Next morning Lieut. Barrett was ordered to New Market, with a detail from the company, to act as provost guard, and the division lay in camp all day just beyond the town. Here the news of the battle of Seven Pines was received and of the wounding of General Johnston, at that time Commander-in-Chief of the Virginia army. There was a great deal of wonder and speculation as to who would succeed him, some thinking Beauregard would take command, while many of the men thought our own Stonewall was the man for the place, but nobody thought of Lee, until in reply to a question on the subject, we heard Gen. Ewell remark, "No, sir; I don’t know who will be General Johnston’s successor, but I shan’t be scared at all if the choice falls on Lee." This circulated from camp to camp, and many of the soldiers freely admitted that they would be scared, for they considered that Gen. Lee’s Western Virginia campaign a failure, and if old Scott did say beware of Lee on an advance, they were afraid that the change from following the retreating Johnston to that of rallying under the banners of the advancing Lee wouldn’t be very beneficial to the army or the country, and Gen. Beauregard always had whipped the Yankees without either an advance or a retreat.
These were only some of the many expressions of opinion on the subject of changing commanders, and only for the fact that for a short while they were lying quiet, with nothing to do, the subject would scarcely have had a place in the minds of Jackson’s men, for soldiers soon learn to submit blindly to the powers that be, and obey, unquestioningly, the orders of their officers.
“Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs but to do and die.”
While halted at New Market, an incident occurred which banished all thought of the Richmond army from the minds of those who witnessed it, and filled each heart with pride, which claimed Virginia as its home, and that was the daring and almost miraculous escape of Gen. Ashby from the enemy, who attacked him at the bridge on the turnpike and chased him almost to town, killing his celebrated white stallion, but nearly every one of the seven pursuers were killed or wounded by Ashby and his single companion, although the General had no loads in his pistols and fought entirely with the sabre.
This was the last time we ever saw the great soldier on the war path, for he was killed the next day while leading an infantry regiment in the battle at Harrisonburg, (June 5th, 1862), and thus went down in a billow of blood the brilliant star of glory which promised to dazzle the astonished nations with the splendid blaze of chivalric light which now only blazons the fame of the knights of the olden time,
“Whose bones are dust, whose swords are rust,
Whose souls are with the saints, we trust.”
Whatever the world may say of the right or wrong of the “Lost Cause,” it will never deny that many of those by whom it was upheld, and who crowned its banners with glory in carrying them so gallantly and so far, were inspired by motives as patriotic, as pure and bright as ever burned in the bosom of mortal man. They were brave men; they fought as brave men fight, and died as brave men die. Upon a hundred “stormy heights and carnage-covered fields,” they attested their devotion to their cause, and among the truest and bravest of them all, the name of Gen. Turner Ashby shines with a radiant glory that will brighten still as it goes “sounding down the ages,”