Rebel Yell
13. Bell Irvin Wiley, The Life of Johnny Reb, p. 290.
14. It is worth noting that the bullet that hit him at Chancellorsville from a Confederate musket was a smoothbore round.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: A FOOL’S PARADISE
1. McClellan’s orders to Banks were, “If [Jackson] be in force, drive him from the Valley.”
2. We do not have Laura’s letters to her brother; his letters to her stop on April 6.
3. Letter from Jackson to Laura, April 6, 1861, in Thomas Jackson Arnold, The Early Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson, pp. 295–297.
4. James I. Robertson, Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Legend, the Soldier, p. 690.
5. Ibid., p. 691.
6. David Hunter Strother, A Virginia Yankee in the Civil War: The Diaries of David Hunter Strother, p. 21.
7. Ibid., p. 9.
8. Ibid., p. 22.
9. Jonathan M. Berkey, “In the Very Midst of the War Track: The Valley’s Civilians and the Shenandoah Campaign,” essay in Gary W. Gallagher, ed., The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862, p. 91.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., p. 92.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., p. 94.
14. Jackson letter to Anna, May 5, 1862; on April 16, describing a slightly more northern part of the valley, he had written: “This country is one of the most beautiful that I ever beheld.”
15. Robertson, Stonewall Jackson, p. 363.
16. Jackson’s army would increase somewhat from this level during this period, at least on paper.
17. Though the conscription law would not be passed by the Confederate legislature until April 16, Virginia governor John Letcher, in anticipation of it, had called up active militia into the volunteer army.
18. Jedediah Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map of the Valley, pp. 19ff; both sides obviously had to deal with the same weather.
19. William J. Miller, “Such Men as Shields, Banks, and Frémont,” essay in Gallagher, The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862, p. 52.
20. Peter Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign, p. 242. He quotes General Alpheus Williams saying, “It was a splendid spectacle, the finest military show I have seen in America.”
21. Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map of the Valley, pp. 26ff.
22. Robert G. Tanner, Stonewall in the Valley, p. 156.
23. Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pp. 446ff.
24. Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862, p. 255. Not all of Banks’s officers seem to have believed that Jackson had fled the valley. His division commander, Alpheus Williams, wrote his sister on April 29 that Jackson was “fifteen to twenty miles distant on the slopes of the Blue Ridge,” which was substantially correct. It is unclear whether Williams was outvoted by other officers, or whether he kept his own counsel. In any case, the Union commanders had to sift and sort through many different types of intelligence.
25. Official Records, Banks to Stanton, April 30, 1862.
26. Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862, p. 254.
27. Official Records, Stanton to Banks, May 1, 1862.
28. Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 3, pp. 859ff.
29. Ibid.
30. Jackson’s force left Elk Run Valley for Port Republic on April 30; Lee’s wire saying he had reviewed the three plans and was leaving the choice to Jackson was dated May 1 (Official Records).
31. Jackson’s report, Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 1, p. 470: “The positions of these armies were such that left unmolested they could readily form a junction on the [Harrisonburg and Warm Springs Turnpike] and move with their force against Staunton.”
32. Cited in Robertson, Stonewall Jackson, p. 367.
33. Richard Taylor, Destruction and Reconstruction, p. 34; the description is probably a bit extreme, but the substance of it seems right based on other accounts.
34. John Brown Gordon, Reminiscences of the Civil War, p. 38.
35. William Allan, interview with Robert E. Lee, March 3, 1868, William Allan Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina.
36. The description of the valley as seen by Ewell’s troops on April 30 comes from Taylor, Destruction and Reconstruction, p. 43.
37. Henry Kyd Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, p. 47.
38. Robertson, Stonewall Jackson, p. 369.
39. Civilwaracademy.com.
40. John D. Imboden, “Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah,” in Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel, eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, vol. 2, pp. 282ff.
41. John Overton Casler, Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade, p. 73.
42. Imboden, “Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah,” pp. 282ff.
43. The preceding dispatches concerning Jackson’s whereabouts are all found in Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 3.
44. Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map of the Valley, p. 36.
