University of Virginia Library

VII.
THE “OLD STONEWALL BRIGADE.”

In every army there is a Corps d'Élite which bears the heaviest
brunt of battle, and carries off the chief glories of the conflict.
In the forces of Cæsar it was the “Tenth Legion” which that
“foremost man of all this world” took personal command of,
and led into action, when the moment for the last struggle came.
In the royal troops of Louis XIV., fighting against Marlborough,
it was the Garde Français who were called upon when “do or
die” was the word, and men were needed who with hats off
would call on their enemies to deliver the first fire, and then
close in, resolved to conquer or leave their dead bodies on the
field. In the Grand Armée of Napoleon it was the Vieux
Garde which the Emperor depended upon to retrieve the fortunes
of the most desperate conflicts, and carry forward the
Imperial Eagles to victory.

In the Army of Northern Virginia there is a corps, which,
without prejudice to their noble commander, may be said to
represent the Tenth Legion of Cæsar, the French Guard of
Louis, and the Old Guard of Napoleon. This is the Old Stonewall
Brigade of Jackson.

The Old Stonewall Brigade! What a host of thoughts, memories,
and emotions, do those simple words incite! The very mention
of the famous band is like the bugle note that sounds “to
arms!” These veterans have fought and bled and conquered
on so many battle-fields that memory grows weary almost of
recalling their achievements. Gathering around Jackson in the
old days of 1861, when Patterson confronted Johnston in the
Valley of the Shenandoah—when Stuart was a simple Colonel,

and Ashby only a Captain—they held in check an enemy
twenty times their number, and were moulded by their great
commander into that Spartan phalaux which no Federal bayonet
could break. They were boys and old men; the heirs of
ancient names, who had lived in luxury from childhood, and the
humblest of the unlettered sons of toil; students and ploughmen,
rosy-cheeked urehins and grizzled seniors, old and young,
rich and poor; but all were comrades, trained, united, fighting
for a common end, and looking with supreme confidence to the
man in the dingy gray uniform, with the keen eyes glittering
under the yellow gray cap, who at Manassas was to win for
himself and them that immortal name of “Stonewall,” cut now
with a pen of iron on the imperishable shaft of history.

It was the Shenandoah Valley which more than all other
regions gave the corps its distinctive character and material;
that lovely land which these boys fought over so often afterwards,
charging upon many battle-fields with that fire and resolution
which come only to the hearts of men fighting within
sight of their homes. Jackson called to them; they came from
around Winchester, and Millwood, and Charlestown; from valley
and mountain; they fell into line, their leader took command,
and then commenced their long career of toil and glory; their
wonderful marches over thousands of miles; their incessant combats
against odds that seemed overpowering; their contempt
of all that makes the soldier faint-hearted, of snow and rain, and
cold and heat, and hunger and thirst, and marching that wears
down the strongest frames, making the most determined energies
yield. Many dropped by the way, but few failed Jackson.
The soul of their leader seemed to have entered every breast;
and thus in thorough rapport with that will of iron, they seemed
to have discovered the secret of achieving impossibilities. To
meet the enemy was to drive him before them, it seemed—so
obstinately did the eagles of victory continue to perch upon the
old battle flag. The men of the Old Stonewall Brigade marched
on, and fought, and triumphed, like was machines which felt no
need of rest, food, or sleep. On the advance to Romney they
marched—many of them without shoes—over roads so slippery

with ice that men were falling and guns going off all along the
line, and at night lay down without blankets or food upon the
snow, to be up and moving again at dawn. When Shields and
Fremont were closing in on Jackson's rear, they marched in one
day from Harper's Ferry to Strasburg, nearly fifty miles. On
the advance in August, 1862, to the Second Manassas, they
passed over nearly forty miles, almost without a moment's rest;
and as Jackson rode along the line which was still moving on
“briskly and without stragglers,” no orders could prevent them
from bursting forth into tumultuous cheers at the sight of him.
He had marched them nearly to death, to reach a position where
they were to sustain the whole weight of Pope's army hurled
against them—they were weary unto death, and staggering—but
they made the forests of Fauquier resound with that electric
shout which said, “We are ready!”

Such has been the work of the Old Brigade—not their glory;
that is searcely here alluded to—but their hard, unknown toil to
carry out their chief's orders. “March!” has been the order
of their going. The very rapidity of their marches separates
them from all soldier comforts—often from their very blankets,
however cold the weather; and any other troops but these and
their Southern comrades would long since have mutinied, and
demanded bread and rest. But the shadow of disaffection never
flitted over forehead in that command. Whatever discontent
may be felt at times at the want of attention on the part of subordinate
officers to their necessities, the “long roll” has only to
be beaten—they have only to see the man in the old faded uniform
appear, and hunger, cold, fatigue, are forgotten. The Old
Brigade is ready—“Here!” is the answer to the roll-call, all
along the line: and though the eye is dull from want of food
and rest, the arm is strong and the bayonet is sharp and bright.

