The Duke’s subordinates, when placed in position, acted on a well-established rule. Within that position they had unlimited power. They could defend the first line, or they could meet the enemy with a counter-attack from a position in rear, and in both cases they could pursue. But the pursuit was never to be carried beyond certain defined limits. Moreover, Wellington’s views as to the efficacy of the counterstroke were identical with those of Jackson, and he had the same predilection for cold steel. “If they attempt this point again, Hill,” were his orders to that general at Busaco, “give them a volley and charge bayonets; but don’t let your people follow them too far.”
But it was neither wise strategy nor sound tactics which was the main element in Pope’s defeat; neither the strong effort of a powerful brain, nor the judicious devolution of responsibility. A brilliant military historian, more conversant perhaps with the War of Secession than the wars of France, concludes his review of this campaign with a reference to Jackson as “the Ney of the Confederate army.”[[8]] The allusion is obvious. So long as the victories of Napoleon are remembered, the name of his lieutenant will always be a synonym for heroic valour. But the valour of Ney was of a different type from that of Jackson. Ney’s valour was animal, Jackson’s was moral, and between the two there is a vast distinction. Before the enemy, when his danger was tangible, Ney had few rivals. But when the enemy was unseen and his designs were doubtful, his resolution vanished. He was without confidence in his own resources. He could not act without direct orders, and he dreaded responsibility. At Bautzen his timidity ruined Napoleon’s combinations; in the campaign of Leipsic he showed himself incapable of independent command; and he cannot be acquitted of hesitation at Quatre Bras.
It was in the same circumstances that Ney’s courage invariably gave way that Jackson’s courage shone with the brightest lustre. It might appear that he had little cause for fear in the campaign of the Second Manassas, that he had only to follow his instructions, and that if he had failed his failure would have been visited upon Lee. The instructions which he received, however, were not positive, but contingent on events. If possible, he was to cut the railway, in order to delay the reinforcements which Pope was expecting from Alexandria; and then, should the enemy permit, he was to hold fast east of the Bull Run Mountains until Lee came up. But he was to be guided in everything by his own discretion. He was free to accept battle or refuse it, to attack or to defend, to select his own line of retreat, to move to any quarter of the compass that he pleased. For three days, from the morning of August 26 to the morning of August 29, he had complete control of the strategic situation; on his movements were dependent the movements of the main army; the bringing the enemy to bay and the choice of the field of battle were both in his hands. And during those three days he was cut off from Lee and Longstreet. The mountains, with their narrow passes, lay between; and, surrounded by three times his number, he was abandoned entirely to his own resources.
Throughout the operations he had been in unusually high spirits. The peril and responsibility seemed to act as an elixir, and he threw off much of his constraint. But as the day broke on August 29 he looked long and earnestly in the direction of Thoroughfare Gap, and when a messenger from Stuart brought the intelligence that Longstreet was through the pass, he drew a long breath and uttered a sigh of relief.[[9]] The period of suspense was over, but even on that unyielding heart the weight of anxiety had pressed with fearful force. For three days he had only received news of the main army at long and uncertain intervals. For two of these days his information of the enemy’s movements was very small. While he was marching to Bristoe Station, Pope, for all he knew, might have been marching against Longstreet with his whole force. When he attacked King on the 28th the Federals, in what strength he knew not, still held Thoroughfare Gap; when he formed for action on the 29th he was still ignorant of what had happened to the main body, and it was on the bare chance that Longstreet would force the passage that he accepted battle with far superior numbers.
It is not difficult to imagine how a general like Ney, placed in Jackson’s situation, would have trimmed and hesitated: how in his march to Manassas, when he had crossed the mountains and left the Gap behind him, he would have sent out reconnaissances in all directions, halting his troops until he learned the coast was clear; how he would have dashed at the Junction by the shortest route; how he would have forced his weary troops northward when the enemy’s approach was reported; how, had he reached Sudley Springs, he would have hugged the shelter of the woods and let King’s division pass unmolested; and, finally, when Pope’s columns converged on his position, have fallen back on Thoroughfare or Aldie. Nor would he have been greatly to blame. Unless gifted with that moral fortitude which Napoleon ranks higher than genius or experience, no general would have succeeded in carrying Lee’s design to a successful issue. In his unhesitating march to Manassas Junction, in his deliberate sojourn for four-and-twenty hours astride his enemy’s communications, in his daring challenge to Pope’s whole army at Groveton, Jackson displayed the indomitable courage characteristic of the greatest soldiers.
As suggested in the first volume, it is too often overlooked, by those who study the history of campaign, that war is the province of uncertainty. The reader has the whole theatre of war displayed before him. He notes the exact disposition of the opposing forces at each hour of the campaign, and with this in his mind’s eye he condemns or approves the action of the commanders. In the action of the defeated general he usually often sees much to blame; in the action of the successful general but little to admire. But his judgment is not based on a true foundation. He has ignored the fact that the information at his disposal was not at the disposal of those he criticises; and until he realises that both generals, to a greater or less degree, must have been groping in the dark, he will neither make just allowance for the errors of the one, nor appreciate the genius of the other.