45. Robertson, Stonewall Jackson, p. 370, citing Official Records.
46. Official Records, Banks to Stanton, May 5, 1862, from New Market: “Yesterday the forces were withdrawn from Harrisonburg to this place.”
47. Jackson letter to Colonel Francis H. Smith, April 30, 1862, Sara (Henderson) Smith Papers, Virginia Historical Society.
48. Milroy to Schenck, May 7, Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 3.
49. Robert C. Schenck, “Notes on the Battle of McDowell,” in Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, vol. 2, p. 298.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid.
52. Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862, p. 265.
53. Keith S. Bohannon, “Placed on the Pages of History in Letters of Blood,” essay in Gallagher, The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862, p. 120.
54. Ibid.
55. Letter from S. G. Pryor to his wife, May 18, 1862, cited in Bell Irvin Wiley, The Life of Johnny Reb, p. 32.
56. Jackson’s battle report, Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 1, pp. 471ff.
57. Ibid.
58. Cited in Robertson, Stonewall Jackson, p. 375.
59. Jackson’s battle report, Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 1, pp. 471ff.
60. Imboden, “Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah,” pp. 282ff.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: HAZARDS OF COMMAND
1. Jedediah Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map of the Valley, p. 21.
2. Henry Kyd Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, p. 40.
3. Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map of the Valley, p. 20.
4. Jackson letter to Anna, April 11, 1862, Mary Anna Jackson, Memoirs of Stonewall Jackson, p. 249.
5. A. Cash Koeniger, “Prejudices and Partialities: The Garnett Controversy Revisited,” essay in Gary W. Gallagher, ed., The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862, p. 220.
6. Charges and specifications in Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson Collection, Eleanor S. Brockenbrough Archives, Museum of the Confederacy.
7. Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, p. 37.
8. Letter from Richard B. Garnett to Hon. R.M.T. Hunter, April 1862, Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson Collection, Eleanor S. Brockenbrough Archives, Museum of the Confederacy.
9. Cited in Peter Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign, p. 221.
10. John Worsham, One of Jackson’s Foot Cavalry, p. 91.
11. Peter S. Carmichael, “Turner Ashby’s Appeal,” essay in Gallagher, The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862, pp. 154ff.
12. Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, pp. 40–41.
13. Ibid.
14. D. H. Hill, “The Real Stonewall Jackson,” Century Magazine (February 1894), pp. 623–627.
15. Quote from William McDonald, cited in Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862, p. 253.
16. Letter from John Harman to W. A. Harman, April 25, 1862, Hotchkiss Papers, Box 38, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
17. Jackson to Harman, April 14, 1862, Hotchkiss Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
18. Harman to his brother, May 15 and May 18, 1862, Hotchkiss Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
r /> 19. Robert L. Dabney, The Life and Campaigns of Lieutenant-General Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson, p. 354.
20. Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, pp. 42ff.
21. Gary Ecelbarger, Three Days in the Shenandoah: Stonewall Jackson at Front Royal and Winchester, p. 33.
22. Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map of the Valley, p. 10.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: HUNTER AS PREY
1. J. William Jones, “Reminiscences of the Army of Northern Virginia,” Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 9, p. 364.
2. Thomas T. Munford, “Reminiscences of Jackson’s Valley Campaign,” Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 7, pp. 523ff; there is another version of this story, similar in substance, in Willie Walker Caldwell, Stonewall Jim, pp. 38–40; and yet another in Douglas Southall Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants.
3. Munford, “Reminiscences of Jackson’s Valley Campaign,” pp. 523ff.
4. Ibid.
5. Cited in Lenoir Chambers, Stonewall Jackson: The Legend and the Man, vol. 1, p. 509.
6. Dispatch from Taylor (for Lee) to Jackson, May 14, Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 3, p. 887.
7. William Allan, History of the Campaign of General T. J. (Stonewall) Jackson; Jedediah Hotchkiss, Campaign of Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, p. 87.
8. Letter from Johnston to Ewell dated May 13, 1862, Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 3, p. 888.
9. Peter Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign, pp. 276ff. Cozzens offers an excellent account and analysis of this game of dispatches, which I have largely followed here.
