After a few months of rest, remounted and recruited, this splendid command entered upon a new career of active service, and through the campaigns of 1863 and 1864, they were to make honorable records for themselves; at Bisland, Fordocho, Bortrich Bay, Lafourche, Fort Butler, Donaldsville, Bourbeau; Opelousas, Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, Blair’s Landing and Yellow Bayou. At Blair’s Landing, General Green met the fate of a chivalrous, patriotic commander, dying as he had fought, with his face to the foe. He and his command were second to no horsemen who were enlisted on the Southern side. The sad and unfortunate experiences of the march into New Mexico proved a great education for these valiant and gallant soldiers. They have been less fortunate than the cavalry commands east of the Mississippi in having chroniclers to exploit their heroism, yet in their splendid career they were never surpassed in the best elements of the cavalry soldier, by any of those whose fame as champions of the Southland and defenders of its glory and its honor has gone out into the whole world.
Chapter XIV
GENERAL J. E. B. STUART’S RIDE AROUND
McCLELLAN’S ARMY—CHICKAHOMINY
RAID, JUNE 12-15, 1863
General J. E. B. Stuart was born on the 16th of February, 1833. At the commencement of the war he had just passed his twenty-eighth year. His father had been an officer in the War of 1812. He was born in Patrick County, Virginia, a few miles away from the North Carolina line. In his veins there was the richest mingling of Virginia’s best blood. In 1850 he was appointed a cadet at West Point, and graduated thirteenth in a class of forty-six. At West Point he was not a very great scholar, but an extremely good soldier. He had a splendid physique, and was popular wherever he went. In his early youth he had hesitated between the law and war, and finally concluded to remain in the army. He was commissioned as second lieutenant in 1854 and served in Texas. He saw a great deal of active service in Indian warfare and in the early part of 1861 was at Fort Lyon. On the 7th of May, 1861, he reached Wytheville, Virginia. His resignation was accepted by the War Department on that day and he offered his sword to his native state. On the 10th of May he was made lieutenant colonel of infantry and directed to report to Colonel T. J. Jackson. His commission was from the State of Virginia. Sixty days later he was commissioned a colonel of Confederate cavalry, and on the 24th of September was made brigadier general, and on July 25th, 1862, major general.
General Stuart, in the summer and fall of 1861, was busy on outpost duty, harassing the enemy and continually active. His operations were not on any extended scale.
General Joseph E. Johnston had a very high opinion of General Stuart. As early as August 10th, 1861, he had written to President Davis: “He—Stuart—is a rare man, wonderfully endowed by nature with the qualities necessary for light cavalry. If you had a brigade of cavalry in this army, you could find no better brigadier general to command.”
He took an important part in the Williamsburg campaign, at the Battle of Williamsburg in May, 1862, and at Seven Pines on the 31st of May and June 1st. It was impossible at the last engagement to use cavalry, but Stuart, always anxious and ready for a fight, was only too happy to go to the front, and became General Longstreet’s aide.
In March, 1862, McClellan had brought his Army of the Potomac up to two hundred and twenty-two thousand men, and with these undertook to capture Richmond. He concluded it was wisest to take Richmond from the rear and recommended that his forces should be transferred to Fortress Monroe and he should proceed from there in a northwesterly direction.
The forces under General Joseph E. Johnson and later under General Lee were widely scattered. Some of them were a hundred miles apart.
From the valleys of Virginia, and from Norfolk down through Fredericksburg, great armies were advancing with Richmond as the converging point. Stonewall Jackson had played havoc with McClellan’s forces in the Shenandoah Valley, and had inaugurated and won a campaign which brought him world-wide fame. In three months Jackson had fought three battles and marched five hundred miles, a feat which was almost unsurpassed in the history of military movements. He held a large Federal force over in the Valley. This was at that period the most important factor in the preservation of the armies of Joseph E. Johnston.
On the 16th of May, advancing from Fortress Monroe, McClellan had taken possession of Whitehouse, on the Pamunky River, and here established his army and reached out to Seven Pines, within eight miles of Richmond. It appeared now as if, with the large forces at his command, McClellan would crush Johnston and reach the coveted capital of the Confederacy. Camped east and northeast of Richmond, in a position chosen by himself, and to the acquisition of which the Confederates made little resistance, McClellan sat down to wait for the forty thousand men McDowell was to bring through Fredericksburg and unite with him in his present camp. The Confederates were roughly handled by the Federals at Hanover Court House on the 27th of May, and General Joseph E. Johnston looked anxiously toward McDowell at Fredericksburg, only fifty-two miles away. He resolved, if possible, to crush McClellan before McDowell could come to his assistance. On the 31st of May the Battle of Seven Pines was fought. Brilliantly designed by Johnston, he claimed that he only failed to destroy McClellan by the neglect of his subordinates to march as directed. General Johnston was wounded on the 31st of May and was succeeded by General Gustavus W. Smith, who commanded for a few hours. At two o’clock on the 1st of June, President Davis rode out upon the field with General Robert E. Lee and turned over to him the command of the Army of Northern Virginia, which he was to hold until the shadows of national death overtook and overwhelmed Lee and his army at Appomattox, on May 9th, 1865.