The Last Days of Stonewall Jackson

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Contents

The Attack

Saturday, May 2, 1863

Lieutenant General Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson surveyed his men, some twenty-eight thousand of them — ready, like a hammer, to slam into the unsuspecting Union flank.

They had spent all day marching, four abreast, over dirt roads that wound hidden through the Wilderness of Spotsylvania. There had been only one bit of trouble, back at Catharine Furnace, but it was nothing the men of the 23rd Georgia hadn't been able to take care of while the rest of the column slipped away on a road so freshly cut it remained as yet unmapped. The column's guide, Charles Wellford, knew of the road because his family owned the iron furnace: the area was his home.

The rest of the march, conducted in near silence to preserve its secrecy, remained uneventful.

At three, Jackson scribbled a quick note to his commander, General Robert E. Lee: "General, The enemy has made a stand at Chancellors's which is about 2 miles from Chancellorsville. I hope as soon as practicable to attack. I trust that an Ever Kind Providence will bless us with great success."

Lee, with fourteen thousand men, had remained east of the Union army, acting as a diversion while Jackson's men marched into position. Jackson would be the hammer, Lee the anvil, and the Union army would be trapped between — trapped, then smashed.

That the Union right flank dangled unprotected, so ripe for his hammer blow, seemed providential to Jackson. Major General Jeb Stuart, the commander of Lee's cavalry, had brought the news to Lee and Jackson the night before as the two generals, sitting on a pair of cracker boxes around a campfire, had been discussing their options. They knew the Army of the Potomac drastically outnumbered them but had no way to know just how badly — more than two to one. Despite the numbers, Lee had used his smaller army on that first day to strike his unsuspecting foe. The Union commander, Major General Joseph Hooker, responded by withdrawing his army into a defensive position. Lee, ever audacious, wanted to seize the initiative Hooker had relinquished — he just needed a place to strike.

Stuart provided the exact piece of intelligence Lee needed: The Union right flank lay exposed and unprotected. Lee sent Stuart to gather additional information then turned to Jackson, and the two men began to formulate a plan. Jackson would march his entire corps — twenty-eight thousand men — around to attack the unprotected Union flank.

Just after sunrise on May 2, the lead brigades of Jackson's "Foot Cavalry" started out on what would be their greatest march.

Now, nearly ten hours later, those men stood in a line of battle nearly a mile and a half long. "Who could not conquer with troops such as these," Jackson had once said of his men. Now, as he surveyed them from his perch atop his favorite horse, Little Sorrel, he felt similar pride in what they had accomplished — and what they were about to achieve.

A third of his men still remained on the march. Jackson couldn't afford to wait for them, he decided. Little more than two hours of sunlight remained. He would launch the attack with the two divisions already in place and the third division, General A. P. Hill's, would come in later as the reserve. That gave Jackson nearly twenty-eight thousand men in all.

A retinue of officers and staff members surrounded Jackson, awaiting the order to begin. Jackson looked at them — so many familiar faces, so many of them former students and colleagues from his prewar days at the Virginia Military Institute. His time in Lexington, teaching at VMI, had been the happiest ten years of his life. Since then, he had risen from a relatively obscure college professor to become one of the most famous military figures in the world. Those Lexington days seemed a lifetime ago. Yet among the men with him today, ready to execute one of the boldest military maneuvers of the war, he had seventeen comrades from those bygone days, including the two division commanders who would launch the attack, Generals Robert Rodes and Raleigh Colston. "The Institute will be heard from today," Jackson said.

Minutes passed. Couriers brought information and went away with orders. The final pieces were snapping into place. Jackson pulled his overcoat tighter to him. Although the temperature had reached into the mid-80s that afternoon, he still felt a chill, had been feeling it for a day or two. Sleeping on the ground the night before hadn't helped.

"The Institute will be heard from today."

— Stonewall Jackson

He consulted his watch: 5:15 p.m.

Time.

"Are you ready, General Rodes?" Jackson asked.

"Yes, sir," Rodes answered.

"You may move forward then."

* * *

The Union Eleventh Corps, posted at the far end of the Federal line, had settled in for a quiet evening. Positioned well away from the day's fighting, they didn't even expect to get called in as reserves. Soldiers had stacked their arms, and many of them had begun to cook dinner.

"General, The enemy has made a stand at Chancellors's which is about 2 miles from Chancellorsville. I Hope as soon as practicable to attack. I trust that an Ever Kind Providence will bless us with great success."

— Jackson's last dispatch to Robert E. Lee, sent "near 3 pm" on May 2

Word had come to them earlier in the day about a possible Confederate retreat across their front. Hooker, apprised of the movement, convinced himself that the column consisted of retreating Rebels. He intended to crush the delaying force in front of him to the east, and then turn on the retreating column tomorrow.

The thick underbrush made it impossible to see much of anything, but pickets facing south did their best to keep a lookout.

