Six

Aide-de-Camp

 

The position of aide-de-camp at army headquarters, which carried with it the brevet, or temporary, rank of captain, entailed great responsibility. George Armstrong Custer would report directly to General McClellan and take orders only from him. As the top commander’s representative, he was required to be knowledgeable about troop positions, movements, routes, and locations of the officers and to possess the ability to modify orders on the battlefield if McClellan was unavailable. He would spend long hours in the saddle without food or sleep and, if necessary, ride into the thickest of the fighting to gather information or deliver the commander’s orders.

The adventurous Custer was perfectly suited for this position, which would also serve as a valuable learning experience for him from the man whom he had previously sworn that he would “follow to the ends of the earth.”

The admiration and devotion that Custer held for McClellan would soon become mutual. The general wrote, “In those days, Custer was simply a reckless, gallant boy, undeterred by fatigue, inconscious of fear. His head was always clear in danger and he always brought me clear and intelligible reports of what he saw under the heaviest fire. I became much attached to him.”1

In some respects, this relationship between McClellan and Custer was quite odd. The most glaring contradiction was how the two men differed in their approach to combat. McClellan was overly cautious and hesitant when it came to attacking, whereas Custer was a man of action who bordered on recklessness and was prone to charge rather than wait. Nevertheless, the two men quickly established a close bond, with Custer clearly engaging in hero worship of his older mentor.

By the end of May, McClellan’s 105,000-man army had approached to within six miles of Richmond—close enough to observe church spires rising above the city. McClellan placed two corps south and three north of the swollen Chickahominy near the crossroads of Seven Pines and Fair Oaks Station on the Richmond & York River Railroad. The Federal commander was confident that he could now administer “one desperate blow” to destroy the Confederacy.2

It was Confederate general Joseph Johnston, however, who seized the initiative and on May 31 attacked one of McClellan’s isolated corps with his sixty thousand fighting men. Johnston had been pressured by President Jefferson Davis to mount an offensive against the Union forces, which had not been the best idea. The general’s hastily devised battle plan was perhaps too complicated to be effectively executed. The two-day battle of Seven Pines and Fair Oaks resulted in enormous casualties on both sides. The Federal troops suffered 5,031 casualties and the Confederates 6,134—including the wounding of Johnston, who was struck in the chest with a shell fragment. In the end, the Yankees held the ground when the Rebels withdrew.3

General George McClellan, however, could not savor the victory. This was the first battle under Little Mac’s command that his troops had suffered serious losses. He wrote to his wife after the fight was over, “I am tired of the sickening sight of the battlefield, with its mangled corpses & poor suffering wounded! Victory has no charms for me when purchased at such cost.”4

During the battle, Confederate Lieutenant James B. Washington, an aide-de-camp to General Johnston, was carrying messages when he happened upon Union troops and was captured. Washington was escorted to McClellan’s headquarters, where Armstrong Custer cared for his West Point class of ’59 acquaintance. The two men were photographed together—in one photo Washington called out to a small black boy standing nearby, and placed the child between the two men, saying the picture ought to be called “Both sides, the cause.” This photo later appeared in Harper’s Weekly. When Washington was sent to the rear, Custer gave him some money, a gesture the prisoner and his family never forgot.5

On June 1, Confederate president Jefferson Davis replaced General Johnston with fifty-five-year-old Robert E. Lee—West Point class of 1829—who had been called by Union general Winfield Scott “the best soldier I ever saw in the field.”

Robert was the fourth child of “Light Horse Harry” Lee, who had been a Revolutionary War cavalry hero. Harry, however, subsequently had been imprisoned for debt and died from wounds he received in trying to suppress a riot in Baltimore. Young Robert was reared by his widowed mother in Alexandria, Virginia, where he attended private schools until being appointed to West Point in 1825. He graduated second in his class, without a demerit to his name, and was commissioned a second lieutenant. Two years after his graduation, he married heiress Mary Custis, the great-granddaughter of Martha Washington. The couple would have seven children.

