The next morning Yancy collected his dispatches to General Jackson from the War Department and hurried out of Richmond. On the entire journey back to the camp at Manassas, Yancy could scarcely think of anything but Lorena Hayden. She had allowed him to give her a modest good-bye kiss that morning, and it had elated him.
I think she does care for me. She’s just afraid, he thought, after what that dog did to her—no, that’s an insult to dogs. I’d like to meet that joker sometime, like in a dark alley so he couldn’t see me coming. Leaving a girl at eighteen—
Suddenly Yancy laughed to himself. She must be…let’s see…she said two years ago, and her birthday is in January…She must be twenty now and turning twenty-one in a couple of months! She’s so proper sometimes—she’s going to have one hissy fit! Yancy, in the previous September, had just turned eighteen years old.
Yancy didn’t mark birthdays, because the Cheyenne Indians didn’t mark birthdays. They observed and judged people according to where they stood in their journeys from childhood to adulthood. No numbering system figured in their assessment and acceptance of either boys or girls; they were simply recognized when they reached different stages of life. Of course the Cheyenne marked the passage of time, but no single day or even month was recognized as a landmark in a person’s life.
Yancy, like his father, was very mature for his age. At sixteen years old, Daniel Tremayne had struck out on his own, hunting and trapping, and along the way he had met many coarse and hard-bitten men. And he had earned their respect. Yancy was the same. He had reflected a man’s sense of duty and responsibility by the time he had reached sixteen and had gone to work for Thomas Jackson. He was, indeed, older than his years.
I’m going to tease her about being an older woman, he reflected with amusement. The next time I see her…
He hoped against hope that it would be soon.
Major General Jackson had actually received his orders in the middle of October. United States Commanding General George McClellan was massing his sixty thousand men across the Potomac, intending to overtake Richmond. The plan was for General Irvin McDowell, with his forty thousand troops stationed north of McClellan, to join him at Richmond. This would mean the death of the Confederacy.
General Robert E. Lee saw that only too well. His only hope, and it was a slim one, was Stonewall Jackson. If Jackson could defeat and chase the Federals out of the valley, and perhaps even draw some of McDowell’s forces across the Potomac to reinforce them, then Lee thought that he might be able to outfight McClellan. Lee’s were delicately worded orders, for naturally Lee could not state the case so baldly and place such a burden upon one single general.
But Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson had a most peculiar understanding. Lee took special care of his temperamental and eccentric general and had immediately recognized him as one of the most capable men, so obviously born to command, that he had ever known. And Stonewall Jackson understood Lee’s aristocratic, gracious orders, always worded with the greatest courtesy and generally ending in some rather vague suggestions that left Jackson to interpret what Lee wanted, not what he said. And so he did; and so he readied himself to fight, and fight hard, in the Shenandoah Valley.
On November 4, 1861, General Jackson gave a stirring good-bye speech to his beloved Stonewall Brigade. But as it turned out, all the high emotion and regret was wasted, because by November 12, they had joined him in Winchester. Jackson had been appalled at the troops stationed in the Shenandoah Valley.
There were three little brigades numbering about 1,600, and they were dotted around the northern part of the valley. There were four hundred and eighty-five wild cavalrymen under the doubtful command of old Colonel Angus McDonald, a sixty year old Southern gentleman with rheumatism who had absolutely no control over the undisciplined boys that galloped around the valley at will.
All this to fight General N. P. Banks, who was holding western Maryland directly across the Potomac with 18,000 men, and they were moving east. In addition, more than 22,000 Yankees were just across the Alleghenies in western Virginia, under General William S. Rosecrans. And worst of all, on Jackson’s western flank, General Benjamin F. Kelley and his 5,000 men had captured the village of Romney. It was only forty miles away from Jackson’s headquarters.
As soon as Jackson understood his position, he had sent Yancy on a wild trip to Richmond demanding reinforcements. “Tell them,” he growled at Yancy, “that the Shenandoah Valley has almost no defenses.”
Even before Yancy arrived, Secretary of War Benjamin had decided to send Jackson’s old brigade to the valley. He greeted Yancy with this happy news and promptly turned him right around to ride to Manassas with his orders.
Yancy was happy to be reunited with the Stonewall Brigade, but he regretted that he didn’t have time to see Lorena.
