THE DEATH OF STONEWALL JACKSON

Like a servant of the Lord, with his bible and his sword,
Our general rode along us, to form us for the fight.
--Macaulay.


THE DEATH OF STONEWALL JACKSON

The Civil War has left, as all wars of brother against brother
must leave, terrible and heartrending memories; but there remains
as an offset the glory which has accrued to the nation by the
countless deeds of heroism performed by both sides in the
struggle. The captains and the armies that, after long years of
dreary campaigning and bloody, stubborn fighting, brought the war
to a close, have left us more than a reunited realm. North and
South, all Americans, now have a common fund of glorious
memories. We are the richer for each grim campaign, for each
hard-fought battle. We are the richer for valor displayed alike
by those who fought so valiantly for the right, and by those who,
no less valiantly, fought for what they deemed the right. We have
in us nobler capacities for what is great and good because of the
infinite woe and suffering, and because of the splendid ultimate
triumph. We hold that it was vital to the welfare, not only of
our people on this continent, but of the whole human race, that
the Union should be preserved and slavery abolished; that one
flag should fly from the Great Lakes to the Rio Grande; that we
should all be free in fact as well as in name, and that the
United States should stand as one nation--the greatest nation on
the earth. But we recognize gladly that, South as well as North,
when the fight was once on, the leaders of the armies, and the
soldiers whom they led, displayed the same qualities of daring
and steadfast courage, of disinterested loyalty and enthusiasm,
and of high devotion to an ideal.

The greatest general of the South was Lee, and his greatest
lieutenant was Jackson. Both were Virginians, and both were
strongly opposed to disunion. Lee went so far as to deny the
right of secession, while Jackson insisted that the South ought
to try to get its rights inside the Union, and not outside. But
when Virginia joined the Southern Confederacy, and the war had
actually begun, both men cast their lot with the South.

It is often said that the Civil War was in one sense a repetition
of the old struggle between the Puritan and the Cavalier; but
Puritan and Cavalier types were common to the two armies. In dash
and light-hearted daring, Custer and Kearney stood as conspicuous
as Stuart and Morgan; and, on the other hand, no Northern general
approached the Roundhead type--the type of the stern, religious
warriors who fought under Cromwell--so closely as Stonewall
Jackson. He was a man of intense religious conviction, who
carried into every thought and deed of his daily life the
precepts of the faith he cherished. He was a tender and loving
husband and father, kindhearted and gentle to all with whom he
was brought in contact; yet in the times that tried men's souls,
he proved not only a commander of genius, but a fighter of iron
will and temper, who joyed in the battle, and always showed at
his best when the danger was greatest. The vein of fanaticism
that ran through his character helped to render him a terrible
opponent. He knew no such word as falter, and when he had once
put his hand to a piece of work, he did it thoroughly and with
all his heart. It was quite in keeping with his character that
this gentle, high-minded, and religious man should, early in the
contest, have proposed to hoist the black flag, neither take nor
give quarter, and make the war one of extermination. No such
policy was practical in the nineteenth century and in the
American Republic; but it would have seemed quite natural and
proper to Jackson's ancestors, the grim Scotch-Irish, who
defended Londonderry against the forces of the Stuart king, or to
their forefathers, the Covenanters of Scotland, and the Puritans
who in England rejoiced at the beheading of King Charles I.

In the first battle in which Jackson took part, the confused
struggle at Bull Run, he gained his name of Stonewall from the
firmness with which he kept his men to their work and repulsed
the attack of the Union troops. From that time until his death,
less than two years afterward, his career was one of brilliant
and almost uninterrupted success; whether serving with an
independent command in the Valley, or acting under Lee as his
right arm in the pitched battles with McClellan, Pope, and
Burnside. Few generals as great as Lee have ever had as great a
lieutenant as Jackson. He was a master of strategy and tactics,
fearless of responsibility, able to instil into his men. his own
intense ardor in battle, and so quick in his movements, so ready
to march as well as fight, that his troops were known to the rest
of the army as the "foot cavalry."

In the spring of 1863 Hooker had command of the Army of the
Potomac. Like McClellan, he was able to perfect the discipline of
his forces and to organize them, and as a division commander he
was better than McClellan, but he failed even more signally when
given a great independent command. He had under him 120,000 men
when, toward the end of April, he prepared to attack Lee's army,
which was but half as strong.