Lee would toil at various civil and military engineering projects until the Mexican War, when he was assigned to the staff of General Winfield Scott. He distinguished himself in several battles, including the assault of Chapultepec, where he was wounded. He was promoted to brevet colonel for his heroism, and in 1852 assumed a three-year term as superintendent at West Point. He was on leave from his assignment in Texas in 1859 when he was placed in command of a detachment of United States Marines and recaptured the Harpers Ferry arsenal from John Brown and his followers.

After the fall of Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln offered Lee the field command of the Union army. Lee, a loyal Virginian, declined and instead accepted command of his state defenses. On August 31, 1961, he was promoted to full general with the assignment as special advisor to President Jefferson Davis. Now, he was commander of the forces he named “The Army of Northern Virginia.”

Robert E. Lee’s first order was to withdraw his army to the outskirts of Richmond in order to defend that city while he planned an offensive intended to crush McClellan’s army.6

Meanwhile, Confederate cavalry commander Jeb Stuart was disappointed with his role thus far in the campaign, and sought an opportunity to help his country and distinguish himself in the process.

Virginia plantation born, twenty-nine-year-old James Ewell Brown Stuart—known to his friends as “Jeb”—was educated at home by his mother, his aunt, and various tutors until the age of fifteen, when he entered Emory & Henry College. After two years of college and a failed attempt at enlisting in the army, Jeb received an appointment to West Point, where he graduated in 1854, ranked thirteenth in his class of forty-six.

The newly commissioned lieutenant served on scouting duty in Texas, but was soon transferred to the First Cavalry Regiment at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Territory. At that post in 1855, he met Flora Cooke, the daughter of the commander of the Second Dragoon Regiment. The couple was married in November of that year. He engaged in fighting Native Americans on the Plains, as well as participating in the violence of Bleeding Kansas.

In one notable 1857 skirmish with the Cheyenne on Solomon’s Fork, or the Smoky Hill River, in northwest Kansas, Stuart was chasing a fleeing group of warriors when he came upon several troopers battling with a dismounted warrior who had leveled his revolver and was about to shoot one of the men. Stuart instinctively drew his saber and charged to protect his comrade. Stuart swung his blade, feeling the steel strike its target, but simultaneously, the warrior discharged his weapon from a distance of about one foot. The bullet struck Stuart squarely in the chest. He was carried three miles to the doctor, who announced that the bullet had bounced off a bone and lodged in fatty tissue without causing serious damage to any vital organ. Stuart was back to duty in several weeks.

In 1859, Stuart invented and patented a new piece of cavalry equipment, a saber hook, which improved the manner in which sabers were attached to belts. While in Washington to discuss a government contract for his invention, Stuart served as an aide-de-camp to Colonel Robert E. Lee at Harpers Ferry and read the ultimatum to John Brown before the assault.

Jeb Stuart was promoted to captain in April 1861, but resigned from the U.S. Army in May with the advent of war. He was made a lieutenant colonel in the Virginia infantry, promoted to lieutenant colonel of cavalry soon after, and now served as a brigadier general commanding a brigade of gray-clad horsemen.7

Stuart was a jovial man who loved to laugh and sing. He viewed himself as the ultimate cavalier, and played the role to the hilt. He was described by author Mark Nesbitt, “In stature he was six feet, and weighed about one-hundred and ninety pounds. A complexion somewhat ruddy from exposure, with light brown hair, worn rather long, and full flowing beards. His regulation gray uniform was profusely decorated with gold braid, and was topped with a broad-brimmed felt hat, pinned up at the side with a star from which drooped an extravagantly large ostrich feather. On his left breast was a shield, about two inches in width, which held a chain attached to the handle of a small stiletto, the blade being passed through the button holes of his coat.” He was also known to wear a red-lined gray cape, a yellow sash, and a hat cocked roguishly to the side, and he placed a red flower in his lapel.8

Now, this dashing cavalier craved adventure and achievement. To that end, he decided to initiate a reconnaissance of the area to determine whether the enemy had any glaring weaknesses.