The Army of the Valley wintered in Winchester. Anna joined Jackson in December in his pleasant headquarters, the Tilghman home. She stayed December, January, and February, and wrote about that winter being one of the happiest times of their lives. All through those short winter days and long nights, Jackson made his plans and drilled his troops, ever the vigilant and disciplined general. At home with Anna he was, as always, happy and even jolly.
In March, the general turned back to war, and he sent Anna home. On March 22, he began what was known as the Valley Campaign. And this campaign—it was understood in the Army of Northern Virginia and throughout the South—saved Richmond. Stonewall Jackson had understood General Lee’s orders, and like the extraordinary soldier that he was, he had followed them to the utmost.
Basically, the Valley Campaign was a complicated series of maneuvers orchestrated by Stonewall Jackson, and by him alone. His staff never knew his plans. His officers never knew who they were attacking. His men never knew where they were marching to. Of course, this meant that the enemy never knew anything about the elusive Stonewall, either—until the day came that they, thunderstruck, were looking at the Army of the Valley—who were themselves often bemused, they had traveled so fast and so victoriously—from the field of defeat. Before they could decide which direction to run, forward or backward, the army, and Stonewall, was gone, and again they knew not where. In the Valley Campaign this was to happen to armies in places that were forever attached to Stonewall Jackson’s laurels—Front Royal, First Winchester, Cross Keys, and Port Republic.
With 17,000 men, Stonewall Jackson had, from start to finish, faced about 62,000 Federals. The Federal defeats in the valley had so stunned Washington that they had frozen McDowell’s forces so he couldn’t join McClellan in the Peninsular Campaign against Richmond. So it may even be said that just the fear of Stonewall Jackson had stopped a force of 40,000 men.
When it ended on June 9, 1862, there had been forty-eight marching days. The Army of the Shenandoah Valley had marched a total of 676 miles, an average of 14 miles a day. After this they were known as Jackson’s Foot Cavalry. They had fought six formal skirmishing actions and five pitched battles. They had taken 3,500 prisoners, and 3,500 Federals lay dead or were wounded in the valley. Considering the relative numbers of the armies, Confederate losses were low indeed—2,500 dead or wounded and 600 prisoners.
Jackson had also added precious supplies and arms to the needy Confederate armies. He had captured over 10,000 muskets and rifles and nine cannons. He had burned or destroyed countless tons of Federal supplies.
The Valley Campaign had succeeded without costly battles. Outnumbered by more than three to one, Jackson’s superb tactics had soundly beaten a far superior force, although they were much more poorly led. In addition, his Army of the Shenandoah Valley had paralyzed McDowell’s forces. Stonewall Jackson’s name was now worth an army.
Senator Blake Stevens of Virginia, Peyton Stevens’s father, was so proud of his son being in the famous Stonewall Brigade that he regularly sent special couriers with gifts for him. When the brigade had gone into winter quarters at Winchester, a wagon had arrived with a tent almost as large as General Jackson’s, a camp stove, a padded cot, six new uniforms, two pairs of boots, six pairs of wool socks, four blankets, and two crates crammed with tins of food.
Peyton asked his old VMI roommates, Yancy and Chuckins and Sandy Owens, to share his tent with him. Yancy and Chuckins gladly did, though Sandy had to tent with the artillery. Still, whenever he got a chance he came and stayed with them.
But on Monday, June 16, 1862, all of that finery had been packed away on the brigade wagon train, and the four of them were as humbly bivouacked as though they weren’t Stonewall’s Boys, which they called themselves though they kept it a supreme secret. They had built a campfire and were lying in a circle around it. On the ground was an oilcloth. They lay on that and covered themselves with one blanket and an oilcloth on top of that to guard against the dew.
Sandy and Chuckins were asleep, but both Peyton and Yancy lay awake, hands behind their heads, staring up at the night sky. Yancy was thinking forlornly that he hadn’t seen Lorena for almost eight months. He was surprised at how deeply he missed her.
“Can’t believe we’re marching tomorrow,” Peyton said, interrupting Yancy’s melancholy musings. “After the last few months we’ve had. And the battle in Port Republic was just what—yesterday?”
