SEVEN BLOODY DAYS AT AN END
Jackson was once more out early, on July first, moving with such alacrity as to suggest that yesterday had been only a nightmare. He ordered stragglers rounded up and put into action. Ewell’s troops, who had joined late yesterday, now became the rear guard. The enemy had left the bridge crossing of the swamp, and the Valley army pushed on.
It was not an easy march. Water was scarce, for one thing; the retreating enemy had thrown medicines into the wells and springs to save them from Confederate hands, and the water could not be drunk. There were plentiful spoils to be gathered, however.
Jackson’s division went into the front of the entire army, once it had crossed the swamp. Before daybreak it made contact with the main force of Lee’s army, Magruder’s troops, who had come up late last night to relieve the worn regiments of Longstreet and A. P. Hill. The army pulled together in the early morning. Even General Huger advanced, finding his road now clear. The general officers sought Lee. On the Long Bridge Road, Lee met with Magruder, Longstreet and A. P. Hill. Some thought the commander had a wan look, and that the bitter disappointment of yesterday was in his face. Lee was calm and deferential in manner, however, as he spoke of the battle at Frayser’s Farm, and gave his orders for the day.
While these officers conferred, Jackson arrived at Willis Church, not far away. He had been active. Lee talked with a prisoner sent by Old Jack, a Federal surgeon taken at the Savage’s Station hospital, Dr. N. F. Marsh. This doctor asked for medicines and care for his wounded men. Lee offered all the help possible and began his efforts to have the wounded prisoners exchanged, a policy which was to endure for most of the war. Longstreet seized the occasion for espionage. He questioned Marsh as to the identity of Federal regiments the army had faced, but the doctor said he knew only General McCall’s division, to which he belonged. This general had been captured, and Longstreet, in his usual heavy fashion, bespoke his confidence for the day with:
“McCall is safe in Richmond; but if his division had not fought so stubbornly on this road, we would have captured your whole army. Never mind—we will do it yet.”
No other officers expressed such optimism. Lee, in fact, was dubious that he would be able even to direct affairs that day, because he was so weary that he could scarcely ride. He asked Longstreet to remain at his side so that the latter might take command of the army if the need arose. Lee and Longstreet now rode to Willis Church, where they met D. H. Hill, who was pessimistic indeed.
Hill told them that a chaplain from his division, the Reverend L. W. Allen, a native of this neighborhood, had given a doleful warning of the low bluff known as Malvern Hill, which rose, a mile and a half long and half a mile wide, in the swamp country near the banks of the James.
“If McClellan is there in strength, we had better let him alone,” Hill said.
Longstreet made another of his weighty jokes. “Don’t get scared, now that we have got him whipped.”
Lee did not enter this discussion, but he gave orders for an immediate push forward. Jackson, since his column was already in the road near the church, was to lead the chase of the enemy. Lee already had evidence that Stonewall was in an active mood today. Magruder had talked with Jackson and had offered to put his own men in front. Jackson had refused, saying that the Valley troops were fresher.
At about noon, D. H. Hill saw Jackson at hard labor: “Some time was spent in reconnoitering.… I saw Jackson helping with his own hands to push Reilly’s North Carolina battery farther forward. It was soon disabled, the woods around us being filled with shrieking and exploding shells.”
Lee was in an unusually tense mood. When General Jubal A. Early asked the commander for orders and expressed his anxiety that McClellan might escape, Lee snapped, “Yes! He will get away because I cannot have my orders carried out!”
Lee followed Jackson’s path to the front, where he found confusion once more threatening his plans. His position before Malvern Hill was by no means ideal; it had to lie along a marshy, jungle-grown creek called Western Run, which crossed the road and wound into deep woodlands. There was one map in the army with a reasonably accurate representation of this neighborhood, and Lee had that. General Magruder was already lost and out of position, and it took time to move him into his proper place. Meanwhile the enemy casually shelled the gathering Confederate horde.
Jackson had a close call from a shell, which he treated with indifference. Kyd Douglas watched him: “Nearly a mile in the rear of his line … sitting on the roadside with his back against a tree, writing a note … a shell from a Parrott gun struck the column in front of us and exploded. Five or six men were killed or wounded, and dust was thrown over the General and his paper. Without raising his head he shook the paper to relieve it and proceeded with his note.… When the message was finished and folded he rose, gave explicit instructions that the dead be carried out of sight and the wounded cared for, and rode off to the front.”