John Singleton Mosby had been assigned to Jeb Stuart’s cavalry as a scout. Mosby, who had attended the University of Virginia until being imprisoned for shooting a fellow student—the details of which are elusive to this day—had left his law practice in Bristol, Virginia, to fight at Bull Run, and was as anxious for action as the cavalry commander.

Mosby was dispatched by Stuart on a mission to find out if McClellan had protected his army’s supply line on the right flank. Mosby returned from his scout to report that the Union had only a few cavalry outposts in that area, which rendered the supply line quite vulnerable. An elated Jeb Stuart immediately rode off to General Lee’s headquarters at Dabb’s Farm.

The commanding general was impressed with the information, but required confirmation. Stuart would lead his cavalry—1,200 men—on a raiding expedition into the Union rear for the purpose of gaining intelligence, disrupting supply and communication lines, and destroying wagon trains.9

At 2:00 A.M. on June 12, a cheerful Jeb Stuart awakened his staff and announced, “Gentlemen, in ten minutes every man must be in the saddle!” He told no one of their destination, and when asked how long they would be gone, replied, “It may be for years and it may be forever.”

The morning was sweltering and muggy as Stuart and his cavalry rode steadily northward up the Brook Turnpike. Stuart could never have dared imagine the extent of accolades that would be showered upon him for this mission—but he was about to ride into the annals of Southern legend.10

On Sunday morning, June 15, after three days in the saddle and a distance of 150 miles, General Stuart, with Mosby scouting the way, returned home after riding all the way around McClellan’s army. He had obtained vital intelligence, confiscated or destroyed millions of dollars’ worth of Union property, bloodied the enemy at will, and captured 165 prisoners and 260 horses and mules—all the while thoroughly embarrassing the Northern army. And he had lost only one man—Captain William Latane, who would become a martyr for the Confederate cause for losing his life in a cavalry charge at Old Church. Stuart’s amazing feat gained him overnight celebrity status in the South.11

Beneath headlines such as “A Magnificent Achievement,” Southern newspapers were filled with embellished accounts of this dangerous expedition. Stuart was hailed a hero by an adoring Confederate public to the extent that when he was recognized while viewing a military drill, he obliged requests to make a speech from the steps of the Governor’s Mansion, which was received “amidst the ring of deafening cheers.” But perhaps the most significant praise came from General Lee, who called Stuart a “gallant officer” and expressed “his admiration of the courage and skill so conspicuously exhibited throughout” the raid that he proclaimed “a brilliant exploit.” From that point forward, Lee would regard Stuart’s cavalry as the trusted eyes and ears of the Confederate army.12

General Lee planned to act immediately on the intelligence that Stuart had provided by confirming that his enemy indeed had a weak spot that could be exploited. This action would entail bringing General Stonewall Jackson down from the Shenandoah Valley to join three other divisions that together would strike the vulnerable Federal right flank.13

General George McClellan had abandoned his headquarters at White House and was in the process of moving twenty miles away to the James River by the time the Confederates attacked at Mechanicsville on June 26—without Jackson, who inexplicably continued to slowly march southward and failed to arrive according to his commander’s wishes.

Captain George Armstrong Custer was sent by McClellan to determine the extent of the situation on the battlefield. He reported back that certain units were under immense pressure, and then was told by McClellan to pass the word to the beleaguered Pennsylvania Reserves to “maintain the honor of Pennsylvania.” Custer rode along the entire line under fire repeating McClellan’s words of encouragement to each regiment he passed, and was showered with cheers from the troops.

On the following day, Custer was conferring with McClellan when Stonewall Jackson finally arrived from the Valley to strike a corps five miles downstream from headquarters at Gaines’ Mill. Custer was asked by McClellan if he knew of any crossing sites suitable to send in reinforcements. When Custer replied that he did, McClellan sent him out to guide two brigades across the river; the crossing was not completed until late that afternoon amidst a scene of confusion that reminded Custer of the mad scramble across Cub Run Bridge at Bull Run.