It is true that it is difficult in the extreme to ascertain how much or how little those generals whose campaigns have become historical knew of their enemy at any particular moment. For instance, in the campaign before us, we are nowhere told whether Lee, when he sent Jackson to Manassas Junction, was aware that a portion of McClellan’s army had been shipped to Alexandria in place of Aquia; or whether he knew, on the second day of the battle of Manassas, that Pope had been reinforced by two army corps from the Peninsula. He had certainly captured Pope’s dispatch book, and no doubt it threw much light on the Federal plans, but we are not aware how far into the future this light projected. We do know, however, that, in addition to this correspondence, such knowledge as he had was derived from reports. But reports are never entirely to be relied on; they are seldom full, they are often false, and they are generally exaggerated. However active the cavalry, however patriotic the inhabitants, no general is ever possessed of accurate information of his enemy’s dispositions, unless the forces are very small, or the precautions to elude observation very feeble. On August 28 Stuart’s patrols covered the whole country round Jackson’s army, and during the whole day the Federal columns were converging on Manassas. Sigel and Reynolds’ four divisions passed through Gainesville, not five miles from Sudley Springs, and for a time were actually in contact with Jackson’s outposts; and yet Sigel and Reynolds mistook Jackson’s outposts for reconnoitring cavalry. Again, when King’s single division, the rear-guard of Pope’s army, appeared upon the turnpike, Jackson attacked it with the idea that it was the flank-guard of a much larger force. Nor was this want of accurate intelligence due to lack of vigilance or to the dense woods. As a matter of fact the Confederates were more amply provided with information than is usually the case in war, even in an open country and with experienced armies.
But if, in the most favourable circumstances, a general is surrounded by an atmosphere which has been most aptly named the fog of war, his embarrassments are intensified tenfold when he commands a portion of a divided army. Under ordinary conditions a general is at least fully informed of the dispositions of his own forces. But when between two widely separated columns a powerful enemy, capable of crushing each in turn, intervenes; when the movements of that enemy are veiled in obscurity; when anxiety has taken possession of the troops, and the soldiers of either column, striving hopelessly to penetrate the gloom, reflect on the fate that may have overtaken their comrades, on the obstacles that may delay them, on the misunderstandings that may have occurred—it is at such a crisis that the courage of their leader is put to the severest test.
His situation has been compared to a man entering a dark room full of assailants, never knowing when or whence a blow may be struck against him. The illustration is inadequate. Not only has he to contend with the promptings of his own instincts, but he has to contend with the instincts and to sustain the resolution of his whole army. It is not from the enemy he has most to fear. A time comes in all protracted operations when the nervous energy of the best troops becomes exhausted, when the most daring shrink from further sacrifice, when the desire of self-preservation infects the stoutest veterans, and the will of the mass opposes a tacit resistance to all further effort. “Then,” says Clausewitz, “the spark in the breast of the commander must rekindle hope in the hearts of his men, and so long as he is equal to this he remains their master. When his influence ceases, and his own spirit is no longer strong enough to revive the spirit of others, the masses, drawing him with them, sink into that lower region of animal nature which recoils from danger and knows not shame. Such are the obstacles which the brain and courage of the military commander must overcome if he is to make his name illustrious.” And the obstacles are never more formidable than when his troops see no sign of the support they have expected. Then, if he still moves forward, although his peril increase at every step, to the point of junction; if he declines the temptation, although overwhelming numbers threaten him, of a safe line of retreat; if, as did Jackson, he deliberately confronts and challenges the hostile masses, then indeed does the soldier rise to the highest level of moral energy.
Strongly does Napoleon inveigh against operations which entail the division of an army into two columns unable to communicate; and especially does he reprobate the strategy which places the point of junction under the very beard of a concentrated enemy. Both of these maxims Lee violated. The last because he knew Pope, the first because he knew Jackson. It is rare indeed that such strategy succeeds. When all has depended on a swift and unhesitating advance, generals renowned for their ardent courage have wavered and turned aside. Hasdrubal, divided from Hannibal by many miles and a Consular army, fell back to the Metaurus, and Rome was saved. Two thousand years later, Prince Frederick Charles, divided by a few marches and two Austrian army corps from the Crown Prince, lingered so long upon the leer that the supremacy of Prussia trembled in the balance. But the character of the Virginian soldier was of loftier type. It has been remarked that after Jackson’s death Lee never again attempted those great turning movements which had achieved his most brilliant victories. Never again did he divide his army to unite it again on the field of battle. The reason is not far to seek. There was now no general in the Confederate army to whom he dared confide the charge of the detached wing, and in possessing one such general he had been more fortunate than Napoleon.[[10]]