Jackson soon met Lee and Ewell, and the generals talked, with their staffs about them, as firing increased. An officer galloped up to report artillery being ruined by Federal fire. Jackson turned to ride away, but Lee protested.
“Colonel Crutchfield is there. He will know what to do.”
Jackson rode off as if he heard nothing, Pendleton and Douglas at his side, directly into the path of Union cannon fire. One shell bounced near by and howled over their heads, another whizzed between Jackson and Pendleton, and a third burst so near as to scatter dirt over Jackson and Sorrel. The horse went to his haunches in fright, and Jackson impatiently lifted him. At that moment a staff officer arrived from Lee with an order: “General Lee presents his compliments and directs that you return at once.” Jackson galloped from the exposed position.
Officers studied the Federal lines with care; they seemed all but unassailable. The crest of the hill was some 150 feet above the lowlands, and here McClellan had ranged his artillery in masses. Skirmishers held the foot of the slope, with the winding stream and thick woodlands adding protection. The Union infantry lay near the guns, regiment on regiment. Storming up the hill would be murderous, since men would be forced to climb slowly through fields of wheat, in sight of the guns. A millpond covered the right flank, and the artillery the left, from a position over a broad meadow. The enemy had seldom chosen so superb a position.
Lee sent Longstreet to examine the left, with an eye to developing an attack from that direction. Old Pete returned with the suggestion that Lee bring up all available guns—at least one hundred—and drive off the enemy artillery by firing at it from slight angles. An infantry assault could follow. Jackson disagreed with Longstreet. A frontal assault would be too costly, even with such precautions, he said. Why not a flank attack by the right?
Lee rode toward the ground Jackson indicated, but for some reason did not trouble to make a close study of it. The commander took a brief look and reached a decision: He would follow Longstreet’s suggestion. The orders went out. Guns were to be brought up quickly to the highest available ground, so that they could reach the enemy batteries. This meant cutting roads through woods, and that work was begun. Few guns appeared, however. D. H. Hill’s artillerymen had run out of ammunition, and their guns had been left behind White Oak Swamp. Lee’s chief of heavy ordnance, General W. N. Pendleton, was expected to bring up the reserve guns, but he was astray today, aimlessly searching for Lee. And Jackson’s artilleryman, Colonel Crutchfield, was ill; this was unknown at headquarters.
Three Confederate guns soon opened on the enemy—and were broken to pieces by the blazing Union line. Lee’s guns were opened one or two at a time before others were ready to support; McClellan’s gunners thus blasted them almost at their leisure. Lee had to watch much of this in futile wrath, for thick growth on the front prevented instant control. Once, in midafternoon, he counted a scant twenty guns challenging the entire line of the enemy. He fumed, for he had already sent this order: “Batteries have been established to rake the enemy’s line. If it is broken, as is probable, Armistead, who can witness the effect of the fire, has been ordered to charge with a yell.”
It was as clear to Lee as to the apprehensive infantrymen in the waiting lines that the cannonade might not last the afternoon, much less break the Federal line. There was little hope that the brigade led by Armistead would show the way to victory.
Lee made an effort to improve things. He once more turned to thoughts of flank attack, and at about three o’clock rode far out to Jackson’s left with Longstreet. He found a way to strike the enemy in this quarter, and was debating how he could best bring up the reserve troops, when he had messages from the front which canceled those plans. The messages later proved to be confused and erroneous. They indicated that the enemy was falling back, and that the leading brigade under Armistead was pushing forward. Magruder, in particular, was now in a position to smash the enemy line. On strength of this news, Lee gave orders to carry out the original plan of attack.
Magruder’s men trotted into the open. Their nervous general had planned to launch fifteen thousand in this attack, but only one thousand came forth. Even these men were delayed by Magruder’s insistence upon making a speech to them. They went into close musket range of the Federals, just four hundred yards from the big guns. The lines were badly mangled. Reinforcements came up, but no more than five thousand were in the attack in this sector, attempting to storm a farmhouse on the forbidding hill. The attack was not a success. There was worse to come.
D. H. Hill, from his post near the center, had watched developments on either hand and had concluded that the day would pass without an attack. There would be the six or eight hours of lying under artillery fire, but nothing more punishing, for he believed that the slope could not be stormed.
When he heard Magruder’s firing, however, Hill assumed that this was the signal Lee had provided, and ordered his officers, “That must be the general advance! Bring up your brigades as soon as possible and join it.”
This was the beginning of wholesale slaughter. For though it was already nearing 7 P.M., and shadows were on the slope, there was yet time on this terrible hillside to wreck a division.