That leader in the faded uniform is their idol. Anecdote,
song, story—in all he is sung or celebrated. The verses professing
to have been “found upon the body of a serjeant of the
Old Stonewall Brigade at Winchester,” are known to all—the
picture they contain of the men around the camp fire—the
Shenandoah flowing near, the “burly Blue Ridge” echoing to

their strains—and the appearance of the “Blue Light Elder”
calling on his men to pray with him:

Here is the rough music of the singer as he proceeds with his
strain, and recalls the hard conflict of the second Manassas, when
Longstreet was at Thoroughfare, Jackson at Groveton:

Lastly, hear how the singer at the camp fire, in sight of the
firs of the Blue Ridge and the waters of the Shenandoah, indulges
in a wild outburst in honour of his chief:

These words may sound extravagant, but defeat has met the
enemy so persistently wherever Jackson has delivered battle at
the head of the Old Brigade and their brave comrades, that the
song is not so unreasonable as it may appear. And here let me
beg that those “brave comrades” of the Old Brigade will not
suppose that I am oblivious of their own glory, their undying
courage, and that fame they have won, greater than Greek or
Roman. They fought as the men I am writing of, did—with a
nerve as splendid, and a patriotism as pure and unfaltering as
ever characterized human beings. It is only that I am speaking
now of my comrades of the Shenandoah Valley, who fought
and fell beneath the good old flag, and thinking of those dear
dead ones, and the corps in which they won their deathless
names, I am led to speak of them and it only.

Of these, and the Old Brigade, I am never weary thinking,
writing, or telling: of the campaigns of the Valley; the great
flank movement on the Chickahominy; the advance upon Manassas
in the rear of Pope; the stern, hard combat on the left wing
of the army at the battle of Sharpsburg; all their toils, their
sufferings, their glories. Their path has been strewed all over
with battles; incredible have been the marches of the “Foot
Cavalry;” incessant their conflicts. Death has mowed down
whole ranks of them; the thinned line tells the story of their
losses; but the war-worn veterans still confront the enemy. The
comrades of those noble souls who have thus poured out their
hearts' blood, hold their memory sacred. They laughed with
them in the peaceful years of boyhood, by the Shenandoah, in
the fields around Millwood, in Jefferson, or amid the Alleghanies;
then they fought beside them, in Virginia, in Maryland,
wherever the flag was borne; they loved them, mourn them,
every name is written on their hearts, whether officer or private,
and is ineffaceable. Their own time may come, to-day or to-morrow;
but they feel, one and all, that if they fall they will
give their hearts' blood to a noble cause, and that if they survive,
the memory of past toils and glories will be sweet.

Those survivors may be pardoned if they tell their children,
when the war is ended, that they fought under Jackson, in the

“Old Stonewall Brigade.” They may be pardoned even if they
boast of their exploits, their wonderful marches, their constant
and desperate combats, the skill and nerve which snatched victory
from the jaws of defeat, and, even when they were retiring
before overwhelming numbers, made it truly better that the foe
had “ne'er been born” than meet their bayonet charge.

In speaking of this veteran legion, “praise is virtue.” Their
history is blazoned all over with glory. They are “happy names,
beloved children”—the favourites of fame, if not of fortune. In
their dingy uniforms, lying stretched beneath the pines, or by
the roadside, they are the mark of many eyes which see them
not, the absorbing thought in the breast of beauty, and the idols
of the popular heart. In line before the enemy, with their bristling
bayonets, they are the life-guard of their dear old mother,
Virginia.

The heart that does not thrill at sight of the worn veterans, is
cold indeed. To him who writes, they present a spectacle noble
and heroic; and their old tattered, ball-pierced flag is the sacred
ensign of liberty.

Their history and all about them is familiar to me. I have
seen them going into action—after fighting four battles in five
days—with the regularity and well dressed front of holiday
soldiers on parade. There was no straggling, no lagging; every
man stood to his work, and advanced with the steady tramp of
the true soldier. The ranks were thin, and the faces travel-worn;
but the old flag floated in the winds of the Potomac as defiantly
as on the banks of the Shenandoah. That bullet-torn ensign
might have been written all over, on both sides, with the names
of battles, and the list have then been incomplete. Manassas,
Winchester, Kernstown, Front Royal, Port Republic, Cold Harbour,
Malvern Hill, Slaughter Mountain, Bristow Station, Grove
—Ox Hill, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, were to follow. And
these were but the larger names upon the roll of their glory.
The numberless engagements of minor character are omitted;
but in these I have mentioned they appear to the world, and
sufficiently vindicate their claim to the title of heroes.

I seemed to see those names upon their flag as the old brigade

advanced that day, and my whole heart went to greet them, as
it had gone forth to meet and greet the brave youth whom I spoke
to just before the battle, by the roadside, where he lay faint and
weak but resolute and smiling.[1]

Whatever be the issue of the conflict, these brave spirits will
be honoured, and held dear by all who love real truth and
worth and courage. Wherever they sleep—amid the Alleghaneys,
or by the Potomac, in the fields of Maryland, or the valleys
and lowlands of Virginia—they are holy. Those I knew the best
and loved most of all, sleep now or will slumber soon beneath
the weeping willow of the Old Chapel graveyard in the Valley.
There let them rest amid tears, but laurel-crowned. They sleep,
but are not dead, for they are immortal.