The Union army lay opposite Fredericksburg, looking at the
fortified heights where they had received so bloody a repulse at
the beginning of the winter. Hooker decided to distract the
attention of the Confederates by letting a small portion of his
force, under General Sedgwick, attack Fredericksburg, while he
himself took the bulk of the army across the river to the right
hand so as to crush Lee by an assault on his flank. All went well
at the beginning, and on the first of May Hooker found himself at
Chancellorsville, face-to-face with the bulk of Lee's forces; and
Sedgwick, crossing the river and charging with the utmost
determination, had driven out of Fredericksburg the Confederate
division of Early; but when Hooker found himself in front of Lee
he hesitated, faltered instead of pushing on, and allowed the
consummate general to whom he was opposed to take the initiative.

Lee fully realized his danger, and saw that his only chance was,
first to beat back Hooker, and then to turn and overwhelm
Sedgwick, who was in his rear. He consulted with Jackson, and
Jackson begged to be allowed to make one of his favorite flank
attacks upon the Union army; attacks which could have been
successfully delivered only by a skilled and resolute general,
and by troops equally able to march and to fight. Lee consented,
and Jackson at once made off. The country was thickly covered
with a forest of rather small growth, for it was a wild region,
in which there was still plenty of game. Shielded by the forest,
Jackson marched his gray columns rapidly to the left along the
narrow country roads until he was square on the flank of the
Union right wing, which was held by the Eleventh Corps, under
Howard. The Union scouts got track of the movement and reported
it at headquarters, but the Union generals thought the
Confederates were retreating; and when finally the scouts brought
word to Howard that he was menaced by a flank attack he paid no
heed to the information, and actually let his whole corps be
surprised in broad daylight. Yet all the while the battle was
going on elsewhere, and Berdan's sharpshooters had surrounded and
captured a Georgia regiment, from which information was received
showing definitely that Jackson was not retreating, and must be
preparing to strike a heavy blow.

The Eleventh Corps had not the slightest idea that it was about
to be assailed. The men were not even in line. Many of them had
stacked their muskets and were lounging about, some playing
cards, others cooking supper, intermingled with the pack-mules
and beef cattle. While they were thus utterly unprepared
Jackson's gray-clad veterans pushed straight through the forest
and rushed fiercely to the attack. The first notice the troops of
the Eleventh Corps received did not come from the pickets, but
from the deer, rabbits and foxes which, fleeing from their
coverts at the approach of the Confederates, suddenly came
running over and into the Union lines. In another minute the
frightened pickets came tumbling back, and right behind them came
the long files of charging, yelling Confederates; With one fierce
rush Jackson's men swept over the Union lines, and at a blow the
Eleventh Corps became a horde of panicstruck fugitives. Some of
the regiments resisted for a few moments, and then they too were
carried away in the flight.

For a while it seemed as if the whole army would be swept off;
but Hooker and his subordinates exerted every effort to restore
order. It was imperative to gain time so that the untouched
portions of the army could form across the line of the
Confederate advance.

Keenan's regiment of Pennsylvania cavalry, but four hundred
sabers strong, was accordingly sent full against the front of the
ten thousand victorious Confederates.

Keenan himself fell, pierced by bayonets, and the charge was
repulsed at once; but a few priceless moments had been saved, and
Pleasanton had been given time to post twenty-two guns, loaded
with double canister, where they would bear upon the enemy.

The Confederates advanced in a dense mass, yelling and cheering,
and the discharge of the guns fairly blew them back across the
work's they had just taken. Again they charged, and again were
driven back; and when the battle once more began the Union
reinforcements had arrived.

It was about this time that Jackson himself was mortally wounded.
He had been leading and urging on the advance of his men,
cheering them with voice and gesture, his pale face flushed with
joy and excitement, while from time to time as he sat on his
horse he took off his hat and, looking upward, thanked heaven for
the victory it had vouchsafed him. As darkness drew near he was
in the front, where friend and foe were mingled in almost
inextricable confusion. He and his staff were fired at, at close
range, by the Union troops, and, as they turned, were fired at
again, through a mistake, by the Confederates behind them.
Jackson fell, struck in several places. He was put in a litter
and carried back; but he never lost consciousness, and when one
of his generals complained of the terrible effect of the Union
cannonade he answered:

"You must hold your ground."

For several days he lingered, hearing how Lee beat Hooker, in
detail, and forced him back across the river. Then the old
Puritan died. At the end his mind wandered, and he thought he was
again commanding in battle, and his last words were.

"Let us cross over the river and rest in the shade."

Thus perished Stonewall Jackson, one of the ablest of soldiers
and one of the most upright of men, in the last of his many
triumphs.

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