Part 16

After the disabling of these two officers, Stuart was sent for, and promptly assumed command. With Col. Alexander, chief artillery officer present for duty, (Gen. Crutchfield being wounded,) he spent the night rectifying the Confederate lines, and selecting positions for his batteries. It had been Jackson's plan to push forward at night, to secure the speediest results of his victory. But Stuart, after the attacks upon his right by Sickles and Pleasonton, and having in view the disorganized condition of his troops, thought wise to defer a general assault until daylight. Having submitted the facts to Jackson, and received word from this officer to use his own discretion in the matter, he decided to afford his troops a few hours of rest. They were accordingly halted in line, and lay upon their arms, an ample force of skirmishers thrown out in front.

No better place than this will be found in which to say a few words about the remarkable man who planned and led this movement about Hooker's flank,--a manoeuvre which must have been condemned as foolhardy if unsuccessful, but whose triumph wove a final wreath to crown his dying brows.

Thomas J. Jackson entered West Point a poor boy, essentially a son of the people. He was a classmate of McClellan, Foster, Reno, Stoneman, Couch, Gibbon, and many other noted soldiers, as well those arrayed against as those serving beside him. His standing in his class was far from high; and such as he had was obtained by hard, persistent work, and not by apparent ability. He was known as a simple, honest, unaffected fellow, rough, and the reverse of social; but he commanded his companions sincere respect by his rugged honesty, the while his uncouth bearing earned him many a jeer.

He was graduated in 1846, and went to Mexico as second lieutenant of the First United-States Artillery. He was promoted to be first lieutenant "for gallant and meritorious services at Vera Cruz." Twice mentioned in Scott's reports, and repeatedly referred to by Worth and Pillow for gallantry while with Magruder's battery, he emerged from that eventful campaign with fair fame and abundant training.

We find him shortly afterwards professor at the Virginia Military Institute of Lexington. Here he was known as a rigid Presbyterian, and a "fatalist," if it be fatalism to believe that "what will be will be,"--Jackson's constant motto.

Tall, gaunt, awkward, grave, brief, and business-like in all he did, Jackson passed for odd, "queer,"--insane almost, he was thought by some,--rather than a man of uncommon reserve power.

It was only when on parade, or when teaching artillery practice, that he brightened up; and then scarcely to lose his uncouth habit, but only to show by the light in his eye, and his wrapt attention in his work, where lay his happiest tendencies.

His history during the war is too well known to need to be more than briefly referred to. He was made colonel of volunteers, and sent to Harper's Ferry in May, 1861, and shortly after promoted to a brigade. He accompanied Joe Johnston in his retreat down the valley. At Bull Run, where his brigade was one of the earliest in the war to use the bayonet, he earned his soubriquet of "Stonewall" at the lips of Gen. Bee. But in the mouths of his soldiers his pet name was "Old Jack," and the term was a talisman which never failed to inflame the heart of every man who bore arms under his banner.

Jackson possessed that peculiar magnetism which stirs the blood of soldiers to boiling-point. Few leaders have ever equalled him in his control of troops. His men had no questions to ask when "Old Jack" led the way. They believed in him as did he in his star; and the impossible only arrested the vigor of their onset, or put a term to their arduous marches.

His campaign in the valley against Fremont and Shields requires no praise. And his movement about McClellan's flank at Mechanicsville, and his still more sterling manoeuvre in Pope's campaign, need only to be called to mind.

In the field he was patient, hard-working, careless of self, and full of forethought for his men; though no one could call for and get from troops such excessive work, on the march or in action. No one could ask them to forego rations, rest, often the barest necessaries of life, and yet cheerfully yield him their utmost efforts, as could "Old Jack."

He habitually rode an old sorrel horse, leaning forward in a most unmilitary seat, and wore a sun-browned cap, dingy gray uniform, and a stock, into which he would settle his chin in a queer way, as he moved along with abstracted look. He paid little heed to camp comforts, and slept on the march, or by snatches under trees, as he might find occasion; often begging a cup of bean-coffee and a bit of hard bread from his men, as he passed them in their bivouacs, He was too uncertain in his movements, and careless of self, for any of his military family to be able to look after his physical welfare. In fact, a cold occasioned by lending his cloak to one of his staff, a night or two before Chancellorsville, was the primary cause of the pneumonia, which, setting in upon his exhausting wounds, terminated his life.

Jackson was himself a bad disciplinarian. Nor had he even average powers of organization. He was in the field quite careless of the minutiae of drill. But he had a singularly happy faculty for choosing men to do his work for him. He was a very close calculator of all his movements. He worked out his manoeuvres to the barest mathematical chances, and insisted upon the unerring execution of what he prescribed; and above all be believed in mystery. Of his entire command, he alone knew what work he had cut out for his corps to do. And this was carried so far that it is said the men were often forbidden to ask the names of the places through which they marched. "Mystery," said Jackson, "mystery is the secret of success in war, as in all transactions of human life."