10. Ewell to Jackson and Jackson to Ewell, May 18, 1862, Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 3, p. 897.
11. Henry Kyd Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, p. 93.
12. Jackson to Lee, May 20, 1862, Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 3, p. 898.
13. James I. Robertson, Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Legend, the Soldier, p. 388.
14. Williams to his daughter, May 17, 1862; cited in Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862, p. 279.
15. J. William Miller, “Such Men as Shields, Banks, and Frémont,” essay in Gary W. Gallagher, ed., The Shenandoah Campaign of 1862, p. 54.
16. Banks to Stanton, May 22, 1862, Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 1, p. 524.
17. This description comes in part from David Hunter Strother’s account of a May 18 meeting with Banks. Strother, A Virginia Yankee in the Civil War, p. 36.
18. Lanty Blackford to his mother, cited in Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862, p. 289.
19. Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 1, p. 701.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: THE PROFESSOR’S TIME/SPEED/DISTANCE EQUATION
1. Peter Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign, p. 278. As Cozzens points out, there were mixed feelings among the troops, but the prevailing sentiment seemed to be that the war would end without them.
2. George H. Gordon, Brook Farm to Cedar Mountain, p. 190.
3. David Hunter Strother, A Virginia Yankee in the Civil War, pp. 38–40.
4. Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 1, p. 546.
5. Strother, A Virginia Yankee in the Civil War, p. 39.
6. Ibid.
7. Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 1, p. 546.
8. Jedediah Hotchkiss, History of the Campaign of Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, p. 109.
9. Fulkerson to his sister, May 16, 1862, Fulkerson Papers, VMI, cited in Gary Ecelbarger, Three Days in the Shenandoah, p. 35.
10. Ecelbarger, Three Days in the Shenandoah, p. 34.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid., p. 58.
13. Ibid., pp. 86–88; Ecelbarger gives an excellent account of the final cavalry attack.
14. Donald Pfanz, Richard S. Ewell: A Soldier’s Life, pp. 185–186.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: A LETHAL FOOTRACE
1. Banks’s report; Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 1, p. 546.
2. Cited in Peter Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign, p. 316.
3. Banks to his wife, May 24, 1862, cited in Gary Ecelbarger, Three Days in the Shenandoah, p. 103.
4. Cited in Ecelbarger, Three Days in the Shenandoah, p. 123.
5. Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 1, pp. 575–577.
6. Robert L. Dabney, The Life and Campaigns of Lieutenant-General Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson, p. 372.
7. Jackson’s comment in his official report was that Ashby’s men “deserted their colors and abandoned themselves to pillage to such an extent as to make it necessary for that gallant officer to discontinue further pursuit.” Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 1, p. 704.
8. Henry Kyd Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, p. 57.
9. Ecelbarger, Three Days in the Shenandoah, p. 155.
10. McDowell to Lincoln, May 24, 1862; Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, 1863, p. 274.
11. Stephen W. Sears, ed., The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan: Selected Correspondence 1860–1865, p. 275.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: THE TAKING OF WINCHESTER
1. Banks to Lincoln, May 24, Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 1, p. 527.
2. Peter Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign, p. 360.
3. Gary Ecelbarger, Three Days in the Shenandoah, p. 185.
4. J. William Jones, “Reminiscences of the Army of Northern Virginia,” Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 9, p. 235.
5. Richard Taylor, Destruction and Reconstruction, p. 60.
6. Ibid., p. 61.
7. Alpheus S. Williams, From the Cannon’s Mouth: The Civil War Letters of General Alpheus S. Williams, p. 81.
8. Jedediah Hotchkiss, “Memoranda—Valley Campaign of 1861,” unpublished ms. At the New-York Historical Society, cited in James I. Robertson, Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Legend, the Soldier, p. 407.
9. Henry Kyd Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, p. 59.
10. Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862, p. 369.
11. David Hunter Strother, A Virginia Yankee in the Civil War, p. 42.
12. Robert L. Dabney, The Life and Campaigns of Lieutenant-General Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson, p. 380.
