“General Jackson,” writes Lord Wolseley, “had certainly very little to say about military operations, although he was intensely proud of his soldiers, and enthusiastic in his devotion to General Lee; and it was impossible to make him talk of his own achievements. Nor can I say that his speech betrayed his intellectual powers. But his manner, which was modesty itself, was most attractive. He put you at your ease at once, listening with marked courtesy and attention to whatever you might say; and when the subject of conversation was congenial, he was a most interesting companion. I quite endorse the statement as to his love for beautiful things. He told me that in all his travels he had seen nothing so beautiful as the lancet windows in York Minster.”
In his daily intercourse with his staff, however, in his office or in the mess-room, he showed to less advantage than in the society of strangers. His gravity of demeanour seldom wholly disappeared, his intense earnestness was in itself oppressive, and he was often absent and preoccupied. “Life at headquarters,” says one of his staff officers, “was decidedly dull. Our meals were often very dreary. The general had no time for light or trivial conversation, and he sometimes felt it his duty to rebuke our thoughtless and perhaps foolish remarks. Nor was it always quite safe to approach him. Sometimes he had a tired look in his eyes, and although he never breathed a word to one or another, we knew that he was dissatisfied with what was being done with the army.”[[7]]
Intense concentration of thought and purpose, in itself an indication of a powerful will, had distinguished Jackson from his very boyhood. During his campaigns he would pace for hours outside his tent, his hands clasped behind his back, absorbed in meditation; and when the army was on the march, he would ride for hours without raising his eyes or opening his lips. It was unquestionably at such moments that he was working out his plans, step by step, forecasting the counter-movements of the enemy, and providing for every emergency that might occur. And here the habit of keeping his whole faculties fixed on a single object, and of imprinting on his memory the successive processes of complicated problems, fostered by the methods of study which, both at West Point and Lexington, the weakness of his eyes had made compulsory, must have been an inestimable advantage. Brilliant strategical manœuvres, it cannot be too often repeated, are not a matter of inspiration and of decision on the spur of the moment. The problems presented by a theatre of war, with their many factors, are not to be solved except by a vigorous and sustained intellectual effort. “If,” said Napoleon, “I always appear prepared, it is because, before entering on an undertaking, I have meditated for long and have foreseen what may occur. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly and secretly what I should do in circumstances unexpected by others; it is thought and meditation.”
The proper objective, speaking in general terms, of all military operations is the main army of the enemy, for a campaign can never be brought to a successful conclusion until the hostile forces in the field have become demoralised by defeat; but, to ensure success, preponderance of numbers is usually essential, and it may be said, therefore, that the proper objective is the enemy’s main army when it is in inferior strength.
Under ordinary conditions, the first step, then, towards victory must be a movement, or a series of movements, which will compel the enemy to divide his forces, and put it out of his power to assemble even equal strength on the battle-field.
This entails a consideration of the strategic points upon the theatre of war, for it is by occupying or threatening some point which the enemy cannot afford to lose that he will be induced to disperse his army, or to place himself in a position where he can be attacked at a disadvantage. While his main army, therefore, is the ultimate objective, certain strategic points become the initial objectives, to be occupied or threatened either by the main body or detached forces. It is seldom, however, that these initial objectives are readily discovered; and it is very often the case that even the ultimate objective may be obscured.
These principles are well illustrated by the operations in the Valley of Virginia during the month of May and the first fortnight of June, 1862. After the event it is easy to see that Banks’ army was Jackson’s proper objective—being the principal force in the secondary theatre of war. But at the time, before the event, Lee and Jackson alone realised the importance of overwhelming Banks and thus threatening Washington. It was not realised by Johnston, a most able soldier, for the whole of his correspondence goes to show that he thought a purely defensive attitude the best policy for the Valley Army. It was not realised by Jackson’s subordinates, for it was not till long after the battle of Winchester that the real purport of the operations in which they had been engaged began to dawn on them. It was not realised by Lincoln, by Stanton, or even by McClellan, for to each of them the sudden attack on Front Royal was as much of a surprise as to Banks himself; and we may be perfectly confident that none but a trained strategist, after a prolonged study of the map and the situation, would realise it now.
It is to be noted, too, that Jackson’s initial objectives—the strategical points in the Valley—were invariably well selected. The Luray Gap, the single road which gives access across the Massanuttons from one side of the Valley to the other, was the most important. The flank position on Elk Run, the occupation of which so suddenly brought up Banks, prevented him interposing between Jackson and Edward Johnson, and saved Staunton from capture, was a second; Front Royal, by seizing which he threatened Banks at Strasburg in flank and rear, compelling him to a hasty retreat, and bringing him to battle on ground which he had not prepared, a third; and the position at Port Republic, controlling the only bridge across the Shenandoah, and separating Shields from Frémont, a fourth. The bearing of all these localities was overlooked by the Federals, and throughout the campaign we cannot fail to notice a great confusion on their part as regards objectives. They neither recognised what the aim of their enemy would be, nor at what they should aim themselves. It was long before they discovered that Lee’s army, and not Richmond, was the vital point of the Confederacy. Not a single attempt was made to seize strategic points, and if we may judge from the orders and dispatches in the Official Records, their existence was never recognised. To this oversight the successive defeats of the Northern forces were in great part due. From McClellan to Banks, each one of their generals appears to have been blind to the advantages that may be derived from a study of the theatre of war. Not one of them hit upon a line of operations which embarrassed the Confederates, and all possessed the unhappy knack of joining battle on the most unfavourable terms. Moreover, when it at last became clear that the surest means of conquering a country is to defeat its armies, the true objective was but vaguely realised. The annihilation of the enemy’s troops seems to have been the last thing dreamt of. Opportunities of crushing him in detail were neither sought for nor created. As General Sheridan said afterwards: “The trouble with the commanders of the Army of the Potomac was that they never marched out to ‘lick’ anybody; all they thought of was to escape being ‘licked’ themselves.”
But it is not sufficient, in planning strategical combinations, to arrive at a correct conclusion as regards the objective. Success demands a most careful calculation of ways and means: of the numbers at disposal; of food, forage, and ammunition; and of the forces to he detached for secondary purposes. The different factors of the problem—the strength and dispositions of the enemy, the roads, railways, fortresses, weather, natural features, the moral of the opposing armies, the character of the opposing general, the facilities for supply have each and all of them to be considered, their relative prominence assigned to them, and their conflicting claims to be brought into adjustment.
For such mental exertion Jackson was well equipped. He had made his own the experience of others. His knowledge of history made him familiar with the principles which had guided Washington and Napoleon in the selection of objectives, and with the means by which they attained them. It is not always easy to determine the benefit, beyond a theoretical acquaintance with the phenomena of the battle-field, to be derived from studying the campaigns of the great masters of war. It is true that no successful general, whatever may have been his practical knowledge, has neglected such study; but while many have borne witness to its efficacy, none have left a record of the manner in which their knowledge of former campaigns influenced their own conduct.