Far fewer eyes faced west.

In fact, Major General Oliver Otis Howard, commander of the Eleventh Corps, had positioned only two regiments and two artillery pieces to face westward down the Plank Road, some nine hundred men in all, as token protection for the Union flank — but with all the fighting happening on the eastern front beyond the Chancellor house, some three miles away, few seriously expected anything to happen here.

The thickness of Spotsylvania's wilderness not only masked but also muffled the approach of Jackson's men. When Jackson gave his order to advance and the bugles sounded out, the Union soldiers heard nothing through the foliage. The first clue they had of anything amiss came when deer, rabbits, and other game — driven ahead of the Confederate advance — suddenly darted out of the forest.

"Following the bugles were a few scattering shots," wrote Henry Kyd Douglas, the youngest member of Jackson's staff, "and then from the opening in the road, the whiz of shell and, following after the wild game escaping from the wood, 'Jackson's Foot Cavalry' were upon them. The gray line moved on regularly with the whoop and yell and the rattle of musketry. There was, there could be, no effective attempt at resistance."

The Confederate attack swept the Union Eleventh Corps from the field, driving them eastward under an unrelenting tide. "They did run and make no mistake about it," wrote Lieutenant Octavis Wiggins of the 37th North Carolina infantry. "But I will never blame them. I would have done the same thing and so would you and I reckon the Devil himself would have run with Jackson in his rear."

Not all Union resistance instantly crumbled, though. Many units of the Eleventh Corps put up a brave, if brief, fight. A New York colonel, Adolphus Bushbeck, threw together a thin blue line and made a stand along the Plank Road near the Wilderness Church, holding up a portion of the Confederate attack. Federals then put up a secondary line a few miles farther east.

Elsewhere, the 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry was caught between the Confederate skirmish line and the main Confederate battle line. The Pennsylvanians had to cut their way to freedom, but only after sustaining heavy losses of men and horses. That particular engagement would have haunting repercussions later in the evening.

Jackson's men eventually overran any such pockets of resistance, but the resulting hold-ups meant some portions of the Confederate line advanced farther and faster than others.

The terrain also hampered Confederate progress. The dense undergrowth, thick with thorns and vines, made a shoulder-to-shoulder advance in line of battle virtually impossible. The dips, swales, and hillocks of the ground made it worse.

"Press on! Press on!" Jackson urged. But eventually, the tangled Confederate line could press no farther.

* * *

That Jackson had come this far at all — on this day or in this life — demonstrated how tenaciously he followed his own credo: "You may be whatever you resolve to be."

Jackson's resolve had propelled him to his current position — one of most renowned military men in the world in the middle of one of his most daring maneuvers — from modest beginnings. Born in what was then western Virginia, in the town of Clarksburg, Jackson was orphaned at the age of seven and raised by an uncle. His two siblings — a younger sister, Laura, and an older brother, Warren — were sent to live with other relatives.

Growing up, Jackson developed a strict work ethic — strong enough to eventually overcome his lack of formal education. At age eighteen, he received an appointment to West Point, where he was woefully under-prepared for the rigorous academic curriculum. Through intensive study, though, he managed to finish his first semester ranked seventyfirst out of 101 cadets. Over the next three years, Jackson continued to focus all of his considerable willpower on his studies, and his academic standing steadily rose. By the time he graduated, he ranked seventeenth out of 59 who graduated that year, and one classmate speculated that if he and his classmates had to attend school for a fifth year, Jackson might have worked his way to top of the class — an amazing feat since many historians consider the Class of 1846 the greatest West Point would ever produce.

Jackson's class graduated just as the United States declared war on Mexico. Jackson received a commission as a second lieutenant in the artillery, and he took part in the American expeditionary force that drove inland from the Gulf coast and captured Mexico City. Jackson earned commendations for gallantry and was breveted to major. It was during his time in Mexico that Jackson also awakened to religion, which would grow to become the dominant force in his life.

A short army career after the war proved unfulfilling, especially when a longstanding quarrel erupted with a fellow officer. In 1851, Jackson resigned to take a post at VMI teaching Natural and Experimental Philosophy — better known today as physics — and artillery tactics. He was not, it turned out, well-suited to teaching, and his first few years in the classroom proved difficult for Jackson and his students. On the artillery field, however, Jackson excelled.

"Of all places ..." Jackson said of his new hometown, "this little village is the most beautiful." As he settled into the Lexington community, he became a deacon at his Presbyterian church. He also established a Sunday school for blacks and taught them to read the Bible — an act that violated a Virginia law forbidding slaves from learning how to read. Everyone deserved access to the Word of God, Jackson resolved.

Jackson married twice during his years in Lexington. His first wife, Ellie Junkin, a Presbyterian minister's daughter, died giving birth to a stillborn son after only fourteen months of marriage. When Jackson married again, he once more married a minister's daughter, Mary Anna Morrison. The newlyweds bought a home in Lexington, a two-story brick house on East Washington Street. A year after they married, the couple had a daughter, Mary Graham, who died only a few weeks after birth.