Most of the storming regiments were North Carolinians who went upward without hesitation. Hill was to write: “The courage of the soldiers was sublime.” On the open hill, however, there was only death. The enemy gunners redoubled their fire. In the storm of shell the finest regiments fell apart. One brigade, under General Garland, went halfway up the hill and was forced to lie down and await support. Colonel J. B. Gordon took a brigade to within two hundred yards of the crest. All over the hill were halted troops; hundreds were falling, especially officers and color-bearers. There was little artillery support. In the confusion of this massacre, and the drifting of other regiments over the field, Hill called on Jackson for reinforcements.
Jackson’s division had rested beyond this fury, suffering no more than occasional bursts of artillery. When Jackson attempted to send some of Ewell’s men to the aid of Hill, they could hardly push through the confusion of the roadway. General Early, trying to get through the press, saw “a large number of men retreating from the battlefield,” and “a very deep ditch filled with skulkers.” The streaming to the rear was so powerful that Early became separated from his command.
It was now too late, much too late for Lee. He had failed, and Jackson had failed, to give Hill and Magruder assistance in the last hour of slaughter; but the confusions of the field, the pressure of the enemy’s deadly guns, and the handicap of the forested plain with its narrow roads, all prevented instant action. The exposed brigades were forced to take their terrible losses before recoiling into the woodlands at the foot of the hill.
Lee was to write: “D. H. Hill pressed forward across the open field and engaged the enemy gallantly, breaking and driving back his first line; but a simultaneous advance of other troops not taking place, he found himself unable to maintain the ground.… Jackson sent to support his own division, and that part of Ewell’s which was in reserve; but owing to the increasing darkness, and the intricacy of the forest and swamp, they did not arrive in time.…”
Men remembered that there was no end to the roar of enemy field guns, from midafternoon until night fell, and over them were the fantastic crashes of the long cannon of the hidden gunboats on the James, throwing in the shells which the Rebels called “lamp posts.”
Ewell’s division went up at dusk, under a moonless sky lit like midday with the artillery. They passed Jackson, who sat his horse in perfect calm, trying to read during the hottest of the fire. The troops pressed on, with Colonel Bradley Johnson leading them. In the darkness some of them heard Ewell’s squeaky lisp: “Whose troops are these?” When some Marylander replied, Ewell shouted, “Thank God! You Maryland boys are the only ones I can find faced in the right direction.”
One of Ewell’s men remembered:
“Then commenced a night of horrors. It appears we were holding ground fought over in the day by D. H. Hill’s North Carolina troops, and the ground was covered with their dead and wounded. There would be a long drawn-out scream, and then the wounded would yell out: ‘Fourteenth North Carolina!’… ‘Fourth North Carolina!’ on all sides.”
D. H. Hill was aghast at the fate of his troops:
“I never saw anything more grandly heroic than the advance after sunset of the nine brigades. Unfortunately, they did not move together, and were beaten in detail. As each brigade emerged from the woods, from fifty to one hundred guns opened upon it, tearing great gaps in its ranks; but the heroes reeled on and were shot down by the reserves at the guns.… It was not war—it was murder.
“Our loss was double that of the Federals.… The artillery practice was kept up till nine o’clock at night.… I estimate that my division in that battle was 6,500 strong, and that the loss was 2,000.”
Once more Jackson’s own casualties had been light, though this day, because of the nature of the field, there was to be little criticism of his inaction. The delay at White Oak Swamp, army strategists were suggesting, had brought on the fearful day at Malvern Hill. But some of Lee’s generals were also saying that a competent reconnaissance would have prevented any attack at all on that day’s position.
Captain Blackford of Stuart’s cavalry, who passed through dark woods in search of Jackson, was struck by the ghastly spectacle under the trees: the lights, the groans, the work of surgeons, the lines of ambulances and the countless wounded. Blackford found Old Jack, reported that Stuart would join him soon, and explained what had happened to McClellan at the White House. Jackson laughed at Blackford’s description of the Union strategy.
“That’s good! That’s good!” Jackson cried. “Changing his base, is he? Ha! Ha!”
And after his first laugh of the day, Jackson invited Blackford to spend the night at his headquarters.
Jackson went to the rear at about ten o’clock, weary despite his failure to get into the front-line attack. He slept on the ground, where Jim made him a pallet, just out of the path of stragglers and wounded; he was almost immediately asleep after eating a light supper. His rest was short, for in the rainy night his brigade commanders became anxious and at 1 A.M. aroused him for instructions.
