pushed them into trails along the Potomac, under the very noses of the enemy. "This West Point colonel was rapidly forfeiting our good opinion." But Stuart kept them at it; several times Federal cavalry fled before the new company, and it returned to camp with confidence.

  The next morning "our unreasonable colonel again ordered us to mount," and this time took out the company himself on what seemed a madcap ride. He led them into a spot surrounded by enemy infantry, laughed at them, and told them their chances of escape were slim indeed. "I think we began about this time to suspect that we were learning something," Eggleston said. Jeb led them "jauntily out of the trap."

  One morning Stuart halted Eggleston at headquarters:

  "Is that your horse out there?"

  "Yes, but I don't want to sell him."

  "Let's slip off on a scout," Stuart said. "I'll ride your horse and you take mine. I want to try his paces."

  They galloped within the Union lines and were soon being chased by Federal cavalrymen.

  Stuart seemed unconcerned by pursuit in rear. "Colonel, there's a Federal post ahead," Eggleston said. "Hadn't we better oblique into the woods?"

  "Oh, no," Stuart said. "They won't expect us from this direction. We can ride over them before they make up their minds who we are."

  The two pounded through the group of startled bluecoats and sent men sprawling into ditches. A hail of bullets followed them harmlessly. Stuart rode as if he were in his own camp. He turned eagerly to Eggleston: "Did you ever time this horse for a half mile?"4

  Another observant young man who came to Stuart's camp that month was William W. Blackford, an engineer from Abingdon, Virginia, with a well-equipped company he had raised himself.

  One June evening at sunset Blackford and his company came to Stuart's camp, the first actual fighting post it had seen.

  Before the tents Colonel Stuart was inspecting forty or fifty horsemen. Blackford sketched him:

  A young officer in a United States undress uniform. . . .a little above medium height, broad-shouldered and powerfully built, ruddy complexion and blue-gray eyes which could flash fire... then about 29 years old.5

  The commander of Blackford's company was a veteran West Pointer much older than Stuart, one W. E. Jones, universally called "Grumble"; he took an instant dislike to Stuart, and growled to his men that he would take no orders from that young whippersnapper.

  Blackford began that day a warm friendship with Stuart which would last to the end of the colonel's life.

  Stuart wrote Flora about this time:

  My Dearest One:

  Things are hastening to a crisis. Every day, sometimes twice a day, I hear of the enemy's drawing a little closer. He has not yet reached the Potomac. General Johnston himself writes to me every day, and I have little doubt that the moment the enemy is near he will march out near me and meet him....

  Every one is delighted with our camp here. I got the drawers but they are canton flannel, rather warm. My health was never better, and when I do get to sleep which is not often, I sleep like a log.

  The life of the camp was exhilarating for the young Virginia riders, most of whom had been almost literally born to the saddle, and were superbly mounted. George Eggleston recalled that the horsemanship of his regiment remained a model for all Confederate cavalry. He also wrote of this camp:

  We had some tents, in which to sleep after we got tired of playing poker for grains of corn; but we were so rarely in camp that after a little while we forgot that we owned canvas dwellings. . . . We slept on the ground out somewhere within musket shot of the enemy's lines, and our waking hours were passed in playing tag with the enemy's scouting parties

  It must have been a healthy life that we led. During that summer my company never had a man on the sick list. When the commissary managed to get rations of flour to us, we wetted it with water from any stream or brook that might be at hand, added a little salt, if we happened to have any, to the putty-like mass, fried the paste in bacon fat, and ate it as bread and went on our scouting ways utterly unconscious of the fact that we were possessed of stomachs until the tempting succulence of half-ripened corn in somebody's field set appetite a-going again and we feasted upon the grain without the bother of cooking it at all.

  When shirts became indecently dirty they washed them in streams and if marching orders interrupted we put them on wet and rode away in full confidence that they would dry on our persons as easily as on a clothesline." One advantage of such light travel was that Eggleston could carry a book under his shirt. He heard pious tales of how Bibles had stopped bullets and saved lives, but Eggleston was saved when a bullet struck him in the abdomen, to be turned aside by his copy of the racy novel, Tristram Shandy?

  Jeb had an adventure during the spring which became a legend in two armies. He rode beyond the lines one morning with an orderly and sighted a familiar figure dressed as he was, in an old U.S. Army greatcoat of blue. The approaching officer was one Duane Perkins whom Stuart had known at West Point.

  Stuart assumed he had come into the Confederacy, and without a pause shouted, "Howdy, Perk! Glad to see you've come over. What's your command?"

  A battery of Union artillery came into sight behind Perkins with its flag in full view. Perkins laughed and yelled, pointing rearward, "Hello, Beauty! How are you? That's my command, right there!"

  Stuart turned his horse abruptly. "Oh, the devil! I didn't know you'd stayed with the Yankees!" He spurred away, and with his orderly soon outdistanced pursuit.

  An innovation of this time was "Camp Cripple," a separate site where Stuart sent injured men and horses, and those not eager for war. About a quarter of his force was soon there. One day Private Peter Paul, of Company I, gave this camp a new name. In a confusion of yells—"Where's Company A?" "You Company D?" "Company K to the front! "—Paul shouted, "Where's Company Q?" The troopers took it up, and Stuart thereafter referred to the camp of cripples as "Company Q" even in official reports.

  Invasion now threatened northern Virginia. From Richmond, General Lee began concentrating troops at Manassas Junction, a rail center not far south of Alexandria, where he predicted the next Federal blow would fall.

  General P. G. T. Beauregard,
the hero of Fort Sumter, commanded the growing army at Manassas, and in June he had over 30,000 men. General Johnston, with a force of some 10,000, was to the west around Winchester. Johnston would be able to reinforce Beauregard in an emergency with a march of two days—if he could rid himself of the Federal force in his own sector.

  Two Union armies were poised to strike, a large one under General Irwin McDowell near Washington, expected to fall upon Manassas; and a smaller one under the aging Mexican War hero, General Robert Patterson, north of the Potomac above Winchester.

  It was Patterson's patrols that clashed with Stuart's riders day after day, as General Johnston and his lieutenant, Colonel Jackson, watched with the infantry a few miles in Stuart's rear.

  July first, at four A.M., Union infantry passed the river village of Williamsport, Maryland, wading the ford toward Virginia. By seven thirty Colonel Jackson had Stuart's report of the move and prepared for his first battle, though he was under orders to do no more than feel the strength of the enemy, and fall back in face of superior numbers. Jackson met Stuart near a settlement called Falling Waters.