Jackson was a professing member of the Presbyterian Church, and what is known as a praying man. By this is meant, that, while he never intentionally paraded or obtruded upon his associates his belief in the practical and immediate effect of prayer, he made no effort to hide his faith or practice from the eyes of the world. In action, while the whole man was wrought up to the culminating pitch of enthusiasm, and while every fibre of his mind and heart was strained towards the achievement of his purpose, his hand would often be instinctively raised upwards; and those who knew him best, believed this to be a sign that his trust in the help of a Higher Power was ever present.

Jackson was remarkable as a fighter. In this he stands with but one or two peers. Few men in the world's history have ever got so great results from armed men as he was able to do. But to judge rightly of his actual military strength is not so easy as to award this praise. Unless a general has commanded large armies, it is difficult to judge of how far he may be found wanting if tried in that balance. In the detached commands which he enjoyed, in the Valley and elsewhere, his strategic ability was marked: but these commands were always more or less limited; and, unlike Lee or Johnston, Jackson did not live long enough to rise to the command of a large army upon an extended and independent field of operations.

In Gen. Lee, Jackson reposed an implicit faith. "He is the only man I would follow blindfold," said Jackson. And Lee's confidence in his lieutenant's ability to carry out any scheme he set his hand to, was equally pronounced. Honestly, though with too much modesty, did Lee say: "Could I have directed events, I should have chosen, for the good of the country, to have been disabled in your stead."

But, illy as Lee could spare Jackson, less still could the Army of Northern Virginia spare Robert E. Lee, the greatest in adversity of the soldiers of our civil war. Still, after Jackson's death, it is certain that Lee found no one who could attempt the bold manoeuvres on the field of battle, or the hazardous strategic marches, which have illumined the name of Jackson to all posterity.

It is not improbable that had Jackson lived, and risen to larger commands, he would have been found equal to the full exigencies of the situation. Whatever he was called upon to do, under limited but independent scope, seems to testify to the fact that he was far from having reached his limit. Whatever he did was thoroughly done; and he never appears to have been taxed to the term of his powers, in any operation which he undertook.

Honesty, singleness of purpose, true courage, rare ability, suffice to account for Jackson's military success. But those alone who have served under his eye know to what depths that rarer, stranger power of his has sounded them: they only can testify to the full measure of the strength of Stonewall Jackson.

XXI. THE POSITION AT FAIRVIEW.

Gen. Hooker's testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War comprises almost every thing which has been officially put forth by him with reference to this campaign. It therefore stands in lieu of a report of operations, and it may be profitable to continue to quote from it to some extent. His alleged intention of withdrawing from Chancellorsville is thus explained. After setting forth that on the demolition of the Eleventh Corps, the previous evening, he threw Berry into the gap to arrest Jackson, "and if possible to seize, and at all hazards hold, the high ground abandoned by that corps," he says:--

"Gen. Berry, after going perhaps three-quarters of a mile, reported that the enemy was already in possession of the ground commanding my position, and that he had been compelled to establish his line in the valley on the Chancellorsville side of that high ground. As soon as this was communicated to me, I directed Gens. Warren and Comstock to trace out a new line which I pointed out to them on the map, and to do it that night, as I would not be able to hold the one I then occupied after the enemy should renew the attack the next morning."

"The position" at Dowdall's "was the most commanding one in the vicinity. In the possession of the enemy it would enable him with his artillery to enfilade the lines held by the Twelfth and Second Corps." "To wrest this position from the enemy after his batteries were established upon it, would have required slender columns of infantry, which he could destroy as fast as they were thrown upon it." Slender columns of infantry were at this time among Hooker's pet ideas.

"Every disposition was made of our forces to hold our line as long as practicable, for the purpose of being in readiness to co-operate with the movement which had been ordered to be made on our left."

"The attack was renewed by the enemy about seven o'clock in the morning, and was bravely resisted by the limited number of troops I could bring into action until eleven o'clock, when orders were given for the army to establish itself on the new line. This it did in good order. The position I abandoned was one that I had held at a disadvantage; and I kept the troops on it as long as I did, only for the purpose of enabling me to hear of the approach of the force under Gen. Sedgwick." Thus much Hooker.

The position of both armies shortly after daybreak was substantially that to which the operation of Saturday had led.

The crest at Fairview was crowned by eight batteries of the Third and Twelfth Corps, supported by Whipple's Second brigade (Bowman's), in front to the left, forming, as it were, a third line of infantry.

In advance of the artillery some five hundred yards, (a good half-mile from the Chancellor House,) lay the Federal line of battle, on a crest less high than Fairview, but still commanding the tangled woods in its front to a limited distance, and with lower ground in its rear, deepening to a ravine on the south of the plank road. Berry's division held this line north of the plank road, occupying the ground it had fought over since dusk of the evening before. Supporting it somewhat later was Whipple's First brigade (Franklin's). Berdan's sharpshooters formed a movable skirmish-line; while another, and heavier, was thrown out by Berry from his own troops.