13. Letter from Jackson to Anna, May 26, 1862; Mary Anna Jackson, Memoirs of Stonewall Jackson, p. 265.
14. Cited in Robertson, Stonewall Jackson, p. 410.
15. Ecelbarger, Three Days in the Shenandoah, p. 215.
16. Robertson, Stonewall Jackson, p. 410.
17. Williams, From the Cannon’s Mouth, p. 84.
18. Ibid., p. 85.
19. Banks’s report to Stanton, Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 1, pp. 551ff.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: LINCOLN’S PERFECT TRAP
1. Gary W. Gallagher, “You Must Either Attack Richmond or Give Up the Job and Come to the Defence of Washington: Lincoln and the 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign,” essay in Gary W. Gallagher, ed., The Shenandoah Campaign of 1862, p. 8.
2. Ibid. Gallagher makes a solid case that Lincoln, instead of panicking, sought to use Jackson to help persuade McClellan to act. He also saw Jackson’s position north of Winchester as a golden opportunity to destroy him, and gave orders accordingly.
3. Exchange of wires between Lincoln and McClellan, May 25, 1862; George Brinton McClellan, Report Upon the Organization of the Army of the Potomac and Its Campaigns: From July 26, 1861, to November 7, 1862, p. 65.
4. Peter Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign, p. 398.
5. Letters from John Harman to W. A. Harman, May 9 and May 27, 1862, Hotchkiss Papers, Box 38, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
6. Cited in Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862, p. 393.
7. Richmond Dispatch, May 27, 1862.
8. Southern Literary Messenger 34 (May 1862), p. 327.
9. Henry Kyd Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, p. 66.
10. In one account of Jackson’s meeting with Winder, he was said to have deeply insulted Brigadier General Arnold Elzey. The story goes as follows:
Jackson had been chatting with Winder and Elzey, a hero of Manassas. Winder reported that the enemy had been heavily reinforced, and Elzey, agreeing with Winder, stated that the Union had “heavy guns on Maryland Heights.” Jackson then asked him: “General Elzey, are you afraid of heavy guns?” Elzey blushed but said nothing. This, of course, was a serious breach of etiquette, uncommon during the war (though James Longstreet did it at least twice). The account comes from a memoir by McHenry Howard (Recollections of a Maryland Confederate Soldier and Staff Officer Under Johnston, Jackson, and Lee, pp. 114–115). Because this seems to be the only source of the story, and because it is so utterly out of character for Jackson to have so gratuitously embarrassed a fellow general in public, I have not placed the incident in the main narration but in the notes instead. Jackson was very tough on generals, but never in that particular way.
11. Alexander R. Boteler, “Stonewall Jackson in Campaign of 1862,” Southern Historical Society Papers, New Series, vol. 2, Richmond, September 1915.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. This account was pieced together from both Boteler’s narrative (per above) and that of Jedediah Hotchkiss in his Make Me a Map of the Valley, pp. 49–50.
15. This comes from two different accounts of the story, one from Hotchkiss (Make Me a Map of the Valley, p. 50) and the other from Wells J. Hawks’s letter to Hotchkiss of January 17, 1866.
16. Boteler, “Stonewall Jackson in Campaign of 1862.”
17. William J. Miller, “Such Men as Shields, Banks, and Frémont,” essay in Gallagher, The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862, p. 66.
18. Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map of the Valley, p. 44.
19. Letter from Henry Kyd Douglas to Tippie Boteler, July 24, 1862, Douglas Papers, Duke University.
20. Boteler, “Stonewall Jackson in Campaign of 1862.”
21. Miller, “Such Men as Shields, Banks, and Frémont,” p. 74.
22. Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 3, pp. 290–306, correspondence to and from Stanton, Lincoln, McDowell, Shields, Geary, and McCall.
23. Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862, p. 408.
24. Shields to Secretary of War Stanton, June 2, 1862, Official Records, Series 1, vol. 12, pt. 3, p. 322; there is also a good account of this in Miller, “Such Men as Shields, Banks, and Frémont,” p. 74.