The officers told Jackson that the enemy was likely to attack in the morning, and they were concerned about their exposed positions. Jackson heard them out as if he had little interest in the discussion, and after he had asked one or two casual questions said, “No. I think he will clear out in the morning.”
Jackson’s prediction was borne out in the fog and sifting rain of dawn. Along their road Ewell’s men found the enemy gone, and saw this scene:
A wandering rail fence covered with thick growth of sassafras, dogwood and blackberry, where charging North Carolinians had yesterday ripped down rails to get at the enemy; bodies lay piled along the fence, some sitting gruesomely erect on the rails. On the open ground beyond lay complete files of men, each on his face, with musket grasped before him. Within ten feet of a ruined Union battery were windrows of dead men.
Colonel Moxley Sorrel, riding this road, went to a shanty in the woods, where he found General Ewell asleep. Ewell stirred, raised his head and stared. “Mithther Thorrel, can you tell me why we had 500 of our men killed on thith field yethterday?” Sorrel did not answer. Ewell covered his head.
Blackford rode into the field at daybreak with Jackson and saw details of men collecting and covering the dead. Jackson gave this an attention which surprised Blackford, who wrote:
“There was another peculiarity about this field … that greatly added to its horrors. It is a fact well-known among medical men … that under certain circumstances … when death comes suddenly from a wound the muscles become, instantly, perfectly rigid, and so remain. Owing probably to the extreme fatigue and excitement Jackson’s troops had been through … many of the bodies presented instances of this phenomenon.
“One man lay on his back with his legs raised in the air, one hand clutching a handful of grass on the ground, the other holding aloft at arm’s length … a bunch of turf torn up by the roots, at which he was glaring with his eyes wide open.… Quite a number held their muskets with one or both hands, and one poor fellow died in the act of loading.”
For hours the army gathered the dead; and to Blackford’s amazement, Jackson stood over the working men as they laid out rows, with up to fifty bodies in each, and spread blankets or oilcloths over them. Jackson sent others to hide equipment of the dead in ravines. He looked about the field, sending men to pick up every scrap of cloth or grisly debris. Jackson was stranger even than his reputation, Blackford thought. But he saw at the end that the scene was much less depressing and that the numbers of casualties appeared much less.
“Why did you have the field cleaned like this?” the cavalryman asked Jackson.
“Because I am going to attack here presently, as soon as the fog rises, and it won’t do to march troops over their own dead, you know. That’s what I’m doing it for.”
The attack was not to be. Jackson and Lee soon entered another council of war. President Davis had once more come out to the battlefield, this time without previous notice.
Jackson was first to arrive at headquarters, which was in the home of a family named Poindexter. Old Jack stood with Lee at a fireside, reporting his observations of the morning. The enemy was fleeing in disorder, he said. He had fallen silent, and Lee was dictating to his aide, Walter Taylor (who was now a colonel), when Longstreet blustered in, shouting that he must send a message to his wife in Richmond announcing his survival of battle. Lee calmed him with a soft reply and asked Old Pete’s opinion on last night’s engagement.
“General,” Longstreet said soberly, “I think you hurt them about as much as they hurt you.”
This was a doleful note for Lee, though it was perhaps a bit more optimistic than was warranted. At this moment President Davis stepped into the room unannounced. Lee was revealed in one of his rare moments of uncertainty, for he said quickly, “President, I am glad to see you.”
Watching officers noted the unusual address, and with even greater interest watched the meeting of Davis and Jackson. Old Jack’s figure had stiffened at the moment the President entered.
After Lee and Davis had exchanged greetings, Lee presented Jackson, whom the President had seen only briefly, after Bull Run. The staffs enjoyed the scene. Jackson, who had long resented the role of Davis in the incident of Loring and the expedition to Romney, in Western Virginia, now refused to offer his hand. He stood at attention, looking beyond Davis.
Lee turned to Davis. “Why, don’t you know General Jackson? This is our Stonewall Jackson.”
Davis bowed, but did not bring forth his hand. Jackson gave a brisk salute and remained silent.
Lee and Davis talked of the military situation, and gaping young staff officers heard the two leaders of the Confederacy in an unrestrained discussion. Davis proposed an attack on McClellan, immediately. Lee gave him a patient explanation as to why it could not be done. They talked as the rain poured in torrents over the swamp country. Jackson did not speak until the two had reached the decision that the Federals could not be attacked today. When asked for his opinion, Old Jack spoke quietly: “They have not all got away if we go immediately after them.”