McClellan kept his aide-de-camp busy moving brigades into position and assisting in the removal of the wounded. Armstrong Custer would later write to his sister, “I was in the saddle four consecutive nights and as many days. I generally had but one meal—coffee and hard bread—breakfast.”

The stamina of George Armstrong Custer was remarkable. He may have been on the slender side, but he was physically strong and could stay awake and alert for long periods of time. One officer remarked that Custer could “eat and sleep as much as anyone when he has the chance. But he can do without either when necessary.”14

During this vicious battle, the Confederate artillery was commanded by Tom Rosser, Custer’s best friend at West Point, who had been promoted to lieutenant colonel on June 10. Rosser had distinguished himself throughout the conflict, and was singled out for official praise by General Beverly Robertson, “Rosser received a severe flesh wound in the arm, which, though did not prevent his commanding the pieces while the engagement continued. [He] displayed much judgment in placing his pieces, which, under his personal supervision, were served in the most handsome style.”15

Captain John Pelham also received a complimentary report from Jeb Stuart, “[He] displayed such signal ability as an artillerist; such heroic example and devotion in danger and indomitable energy under difficulties in the movement of his battery. I feel bound to ask for his promotion, with the remark that in either cavalry or artillery no field grade is too high for his merit and capacity.” Pelham, stripped down to his shirtsleeves, had helped load, aim, and fire his guns.16

It was no wonder that these two Custer friends from West Point would distinguish themselves. Former roommates Rosser and Pelham were flamboyant extroverts, known as aggressive commanders who demonstrated raw courage under fire and would risk their own lives to inspire their troops. No doubt Custer had heard of their exploits, and was eager to prove that he belonged alongside them as a battlefield commander. But for now, Custer understood that his role as McClellan’s aide was a vital part of Union military operations.

Rosser, however, was not destined to remain in artillery. At the Academy, Rosser, Pelham, and Custer were known as the best riders on the post. On June 24, Rosser was promoted to full colonel and assigned command of the Fifth Virginia Cavalry Regiment in Jeb Stuart’s division. Rosser would be in the saddle for the remainder of the war, and would prove himself to be an invaluable cavalry officer.17

With Lee’s army on two sides of him, McClellan abandoned his advance on Richmond and began to withdraw down the James River. On July 1, Union forces successfully repulsed Confederate assaults at Malvern Hill, which brought to an end the so-called Seven Days’ Campaign. McClellan marched his army through the rain that night to Harrison’s Landing, where gunboats on the James River could protect the troops.

While McClellan’s men rested and recuperated, the general dispatched messages to Washington imploring President Lincoln to supply more men, that the lack of troop strength was the reason the operation had not been successful. Regardless of the Southerners’ victories, McClellan’s frustration, and the president’s lack of patience, morale amongst the Federal troops was high and their commanding general personally remained popular.18

During this time of relaxation, Custer loafed around the encampment, spending most of his time with his new best friend, Lieutenant Nicholas Bowen. Both men had taken on paid “servants” from the scores of former slaves who had poured into the camps to seek Union protection. Custer’s horse was well taken care of, his uniform was neat and tidy, and his boots were shined daily. He had also acquired a dog named Rose, which would start the custom of him keeping animals, including packs of dogs, at his duty stations throughout the rest of his life.19

On August 2, First Lieutenant George Armstrong Custer—his new regular army rank dated to July 17—was detailed by McClellan to accompany a reconnaissance mission toward Southern lines comprised of three hundred cavalrymen under the command of Colonel William W. Averell.

By late morning, the patrol had traveled forty miles. Custer was scouting ahead when he came upon a regiment of Confederate cavalry near White Oak Swamp. He reported his discovery, and Colonel Averell ordered a charge. The surprised Rebels scattered in the face of the assault, many of them surrendering when realizing that their escape route was cut off.

