After the first battle, many Southerners thought the war was finished and simply left for home without word to anyone. The Union rallied like an eagle whose young are threatened. Washington became a fortress. Mountains of food and material began to rise in warehouses. A call for volunteers went out. Within two months of Bull Run, Union muster lists swelled to one hundred and sixty-eight thousand names.
Out of crisis, the real American Army was born.
6
The World’s Largest General Store
Stonewall Jackson reclined against a pile of lichen-covered rocks that in some prior day was part of a fence or perhaps a fortification. He leaned back against, well, a stone wall, thought Canon.
A year had passed since Jackson earned his war name on the plains of Manassas. Since then, his fame and that of the Stonewall Brigade, as the Virginians were now known, increased in direct proportion to the number of battles they fought. The battles had been many and Jackson’s name was great.
It was only seven A.M., but even this cool shade high on Cedar Mountain could not dispel the certainty of brutal heat later that day in Shenandoah Valley. By nine, the early August heat would be a visible shimmering wave like the clouds of rolling dust that marked General John Pope’s retreating Union soldiers.
Pope, with sixty-two thousand men, had come to the Shenandoah Valley to lure Lee and his army out of Richmond. When the battle joined, General George McClellan was to close on Lee from the opposite direction with eighty-seven thousand more Federals, catching Lee in a pincer movement.
On paper, the plan looked flawless. But when Abraham Lincoln learned of it, he immediately issued an order for the Union Army to reunite quickly as possible. From what he had seen of past performances, he feared Lee would come out of Richmond, whip one army then hurry on to whip the other. He ordered a recall.
Too late.
Lee sent out Stonewall Jackson and his twenty-five thousand men with orders to hold Pope while Lee took the remaining forty thousand men to confront McClellan. Canon knew little of these machinations. He only knew that yesterday morning, August 9, 1862, Stonewall’s Virginians had whaled into the left flank of Pope’s army and whipped hell out of the entire outfit. By last evening, they had driven Pope back twenty miles into a defensive position on the banks of the Rappahannock. This morning, Jackson’s wiretappers had intercepted panicked cables from Pope to McClellan that Pope’s army was badly outnumbered and faced annihilation if McClellan did not hurry to the rescue.
And now Jackson watched as Pope’s rear guard retreated to join the Union commander on the Rappahannock. Jackson, his left side in profile as spots of the shaded sun filtered down on him, had lain in quiet thought for an hour.
Canon had decided Jackson was quite mystic. He had become the bane of Northern troops, two steps ahead of any Yankee general’s plans. More dread even than Lee, Jackson was known throughout the civilized world.
The cause of Pope’s plight serenely sucked on a lemon and gazed thoughtfully at roiling dust produced by a fleeing army. Canon wasn’t sure what was going on beneath the kepi forage cap Jackson wore. But he was sure of one thing. Whatever was going on would not translate into good news for John Pope.
In the quiet of the morning, Canon considered the rising of Stonewall Jackson’s star. Six months after the battle of Bull Run, Jackson made major general and was given command of the Shenandoah Valley. And to his gratification and delight, Canon was made colonel and permanently attached to the Stonewall Army.
Since then, Jackson had literally become the new Napoleon. In its first three months of operation, the Stonewall Army had marched more than two thousand miles, whipped three separate Union armies and had taken twenty thousand prisoners. Since May, Stonewall Jackson had won seven consecutive victories, including the one yesterday. And at no time had Jackson’s army numbered more than twenty-five thousand men, though Yankee reports often credited him with three times the number.
Here’s the strange thing, Canon thought: Although Stonewall Jackson was presently responsible for the death and capture of more American soldiers than any other man in history, he was fawned over by the Northern press. Every Yankee, from Abraham Lincoln to the lowest private, spoke of him in terms of respect and admiration, even awe. In the South, the admiration bordered on worship. Whenever Jackson rode into a town, guards had to be posted for his horse, Fancy, or that little sorrel would not have had a hair left in mane or tail.
Yet the man seemed genuinely unaffected by this, except for an occasional display of unfeigned embarrassment. Jackson truly shunned publicity, normally the sweetest of sops to generals. He fled from interviews as if they were Yankee interrogations and adoring crowds caused him to blush and stammer.
Nor was Jackson’s heralded piety any sort of affectation. Jackson had always been devout and was neither more nor less so than when Canon first met him. He announced each victory to Richmond with a telegram which opened with the same laconic line—God had once again blessed the Southern cause. Jackson’s piety, Canon suspected, helped him deal with the fame.
Jackson’s uniforms were almost as tattered as those of his troops. His uniforms were clean, just awfully ragged. Although correct to the button, Jackson’s uniforms usually looked as if he had been caught in a shell burst, a direct hit that somehow had penetrated only his clothing.
Canon had seen Yankees, captured in large lots by the Stonewall Army, literally fight for position in the front ranks just to get a glimpse of Jackson riding by. One story had it that two Yankees in a captured throng saw Jackson ride past in his tattered uniform.
“Don’t look like much, do he?” said one. “No, he don’t,” said the other, “but if he was ours we wouldn’t be captured, neither.”
Canon captured a Yankee colonel who asked to have the honor to surrender himself personally to Stonewall Jackson. Canon had obliged.
The tattered uniforms, Canon thought, might be Jackson’s sole affectation, and, if that, it was only in order to identify himself with his ragged soldiers. That identification with his men, apart from Jackson’s military skills, was another facet of the Stonewall genius. He does not hold himself above his men, as do so many generals, Canon thought.
General officers usually sought out the most comfortable houses for their headquarters. Jackson often slept in his tent, as did Lee, even if comfortable houses were near. Canon recalled a particularly stormy night, with Jackson suffering a minor cough, when the general had decided to sleep indoors and had taken his entire staff inside. It was not unusual for two or even three fully uniformed soldiers to occupy one mattress.
Canon and a scouting party arrived at the house at three A.M., having spent twelve hours in the saddle without rest. Jackson got up from his bed and threw members of his personal staff out of their beds so they could be given to the Black Horse.
On another of the rare occasions when he stayed inside, Jackson had been asleep in bed when a messenger, who had ridden almost all night, came into the house. Seeing only one man on the bed, and not knowing the man was Jackson, the exhausted captain crawled in beside the general and was soon asleep. Next morning the horrified captain learned he had not only thrown himself down next to Stonewall Jackson, but had pulled all the bedcovers to himself. He sought out Jackson to apologize, but before he could begin, Jackson fixed him a baleful glare.
“Captain,” said Jackson, “if that ever happens again I must insist that you remove your spurs before retiring for the evening.”
Remembering the episode, Canon also recalled the first nickname given Jackson by the raw Rebel recruits at Harper’s Ferry. They called him Fool Tom. They had despised Jackson’s penchant for secrecy and the endless training marches that now stood them in such good stead. Fool Tom cum Stonewall. How they hated Fool Tom Jackson. How they love Stonewall Jackson. Shaking himself from reverie, Canon looked over at Fool Tom.
Horrible!