The council ended with the decision to remain in the neighborhood with the army. Jackson did not protest, or repeat his opinion. The President, who had been seeking liquor for his drenched party, was glad to see the doors opened and other officers crowding in, one of them Major Charles Marshall of Lee’s staff, who had a silver flask of “excellent old whisky” given him by the captured Federal, General George A. McCall.
Douglas noted that the President “touched it very lightly; General Lee declined, saying that he would not deprive some young officer of a drink which he would better appreciate. General Longstreet took a good, soldierly swig of it. General Jackson declined, and also General Stuart.” Stuart’s suggestion that McCall must have poisoned the liquor did not affect the thirst of the staff, and the flask was soon empty.
There was little to be done that day. The army was moved forward painfully; and A. P. Hill and Longstreet, whose divisions were the best marchers of the campaign, could make but two miles in the rain.
On this dreary day, General Richard Taylor left the army, leaving a gap in Jackson’s command. Taylor, who had been in an ambulance for more than a week, was now ordered to the western theater of the war, but paralysis of the legs was to prevent his active soldiering for a time. On Jackson’s recommendation, Taylor had been made a major general.
In the afternoon, Stuart and a handful of troopers found the enemy on the James River, and though a horse battery and a Congrieve “Rocket Battery” shelled the enemy, the cavalrymen seemed to do more harm than good. First, the experimental rockets, throwing “liquid damnation,” came howling back like boomerangs to scatter the Confederates. Further, Stuart had stirred and educated the enemy, for the Federals soon saw that the ridge from which Stuart was firing should be seized as a bit of commanding ground, and the bluecoats occupied it.
The next morning, July third, Jackson followed Stuart’s lead over the poor road to the river, but the force made little progress in the mud, and Jackson went into camp at sunset with only three miles covered. He gave orders to move before dawn and told his staff officers they should breakfast and be in the saddle when the army moved. He also ordered that guides be sent to General Ewell, just at dawn.
In the early morning, Jim shook awake the young staff officers in a farmhouse room; the General was asking for them, and breakfast was ready. Douglas, first up, met the General as he emerged from his room. When Jackson learned that the guides had not been sent to Ewell, but were still asleep, he sent them off without breakfast. His temper was not improved when he found his own staff tardy. He could not conceal his anger.
Only Jim had eaten breakfast, but Jackson ordered the meal dispensed with and told the servant to pack his equipment and have the wagon rolling within ten minutes. As Douglas mourned and other officers arrived cursing, Jim poured fresh coffee on the ground and stored away the rest of the food. Even the Reverend Dabney, appearing sleepy-eyed and half-dressed, did not manage a bite to eat for all his skill, for Jim had determined that if his favorites went hungry, all would do so. The caravan got underway with tempers short.
The sport was only beginning, for Jackson, moving rapidly, also found General Ewell abed, and before staff officers he gave Ewell a tongue-lashing, and sent Douglas to put Ewell’s troops in motion. Douglas used the visit to beg a breakfast, and when he returned, had the poor grace to tell his fellows of the meal in detail. The staff at large did not eat until one o’clock in the afternoon.
On this day, the common soldiers of Confederacy and Union made their own brief truce; and in defiance of officers, the nation was reunited in a blackberry patch. Private Casler was there:
“The next day, the 4th of July, we lay in line of battle all day, my regiment being on picket; but not a shot was fired. The post I was on was in the woods, and in front of us was an open field; beyond the field were woods, and the enemy was on picket there. This field was full of blackberries; so our boys and the Yanks made a bargain not to fire at each other, and went out in the field, leaving one man on each post with the arms, and gathered berries together and talked over the fight, traded tobacco and coffee and exchanged newspapers as peacefully and kindly as if they had not been engaged for the last seven days in butchering one another.”
The line of battle lay beneath Evelington Hill, the heights held by the Federals near the James River. Jackson was insistent that he could not join an attack here today, for his men were in no condition to fight. Lee arrived, and Longstreet urged an assault. Lee was skeptical. He took Jackson and rode along every foot of the front, at many points dismounting to study the terrain through glasses. The two could find no means of attacking, for McClellan had covered well the flanks on the ridge so obligingly pointed out to him by Stuart. And behind this ridge lay the entire Federal army, confident as it waited beneath the gunboats. The enemy had crowded about Harrison’s Landing, near the historic Westover, home of the Byrd family. There was little to be done beyond the expression of bitter regret in Lee’s report on the Seven Days: “Under ordinary circumstances the Federal army should have been destroyed.”