At one point, Custer chased a Confederate officer who was riding a bay horse with a black saddle and a morocco breast-strap, and called for the man to surrender. Their harrowing ride took them hurdling over fences and racing through treacherous pastures and shrub-clogged woodlands. Custer urged his mount to greater speeds, and gained on his enemy. He called out once more for the man to halt and surrender. When there was no reply, Custer pulled out his pistol and shot the officer from the saddle—probably the first man he had killed in the war in a one-on-one situation. He later wrote, “I had either shot him in the neck or body. In either case the wound must have been mortal. It was his own fault; I told him twice to surrender, but he compelled me to shoot him.”

Custer also captured a soldier and confiscated a double-barreled shotgun and a bright bay horse, which he planned to send home to his brother, Boston. He also captured or was given a sword—a coveted Toledo blade—from the saddle of a riderless mount. This heavy sword was inscribed with the Spanish sentiment: NO NI TIRES SIN RAZON, NO MI ENVAINES SIN HONRA. “Draw me not without provocation. Sheathe me not without honor.” In the tradition of King Arthur’s Excalibur, Custer was said to have been awarded the special sword by virtue of the fact that he was the only one strong enough to easily heft the blade above his head.

The raiding party returned without losing a man, and Custer was cited for “gallant and spirited conduct.”20

But all was not well at headquarters when Custer reported back to General George McClellan. The general had promised President Lincoln that he would resume his advance on Richmond—only after he was reinforced with fifty thousand additional troops. This excuse of not enough manpower irked Lincoln, and he decided to take action.

The president and his advisors had devised a plan to reorganize the army. McClellan’s corps was recalled to the capital, and would be combined with the armies of Major General Nathaniel Banks, General John C. Fremont, and General Irvin McDowell to create the Army of Virginia, under the overall command of Major General John Pope. McClellan, predictably, was opposed to the plan, and lingered until mid-August before marching his troops toward Fort Monroe for transport to Washington.21

The Southern cavalry had also undergone reorganization. Jeb Stuart received a commission to major general, and in accord with his rank would command a division of cavalry comprised of two brigades. One brigade would be led by Stuart’s close friend, twenty-seven-year-old newly commissioned brigadier general Fitzhugh Lee, Robert’s nephew, a veteran of the Indian wars, and one of Cadet Custer’s instructors at West Point. The other brigade went to new brigadier general Wade Hampton, a forty-four-year-old South Carolinian whose management of his family’s plantations had made him one of the largest slave owners and wealthiest men in the South. Incidentally, the Fifth Virginia Cavalry regiment now would be commanded by newly promoted Colonel Tom Rosser.22

When Custer arrived in Williamsburg with McClellan’s staff, he learned that his Confederate friend Gimlet Lea was on parole from Fortress Monroe and recuperating in that town. Lea had been given his conditional release after another West Point acquaintance, Alexander Pennington, happened upon him lying in a barn.

Custer was granted permission to visit Gimlet Lea, and found his old friend at the home of his fiancée, whose mother had nursed Lea back to health in the hospital. This “secesh” family warmly received Custer with typical Southern hospitality and invited him to return that evening for supper.

While they dined, Lea related that the couple had planned to marry the next week, but now that Custer had unexpectedly arrived Lea wanted his West Point friend to stand up for him as his best man. Custer agreed, and the nuptials were hastily set for the following evening.

Custer wrote in a letter to his sister, “I was at the residence of the bride long before the appointed hour. Both [the bride and her bridesmaid and cousin, Maggie] were dressed in white with a simple wreath of flowers upon their heads. I never saw two prettier girls. Lea was dressed in a bright new rebel uniform trimmed with gold lace; I wore my full uniform of blue.”

After the traditional Episcopalian wedding ceremony, Custer went on, “Every one seemed happy except the young lady who had been my partner on the floor. She kissed the bride and sat down crying. Lea, observing this, said, ‘Why, Cousin Maggie, what are you crying for? There is nothing to cry about.—Oh, I know. You are crying because you are not married; well, here is the minister and here is Captain Custer, who I know would be glad to carry off such a pretty bride from the Confederacy.’ She managed to reply, ‘Captain Lea, you are just as mean as you can be.’”