“Feels like it,” Yancy answered, “but it was a week ago. And no wonder we don’t know what day it is or what month it is or what time it is. You and I both have made two runs to Richmond in the last week, haven’t we?”
“Guess so,” Peyton said. “Yancy? Do you know where we’re going and what we’re gonna do?”
As usual, Jackson had kept his orders and plans a strict secret from everyone, even the field commanders, which drove them utterly insane. Yancy was quiet for a while. He generally did know more than almost anyone else in the command, except for maybe Jim. It was because Jackson relaxed a little more with Yancy and even held conversations with him, which was unusual for the taciturn general. Yancy knew him and understood him, and so it gave him some advantage in reading him. He had never said anything else to anyone, and he hesitated now, though he knew Peyton would never let on.
“You do know, don’t you?” Peyton asked quietly.
“Well, I don’t know. It’s not like he tells me anything.”
“But you know. Can’t you just tell me if it’s north, south, east, or west?”
Finally Yancy lifted his arm and pointed. “That way.” He pointed southeast, toward Richmond.
General Lee was planning a counterattack on the Army of the Potomac, led by General McClellan, and he needed Stonewall Jackson’s Army of the Valley desperately. Jackson planned to march them double-quick to Lee’s aid.
They left at dawn, a bleak foggy morning that made it difficult to even see the man, or the horse, in front of them. Yancy, Peyton, and Chuckins rode in the general’s train, behind the general staff. Even Midnight and Peyton’s great stallion, Senator, seemed sluggish and bleary. Only Chuckins’s plump mare, Brownie, seemed to plod along cheerfully as she usually did. But then, Brownie was not a Stonewall Jackson courier’s horse, and in the Valley Campaign she had not ridden many reckless miles, day after day.
Midmorning the fog lifted and the day became pleasant. Some of the staff officers ranged up and down the lines of marching men, checking with the regimental officers and trying to discourage the men from straggling, for they were riding through orchard country. Yancy, Peyton, and Chuckins found themselves just behind General Jackson and had the good fortune to witness a delightful little scene.
General Jackson had given strict orders that no soldier was to say, in any manner whatsoever, anything about the plans of the army. This afforded the army a lot of mirth, for they had no clue about the plans of the army anyway, but it amused them when General Jackson showed his penchant for mystery.
Now they came upon a soldier that had stepped off the side of the road, for a cherry tree was temptingly close to it. He had climbed the tree, where he was sitting contentedly, gobbling.
Jackson stopped and stared up at him. “Where are you going, soldier?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What command are you in?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, what state are you from?”
“I don’t know.”
With some exasperation, Jackson demanded, “What’s the meaning of this?”
He answered, chewing thoughtfully, “Well, Old Jack and Old Hood passed orders yesterday that we didn’t know a thing till after the next fight, and we’re keeping our mouths shut.”
Jackson threw back his head and laughed, a rare sight indeed, and rode on.
Jackson marched them a roundabout way, instead of the straightaway that the couriers took, for he and General Lee hoped to deceive McClellan into thinking that Jackson was still in the valley. In fact, General Lee had even sent General Winder and his 10,000 men, ostensibly, to Jackson in Winchester. General Winder had made it there, camped a couple of nights, then had turned around and was now following Jackson back.
But this deception was hard, for the country was not made for brigades of men walking through. There were enemy pickets, skirmishes, impenetrable thickets, and creeks sometimes six feet deep to be forded. Moving the cannons was like a nightmare for man and beast alike. No trails were marked, of course, and their maps were very poor indeed. Jackson had two new guides he didn’t know.
On Tuesday the twenty-fourth it rained, long and heavily. They had been passing through one of the thick woods with almost impossible thickets, and now they found that the enemy had cut so many new roads in the tangle that one of the new guides lost his way and led them astray.
But finally on the twenty-sixth the exhausted army had reached their goal, a small crossroads call Old Cold Harbor, just above Gaines’ Mill, where Lee planned to concentrate his forces and attack the Federals massed there. On the twenty-seventh they moved in. Jackson was on the Confederate left, Longstreet’s army on the Confederate right. There were 88,000 Confederates in the field.
Yancy had asked General Jackson to fight with his old unit from his days of training in Richmond when he was still a VMI cadet, Raphine Company.