Such regret had a strange sound, perhaps, coming from a commander who in one week had sent a vastly superior invading army reeling back from Richmond’s gates to this beachhead on the river. But Lee, like the jealous, bickering officers who now raised a jackal’s chorus, saw beyond this temporary victory over McClellan; for they had glimpsed the dazzling opportunity to crush the military effort of the North, an opportunity dashed by human failures and unwieldly command.
The week, of course, had been far from a failure. Richmond’s delivery was hailed by the Confederacy as a triumph. After all, the enemy was now only a disheartened fraction of the host of a week ago, cowering on the river bank in such fear that Lee dared to withdraw his infantry and post a cavalry watch on the invaders. In this week, to be sure, the Army of Northern Virginia had paid a fearful cost, more than twenty thousand casualties. There was reason to believe the enemy loss much greater, but the Confederacy could not bear such exchanges. Lee had taken some ten thousand prisoners, and seized fifty-two precious cannon and more than thirty thousand muskets.
Of these grievous losses Jackson had borne few. His Valley army of three brigades had lost only 208 dead and wounded; and the total force he commanded before Richmond, though it was almost a quarter of the entire army, had suffered only twelve hundred casualties, or about 6 per cent of the total loss.
Criticism was plentiful, and some of it did not spare Jackson, though Lee placed no blame on him for his part in the campaign. Longstreet, D. H. Hill and others were critical of Jackson in varying degree, and a lesser officer, Robert Toombs of Georgia, scored both Lee and Jackson. This hotheaded officer, a prewar Senator, wrote after the Seven Days: “Stonewall Jackson and his troops did little or nothing in these battles of the Chickahominy, and Lee was far below the occasion.”
There were now changes in command, and in light of the failures in the Seven Days, they seemed fortunate. General Magruder had his wish and was transferred to the West, though not until President Davis had consulted with him over army gossip that Magruder had been drunk in battle and had hidden from enemy fire. General Huger, at his request, was sent to South Carolina. D. H. Hill, though he had behaved bravely and well, was needed in North Carolina, and was moved there. The transfers of Magruder and Huger were accomplished with a great flurry of written reports by the generals, which stirred controversy in their wake.
General Pendleton, the artillery chief, made a curious report as to the failure of the big guns at Malvern Hill: he had been slightly ill and had wandered over the field, unable first to find Lee, and then to find suitable spots for his guns. There was a tacit admission of his inability to handle the army’s ordnance in the field, though he had shown initiative in concentrating command of the artillery, and in making voluminous reports.
Jackson did not, now or later, give a hint in official reports that his role in the Chickahominy country had been less effective than usual, but he hinted that his thoughts were on the subject in a letter to Anna:
“During the past week I have not been well, have suffered from fever and debility, but through the blessing of an ever-kind Providence I am much better today.”
This was his first and only written mention of his condition in these days.
Jackson, oblivious to critics, had some small adventures this week. He and Douglas, riding the lines one day, halted to pick berries on a hillside, though the young officer protested that enemy rifle fire was becoming dangerously warm. Jackson calmly sat his horse, eating berries, and then, Douglas wrote:
“He paused, and turning to me, with a large, shining berry poised between his thumb and finger, enquired maladroitly in what part of the body I would prefer being shot. I replied that primarily I’d prefer being hit in the clothes but if it was made a question of body, I’d prefer any place to my face or joints.…
“He said he had the old-fashioned horror of being shot in the back, and so great was his prejudice on the subject that he had often found himself turning his face in the direction from which the bullets came.”
The Yankee bullets drove Jackson away only when the horses became nervous. On this ride with Douglas, Jackson came upon General Toombs in an awkward position. Jackson saw that the picket lines of Toombs were not connected to flanking brigades, and were thus dangerously “in the air,” inviting attack. Jackson went to the headquarters of Toombs, whom he found stretched in a small tent, having a siesta. When aroused, Toombs said he had left the detail of placing pickets to a staff officer, who had turned it over to a field officer. Toombs said he thought the situation must be satisfactory. Jackson snapped at him and ordered him to go in person to rectify his front line. Toombs went off obediently, giving Douglas memories of past contrasts between this Georgian he had once heard in eloquent speech in the United States Senate, and his commanding general who had so recently been only a quaint and derided professor in Lexington.