Later, Armstrong and Maggie evidently had been flirting, while enjoying each other’s company. He escorted her out to dinner and asked how it was that so strong a secessionist as she could take the arm of a Union officer. She coyly answered, “You ought to be in our army.” After dinner, Maggie played the piano and enthusiastically sang “For Southern Rights, Hurrah,” as well as “Dixie,” while a laughing Custer turned the pages of the sheet music for her.23

Gimlet Lea would soon be exchanged, and according to Custer would be “fighting for what he supposes to be right!”24

Another Confederate West Point comrade had also found love. Artillery officer extraordinaire John Pelham had begun seriously courting Sallie Dandridge while training his men at Jeb Stuart’s headquarters on the plantation owned by her father, Colonel Adam Dandridge, situated along the Opequon Creek near Martinsburg. The Dandridges were a wealthy and influential family—Martha Washington had been born a Dandridge and had spent time during her youth at that plantation.

Pelham romanced Sallie relentlessly—riding through the countryside with her, dancing exclusively with her, strolling through the fields hand in hand with her. The romance became so intense that Stuart asked his trusted subordinate if Sallie was going to spoil John’s love of fighting. Pelham truthfully replied that he still loved to fight, but would be glad when the fighting was over and he could settle down with Sallie and raise a family. Pelham gave Sallie his most prized possession—the Bible his mother had given him to take to West Point. It appeared that another wedding would be taking place in the near future—but the couple would have to plan it around the operations and battles of a very active cavalry.25

In late August, General Pope’s sixty thousand troops faced off across the Rappahannock River with Lee’s fifty thousand, and engaged in the familiar battleground of Bull Run, or Manassas, the scene of the first major battle of the war. With Stonewall Jackson and Jeb Stuart leading the way, the Rebel army crossed the river, and by August 30 had caved in Pope’s flank, which resulted in a Union defeat. Pope’s army suffered 16,000 casualties, while inflicting 9,200 on its enemy. Lee resumed his march toward the Potomac, preparing to raid into Maryland.26

Two days after this Second Battle of Bull Run, in a move hailed by the rank-and-file troopers, President Lincoln restored George McClellan to command of the Union forces. With Lee invading Maryland, Little Mac quickly marched with his energized army to meet the challenge, arriving in Rockville on September 7, but slowed his pace the closer he came to his enemy.27

McClellan cautiously pursued Lee’s army. By a quirk of fate, he acquired a copy—one of nine given to the various commanders—of Lee’s Special Order No. 191, which outlined Confederate plans for the Maryland campaign. A Union private had discovered the orders wrapped around three cigars in a meadow where Confederate soldiers had previously camped. The wary McClellan thought it might be a trap, and waited two days before confronting Lee’s army. That hesitation on McClellan’s part afforded Lee time to position his men on the crest of a four-mile ridge east of Sharpsburg, beside a creek called Antietam.28

Perhaps remarkably, Custer would maintain that McClellan had used good judgment by not throwing his reserves against Lee’s weak spots, which would have left his own line vulnerable. This opinion must have been made from blind loyalty—Custer the commander would later prove that he believed just the opposite and would send his last man toward the cannon’s mouth against hopeless odds if there was even the slimmest chance that he might score a victory.29

The battle for Antietam on September 17 was the bloodiest single day of the war. Seventy thousand Union troops faced 39,000 Confederates, and when the acrid smoke had cleared, the field was littered with more than 26,000 casualties—13,700 Confederates and 12,350 Union soldiers were dead, wounded, or missing.

McClellan received reinforcements on September 18, but hesitated again, which gave Lee time to escape across the Potomac into Virginia during the night—with Stuart’s cavalry screening the retreat. McClellan followed without much enthusiasm, never close enough to engage his enemy.30

While the Union army recuperated in the vicinity of Sharpsburg, President Lincoln used his war powers to issue his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. This executive order did not outlaw slavery and did not make former slaves—now called freedmen—citizens. The act, however, called for another goal to attain in this conflict of states’ rights, in addition to preserving the Union—that of human freedom. This insult outraged white Southerners and some Northern Democrats, invigorated abolitionists, and warned Europe not to intervene in the conflict on the side of the Confederacy.31