From this simple, undistinguished life, Jackson would rise to worldwide prominence. He first made himself noticed, and earned his distinctive nickname "Stonewall," at the first battle of Manassas in July of 1861. Ordered to hold a hilltop position near the center of the crumbling Confederate line, Jackson's men provided a rallying point that shifted the tide of battle. "Yonder stands Jackson like a stone wall," cried a Confederate general. "Let us go to his assistance." Countless retellings over time evolved those words into a legendary rallying cry, carved into marble for the ages: "There stands Jackson like a stone wall. Rally around the Virginians!"

The Confederate victory at Manassas would be the first in a string of military achievements for Jackson. The following spring, his movements in the Shenandoah Valley — what would later be known as Jackson's Valley Campaign — would see his men march more than 600 miles between late March and early June, fighting six battles against three Union armies that outnumbered his forces at least three to one. He lost only one battle — the first, because of faulty intelligence from his cavalry — and he never lost again. His men would earn the nickname "Jackson's Foot Cavalry" for their ability to cover so much ground so quickly. Most importantly, at a time when the Confederacy suffered setback after setback on nearly every front, Jackson's brilliant maneuvers in the Valley turned him into a nationalhero. "His name alone is worth ten thousand men," a Union soldier would later write.

In subsequent months, Jackson would earn a place as one of Robert E. Lee's most trusted subordinates. When Lee reorganized the Army of Northern Virginia in November of 1862, he placed General James Longstreet at the head of the First Corps; at the head of the Second, he placed Jackson. Lee used the Second Corps as the quick-strike part of his army, specializing in fast, surprise maneuvers. Lee, ever an aggressive strategist, found in Jackson the perfect tactician to execute his plans. What Lee resolved, Jackson carried out.

And that had made Jackson the ideal man to lead the flank attack at Chancellorsville.

* * *

Now, nearly four hours into that flank attack, with his momentum gone and his men in disarray, Jackson halted the advance.

But only momentarily.

His third division, under A. P. Hill, had finally arrived and was getting into position. Jackson intended to send Hill's men forward to resume the offensive, giving Colston and Rodes the time they needed to reform.

Daylight had faded to twilight, and twilight to darkness. A full moon lifted itself above the forest, though little of its light could penetrate the thick foliage.

A night attack would be risky, Jackson knew, but waiting would be riskier. If he gave the Federals the opportunity to dig in, then his men would have to assault fortified positions in the morning. He resolved to press his advantage now, while the Union army was still reeling. If he succeeded, he might even be able to sever the Union army's route of retreat.

To better assess his situation, Jackson decided to do a bit of reconnaissance. He sent out word that he needed a guide, and soon Private David Joseph Kyle of the 9th Virginia Cavalry came forward. Kyle knew the area well: he lived on the Bullock Road, less than a quarter of a mile from their current position, so this was literally his backyard.

Rather than take Jackson down the Plank Road, an exposed route well-lit by the moonlight, Kyle led Jackson and his seven-man party toward a road that didn't show up on any maps. The Mountain Road, as it was called, had once been the main road through the area but had since fallen into general disuse since the turnpike had been built. It ran, like a dark tunnel through the trees, for a little less than two miles on a course roughly parallel to the Plank Road.

Passing through the line of the 18th North Carolina, Jackson's party rode about two hundred yards forward. Ahead of them another twenty yards, the 33rd North Carolina stretched out in a skirmish line; another 250 yards beyond the North Carolinians waited the Federals. From that direction, Jackson could hear trees falling and earth moving. The Federals were digging in.

Jackson turned Little Sorrel around and led his men back toward the main Confederate line.

They were only 90 yards away when, from the south, thunder rolled up the Confederate line and the forest in front of Jackson exploded with fire.

The Wounding

Saturday, May 2, 1863

Several hundred yards to the south of the Plank Road, a Pennsylvania unit, the 128th Infantry, had stumbled through the dusk quite by accident into the main Confederate line. Running into unfriendlies in the tangled Wilderness was bad enough on the nerves, but the appearance of the Pennsylvanians discomfited the Confederates all the more because it seemed the Keystoners had somehow slipped past the skirmishers that had been posted forward. Realizing their blunder, the Pennsylvanians tried to escape, but the Confederates took a large number of them as prisoners.

Word of the incident spread along the Confederate line: Union troops wandering through the darkness were liable to appear at any time and at any place.

Already skittish, Confederates began shooting at shadows. One jumpy Confederate would infect the man next to him — who would, in turn, spook the man next to him. The shooting intensified and, like a wave, began moving northward along the entire Confederate line — right across Jackson's front just as he and his men returned down the Mountain Road from their reconnaissance mission.