On a hot afternoon of this week, Jackson did his only nonmilitary, nonreligious reading of the war, a sensational paper-backed novel, bound in garish yellow, and illustrated with fetching woodcuts. The General had halted beneath a tree for a noon nap, as he often did. When he awoke, he astonished his staff by asking if there was a novel about headquarters. It had been long before the war when he last read one, he said. A headquarters clerk, Hugh McGuire, passed a cheap book to Douglas, who handed it to Jackson. As the young officers watched, Jackson read through the short volume with the air of a man performing an essential duty. Now and then the staff saw the grim face smile. When he was done, Jackson returned the book, thanking McGuire and Douglas. “It’s been a long time since I read a novel,” he said. “And it will be a long time until I read another.”
The staff began to enjoy itself. At the end of a letter to Anna, Jackson had written: “Last week I received a present of a beautiful summer hat from a lady in Cumberland. Our Heavenly Father gives me friends wherever I go.… It would be delightful to see my darling, but we know that all things are ordered for the best.”
When the hat arrived, there was diversion at headquarters, for in a rare mood Jackson had tried on the hat before his mirror, and the comic appearance of the commander peering forth from beneath the broad straw brim set the officers to howling at the “caricature” he became. The General only glanced at his image, and passed the hat to Jim, who with ironic dignity bore it away on his finger tips; the hat was never seen again.
Jackson twice had encounters on the roads below Richmond. One night as he rode with his staff, he fell asleep in the saddle. Dr. McGuire often had to keep him on the horse by holding the General’s coattail, and despite a pact between them to reciprocate, McGuire never got such service from Jackson. On this night, going toward headquarters, Jackson was swaying in his saddle as the group passed the campfire of some stragglers who were cooking corn. One of these men came into the road and, failing to recognize the entourage, shouted to Jackson, “Hello! I say, old fellow, where the devil did you get your likker?”
The General started awake. “Dr. McGuire, did you speak to me? Captain Pendleton, did you? Somebody did.” He halted.
The soldier gaped. “Good God, it’s Old Jack!” He fled into the dark. The staff roared its laughter, and when the incident was explained to Jackson, he joined them. He quickly dismounted, however, tied Sorrel to a fence, and lay by the road for half an hour’s nap. It was almost 1 A.M. when he stirred.
Jackson also clashed with a neighboring farmer, who, cursing in a loud voice, charged the General with a cane when he rode into a grainfield. The farmer was finally made to understand Jackson’s identity; but in Douglas’s version, he was not abashed and continued to scold Jackson for his bad example to his men. In the version given by Mrs. Jackson, who wrote from a distance, and always with a penchant for the inspiring story, the farmer simpered when told who Jackson was: “What! Stonewall Jackson? General, ride over my whole field; do whatever you like with it, sir!”
A day later Jackson, passing the place, pointed it out as the scene of the “severest lecture” he had ever had, adding that it had made him careful of private property.
On July eighth, as Lee began the full-scale movement back to Richmond, Jackson came near to insubordination. He once more advanced his favorite scheme: give him forty thousand men and he would invade the North. Now, with General John Pope in Federal command in Western Virginia, and McClellan cowed on the James, a blow into enemy country would be the best possible defense for the Confederacy. He pressed the plan upon Lee at some length. The commander gave no answer, asking time to think it over. Jackson determined to go over Lee’s head—impetuously, considering the tenor of the last meeting of President Davis and Jackson. Old Jack called the useful Boteler.
Colonel Boteler found the General excited.
“Do you know we are losing valuable time here?” Jackson asked. “We are repeating the blunder after the battle of Manassas—giving the enemy leisure to recover from his defeat while we suffer from inaction.” The thin voice rose. “Yes—we are wasting precious time in this malarial place, when we should be elsewhere. I want to talk with you about it.”
Jackson once more outlined his plan, saying that since McClellan was whipped, Richmond was safe—and that the time had come to launch the offensive Old Jack had proposed in May, while he was still in the Valley. He would follow any leader Davis would appoint, Jackson told Boteler; he asked his agent to go to the President and ask permission for the project. Jackson offered assurance that he sought no personal gain. Boteler was cautious. Why should the problem be taken to Davis, when the President would merely refer it to Lee? Why did Jackson not talk with Lee?
“I have already done so.”
“What does he say?”
“Nothing. Don’t think I complain of his silence; he doubtless has a good reason for it.”
“Then don’t you think General Lee is slow making up his mind?”
“Slow? By no means, Colonel. On the contrary, his perception is as quick and unerring as his judgment is infallible. But with the vast responsibilities resting on him, he is perfectly right in withholding a hasty expression of his opinions and purposes.”
