Wearing of the gray :: :: University of Virginia Library

He was twenty-seven when he resigned his first-lieutenancy
in the United States cavalry, and came to offer his sword to Virginia.
He was sprung from an old and honourable family there,
and his love of his native soil was strong. Upon his arrival he
was made lieutenant-colonel, and placed in command of the
cavalry on the Upper Potomac, where he proved himself so vigilant
a soldier that Johnston called him “the indefatigable Stuart,”
and compared him to “a yellow jacket,” which was “no
sooner brushed off than it lit back.” He had command of the
whole front until Johnston left the valley, when he moved with
the column to Manassas, and charged and broke the New York
Zouaves; afterwards held the front toward Alexandria, under
Beauregard; then came the hard falling back, the struggle upon
the Peninsula, the battle of Cold Harbour, and the advance which
followed into Maryland. Stuart was now a general, and laid
the foundation of his fame by the “ride around McClellan”
on the Chickahominy. Thenceforth he was the right hand of
Lee until his death.

The incidents of his career from the spring of 1862 to May,
1864, would fill whole volumes. The ride around McClellan;
the fights on the Rapidan; the night march to Catlett's, where
he captured General Pope's coat and official papers; the advance
to Manassas; the attack on Flint Hill; the hard rear-guard work
at South Mountain; holding the left at Sharpsburg; the circut
of McClellan again in Maryland; the bitter conflicts near Upperville
as Lee fell back; the fighting all along the slopes of the

Blue Ridge; the “crowding 'em with artillery” on the night at
Fredericksburg; the winter march upon Dumfries; the battle
of Chancellorsville, where he commanded Jackson's corps; the
advance thereafter, and the stubbron conflict at Fleetwood Hill
on the 9th of June; the hard, obstinate fighting once more to
guard the flanks of Lee on his way to Gettysburg; the march
across the Potomac; the advance to within sight of Washington,
and the invasion of Pennsylvania, with the determined fights
at Hanovertown, Carlisle, and Gettysburg, where he met and
drove before him the crack cavalry of the Federal army; the
retreat thereafter before an enraged enemy; the continuous combats
of the mountain passes, and in the vicinity of Boonsboro';
the obstinate stand he made once more on the old ground around
Upperville as Lee again fell back; the heavy petites guerres of
Culpeper; the repulse of Custer when he attacked Charlottesville;
the expedition to the rear of General Meade when he
came over to Mine Run; the bitter struggle in the Wilderness
when General Grant advanced; the fighting all along the Po in
Spotsylvania; the headlong gallop past the South Anna, and
the bloody struggle near the Yellow Tavern, where the cavalier,
who had passed through a hundred battles untouched, came to
his end at last—these are a few of the pictures which rise up
before the mind's eye at those words, “the career of Stuart.” In
the brief space of a sketch like this, it is impossible to attempt
any delineation of these crowding scenes and events. They
belong to history, and will sooner or later be placed upon record
—for a thousand octavos cannot bury them as long as one forefinger
and thumb remains to write of them. All that is here
designed is a rough cartoon of the actual man—not a fancy
figure, the work of a eulogist, but a truthful likeness, however
poorly executed.