Jackson had shaken his head wearily. “We’ve got more than two dozen outfits out there, with three Army headquarters—me, Longstreet, and General Lee. I’m going to need every courier I’ve got. I especially need you and Sergeant Stevens, for you two have the best horses. You two stick close by me.”
“Yes, sir,” Yancy said.
And so they followed him, from the swampy bog below Old Cold Harbor to the little hills and wooded fields around Gaines’ Mill. Lee had opened fire at daybreak, but it was afternoon before Jackson reached his command post, a knoll just northeast of the Confederate center. The fighting was, and already had been, savage. General A. P. Hill in the center had attacked too soon, before he could be reinforced, and the Confederates had taken heavy casualties. The Confederates charged and would gain ground; then the Federals would countercharge, and the Confederates were forced back again. The lines stubbornly stayed stagnant, with very little ground gained nor lost for either side, but with both sides losing dozens of men by the hour.
Almost as soon as they arrived at Jackson’s command post, he called for Peyton. “Ride to General D. H. Hill’s command and instruct him to send in Rodes, Anderson, and Garland, and to keep Ripley and Colquitt in reserve,” he ordered brusquely. Stonewall Jackson wasted no words in battle.
General A. P. Hill was badly beaten down, but the brigades that had arrived with Jackson’s command were fully engaged. Finally, at about four thirty that afternoon, three of his trailing brigades under General Richard Ewell topped the hill at Old Cold Harbor. Jackson sighted them immediately and sent orders to them by Peyton.
He then turned to Yancy. “You’ve got to go down to General A. P. Hill, down on the battle line. He must be made aware that General Ewell is on the way to support him with three brigades. And then ride to General Lee’s headquarters and assure him that we can relieve General Hill.”
“Yes, sir!” Yancy said then started to turn away.
But Jackson pulled Little Sorrel up close to Midnight and Yancy stopped. Jackson said in a low voice, “You’re the fastest. It’s going to be hot and heavy down there, Sergeant. Ride hard, as fast as you can, and no need to linger on the line. It’s just as important for you to notify General Lee as it is for you to notify General Hill. Understood?”
“Understood, sir.”
“Good, good.” Jackson turned away, and Yancy galloped off at Midnight’s top speed, which was fast indeed.
Midnight had been around battles, of course, and had been in the line of fire before, but neither he nor Yancy had seen the savagery at the line of the Battle of Gaines’ Mill. General A. P. Hill, a redheaded, brave, hot-tempered, experienced soldier was on his third horse of the day only about fifty yards back from the front lines. He wore his bright red flannel shirt, as he always did in battle, thumbing his nose to enemy sharpshooters. As Yancy approached, even over the thunderous din of battle, he could hear General Hill’s scratchy voice screeching orders at the top of his lungs, liberally laced with curses.
Midnight was in tearing high spirits, foaming at the mouth, eyes wild. He wasn’t spooked; he was battle ready. As Yancy tore up to the general, Midnight lowered his backside and skidded to a stop on his back legs, reared, threw his head up, and screamed.
Even General Hill turned to see this magnificent spectacle, and he recognized Midnight and Yancy. “Ho, you, boy! Looks like that crazy beast is ready to down a few Yankees himself!” he shouted.
Yancy grinned and Midnight skittered up to the general. “He would, sir, but General Jackson gave Midnight his orders along with mine.”
“Orders from Stonewall, huh? What? Attack the North Pole?”
Even with bullets whistling by him and shells exploding all around him, Yancy was feeling the irrational exuberance of battle, and he laughed. “Better news than that, sir. General Jackson sends his compliments and wants to make you aware that General Ewell is on his way to support you with three brigades.”
General Hill let loose with a string of happy profanity. He finished with, “Good news from Stonewall, good news. Now you and your big black monster better be running along, little boy.”
Yancy saluted. “Yes, sir, I am ordered to General Lee. Not the North Pole.”
He pulled Midnight’s reins to the left and felt a curious thumping blow on his right arm. Puzzled, he looked down. There was a slowly spreading red stain on his gray sleeve. He looked back up at General Hill, who was looking down at Yancy’s arm. “Sir…?” Yancy began.
He felt his head whip to the side, as if he had been struck sharply on his right forehead. And then, curiously, slowly, his vision faded to black, and he knew no more.