Boteler recalled his outburst at a much later date, and it bears marks of cautious reflection. But there was even more. Boteler said this did not satisfy Jackson, who, far from being trapped into criticism of his commander, added:
“So great is my confidence in General Lee that I am willing to follow him blindfolded. But I fear he is unable to give me a definite answer now because of influences at Richmond.”
Boteler went to Davis with Jackson’s argument, but aroused no enthusiasm in the President, who thought decision should be delayed. Davis was already thinking of dealing with Pope in the northwest section of the state, and he was ready to send Jackson after the Union general.
On July tenth, Jackson’s corps arrived in the neighborhood of Richmond, and here the Reverend Dabney left the service. The staff did not seem unhappy to see him go. Douglas thought Dabney “too old, too reverend,… with no previous training … no experience.”
Jackson wrote: “It was with tearful eyes that I consented to our separation.” But Dabney, after three months’ service on the staff, was ill, and insisted that he must go. There were perhaps other reasons for his departure, for Dabney, who was to become an early Jackson biographer, wrote of his troubles at the opening of the Seven Days:
“Here we had a disastrous illustration of the lack of an organized and intelligent general staff.… As chief of Jackson’s staff, I had two assistant adjutant generals, two men of the engineer department, and two clerks.… For orderlies and couriers? A detail from some cavalry company which happened to bivouac near. The men were sent to me without any reference to their local knowledge, their intelligence, or their courage; most probably they were selected by their captain on account of their lack of these qualities. Next to the Commander-in-Chief, the chief of the general staff should be the best man in the country.”
Now, for good or evil, Dabney was gone. Sandie Pendleton became acting chief, and Jackson revealed another stern phase of his nature in a letter to Anna. His wife was seeking to get her brother, Lieutenant Joseph Morrison, a place on Jackson’s staff. The General declared: “If you will vouch for Joseph’s being an early riser during the remainder of the war, I will give him an aide-ship. I do not want to make an appointment on my staff except of such as are early risers; but if you will vouch for him to rise regularly at dawn, I will offer him the position.”
Joseph, fresh from Virginia Military Institute, was soon appointed, and within a few weeks joined the staff.
Jackson now made headquarters in a tent in the yard of a farmhouse some two miles from Richmond, on the Mechanicsville Road. He had declined a room in the house, saying that he would not interfere with the farm family. He was to remain here for about a week, with only two visits to Richmond. He went into the city for a brief talk with Lee one night. On Sunday, July thirteenth, he went in to church.
Early Sunday morning, Jackson rode into Richmond, accompanied by McGuire, Pendleton and Douglas. He led them to a Presbyterian church whose pastor was the Reverend Moses D. Hoge, where he took a side pew, as if endeavoring to avoid notice. At the end of the service, however, the congregation had recognized him as the hero of the Valley, and people crowded about him, pushing his staff officers into a corner. The young men finally got the General into the open, but no sooner had he reached the sidewalk than a lady ran up and led Jackson away with her. He returned in about fifteen minutes. (Mrs. Jackson wrote that this woman was the mother of a boy killed in the General’s ranks.)
The staff had numerous concerns in these days, in addition to the charms of the city. The army was alive with rumors and gossip, and feuds were growing. One had begun in a Richmond newspaper, which published an article praising General A.P. Hill—the reporter was with Hill’s staff—and criticizing Longstreet. This had reached the point of exchanged insults between the two generals. Longstreet had placed Hill under arrest.
The Valley soldiers took no part in this controversy, but another now rose in their midst. An officer of Ewell’s division, without the knowledge of Ewell, had gone to the War Department saying that the officers and men were dissatisfied under Jackson’s command. They wished to be transferred to some other general. The report spread through the city, and Ewell went immediately to General Samuel Cooper, the Adjutant General, to disclaim the report and request that the division be left under Jackson. Cooper assured him that no change was contemplated.
On the night of July thirteenth, just before they prepared to leave the Richmond area for a new theater of war, Jackson’s officers discovered the unspoken state of mind of their commander, who inadvertently revealed that he was looking backward.
McGuire, Crutchfield and Pendleton were in a room discussing the recent battles when Jackson passed through. One of the officers wondered aloud if it would not have been better for Jackson to have moved to the aid of Longstreet at the battle of Frayser’s Farm, and Jackson’s quick voice broke in: “If General Lee had wanted me, he could have sent for me.”
He could hardly have said with greater eloquence that his memories were yet in the humid swampland, and that the roaring jungles of the Chickahominy haunted him—though he was never to admit a failure, here or elsewhere.