At Antietam, George Armstrong Custer had been kept busy at McClellan’s headquarters but still managed to get into the fray. In one instance, he and another aide, Lieutenant James P. Martin, were detailed to General Alfred Pleasonton and attached to the Eighth Illinois at South Mountain. Near Boonsboro, Custer and a detachment were returning to headquarters when they encountered and captured several hundred Confederate stragglers and two abandoned cannon. Pleasonton cited Custer and Martin for heroism, and McClellan later reported the incident to President Lincoln.32

On September 26, Custer escorted a group of paroled Confederate soldiers across the Potomac under a flag of truce, and happened upon several of the enemy who had been classmates or friends. The gregarious Custer and his Rebel acquaintances “had an hour’s social chat, discussing the war in a friendly way.” Custer learned that in recent action he had been fighting Fitzhugh Lee and Tom Rosser, as well as Georgian Pierce Manning Butler Young, a West Point comrade who had prophesized that they would meet in battle, and who had been wounded in the engagement.33

In his role as a general’s aide, Custer was traveling on the fringes of danger, but he no doubt would have preferred to have been in the thick of the fighting. He wrote a letter of a curious nature to his cousin on October 3 while President Lincoln was visiting the camp, which read in part, “You ask me if I will not be glad when the last battle is fought. So far as my country is concerned I, of course, must wish for peace, and I will be glad when the war is ended, but if I answer for myself alone, I must say that I shall regret to see the war end. I would be willing, yes glad, to see a battle every day during my life.”34

Skeptics might comment that these words were merely the false bravado of a young man who, due to his position with McClellan, had not endured the daily hardships of war when compared to the average cavalry officer. That opinion, however, fails to take into consideration the fact that Custer possessed the character of a natural born cavalier—bold, daring, and ambitious almost to a fault. His revealing statement truly demonstrated how he yearned to prove his ability on the field of battle and feared that hostilities would end before he had the chance to attain the glory that he envisioned for himself.

There certainly had been no lack of battle experience or glory for Jeb Stuart, but he did not intend to remain idle when the opportunity for further distinction was only an expedition away. General Lee approved a plan by Stuart to lead a raiding party to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. The purpose of the mission, in addition to gathering “all information of the position, force, and probable intention of the enemy,” was to collect horses, snatch hostages for exchange, if possible, and destroy military stores.35

At dawn on October 10, Stuart’s 1,800-man cavalry, reinforced with four artillery pieces under John Pelham, crossed the Potomac at McCoy’s Ford heading north. The Southern cavalry returned home to Leesburg on October 12 after traveling 126 miles, and capturing about 1,200 horses and leaving in their wake at least $250,000 in damage. In the process, the Confederate horsemen had for the second time ridden around the Union army.36

Jeb Stuart had embarrassed McClellan once again with this bold raid, and that fact was widely reported to his admiring public. Stuart himself officially commemorated the event with a grand ball, where he received a gift of a pair of golden spurs from a woman in Baltimore. Stuart would adopt the sobriquet “The Knight of the Golden Spurs,” and even sign some correspondence with the abbreviation “K.G.S.”37

While Stuart and his cavalry celebrated this great success, all was not well on the Union side of the lines. On November 5, President Lincoln relieved General George B. McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac due to their continued disagreements over strategy. Major General Ambrose E. Burnside, a man with a bluff manner and elaborate side whiskers, would now be in charge of the Federal troops.38

The loyal George Armstrong Custer was predictably shocked and saddened by this unexpected turn of events. Rather than recognize the military faults of his beloved commander, he blamed the politics of the Republican administration for deposing the Democrat McClellan, which might have been a factor. Regardless of the true reason, there was little for Custer to do but return home to Monroe, Michigan, and await orders.

Custer’s disappointment with McClellan’s fate, however, would quickly become secondary in importance when another special person would reenter his life. The next best thing to fighting for a young man was to fall in love with a young lady, and Custer was about to fall as hard as anybody ever had.