SLAVEHOLDERS IN THE RANKS
From a mass of data bearing more directly upon the number of slaveholders in the ranks of the Virginia soldiers, we select two citations:
Major Robert Stiles, late a prominent member of the Richmond Bar, referring to the personnel of the Richmond Howitzers (of which he was a member) and the motives which impelled them to fight, writes:
"Why did they volunteer? For what did they give their lives?... Surely, it was not for slavery they fought. The great majority of them had never owned a slave, and had little or no interest in the institution. My own father, for example, had freed his slaves long years before."[[218]]
This command was composed of representatives of the leading families in the city of Richmond, at that time the largest slaveholding city in the state. Here one would expect to find the slaveholding soldiers.
Dr. Hunter McGuire, the medical director of the Stonewall Brigade, has left on record his estimate of the number of slaveholders in the ranks of that command—which, being drawn from all portions of the state, was more representative of the citizenship of Virginia, East and West:
"The Stonewall Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia," writes Dr. McGuire, "was a fighting organization. I knew every man in it, for I belonged to it for a long time; and I know that I am in proper bounds when I assert, that there was not one soldier in thirty who owned or ever expected to own a slave."[[219]]
But it is also urged that, while men without slaves filled the ranks of the Virginia regiments, yet slaveholders led these soldiers into battle as they had led the people into revolution.
SLAVEHOLDERS AMONG THE LEADERS
It is obviously impracticable to present the facts with reference to each one of the prominent leaders which Virginia gave to the armies of the Confederacy. By universal accord her five most notable generals were, Robert E. Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson, Joseph E. Johnston, A. P. Hill and J. E. B. Stuart—to whom may be added Fitzhugh Lee and Matthew F. Maury, as only less prominent but no less representative of her leading soldiers.