University of Virginia Library

5. V.

Stuart was forced, by the necessities of the struggle, the nature
of the country, and the all-work he had to perform, to depend
much upon sharp-shooting. But he preferred pure cavalry
fighting. He fought his dismounted skirmishers with obstinacy,
and was ever present with them, riding alone the line, a conspi
cuous target for the enemy's bullets, cheering them on. But it
was in the legitimate sphere of cavalry that he was greatest.
The skirmishing was the “hard work.” He had thus to keep
a dangerous enemy off General Lee's flanks as the infantry
moved through the gaps of the Blue Ridge towards Pennsylvania,
or to defend the line of the Rappahannock, when some Federal
commander with thousands of horsemen, “came down like a
wolf” on General Lee's little “fold.” It was here, I think, that
Stuart vindicated his capacity to fight infantry, for such were
the dismounted cavalry; and he held his ground before swarming
enemies with a nerve and persistence which resembled Jackson's.

It was in the raid, the flank movement, the charge, and the

falling back, with cavalry proper, however, that he exhibited the
most conspicuous traits of the soldier. The foundation of his
successes here was a wonderful energy. The man was a war-machine
which never flagged. Day or night he was ready to
mount at the sound of the bugle. Other commanders, like the
bonus Homerus, drowsed at times, and nodded, suffering their
zeal to droop; but Stuart was sleepless, and General Lee could
count on him at any instant. To that inexhaustible physical
strength was united a mentality as untiring. The mind, like the
body, could “go day and night,” and needed no rest. When all
around him were broken down, Stuart still remained fresh and
unwearied; ready for council or for action; to give his views
and suggest important movements, or to march and make an
attack. His organization was of the “hair-trigger” kind, and
the well-tempered spring never lost its elasticity. He would
give orders, and very judicious ones, in his sleep—as on the
night of the second Manassas. When utterly prostrated by
whole days and nights spent in the saddle, he would stop by the
roadside, lie down without pickets or videttes, even in an enemy's
country—as once he did coming from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in
July, 1863—sleep for an hour, wrapped in his cape and resting
against the trunk of a tree, and then mount again, as fresh
apparently, as if he had slumbered from sunset to dawn.

As his physical energies thus never seemed to droop, or
sprang with a rebound from the weight on them, so he never
desponded. A stouter heart in the darkest hour I have never
seen. No clouds could depress him or disarm his courage. He
met ill fortune with a smile, and drove it before him with his
gallant laughter. Gloom could not live in his presence, and the
whole race of “croakers” were shamed into hopefulness by his
inspiring words and demeanour. Defeat and disaster seemed to
make him stronger and more resolute, and he rose under
pressure. In moments of the most imminent peril to the very
existence of his command, I have seen him drum carelessly with
his fingers on the knee thrown over the pommel of his saddle,
reflect for an instant without any trace of excitement, and then
give the order to cut a path through the enemy, without the

change of a muscle. At such moments, it was plain that Stuart
coolly made up his mind to do his best, and leave the rest to the
chances of arms. His manner said as plainly as any word: “I
am going to make my way out or die—the thing is decided upon
—why make a to-do about it?” So perfect was his equanimity
upon such occasions, that persons ignorant of the extent of the
peril could not realize that any existed. It was hard to believe,
in presence of this “heart of oak,” with his cool and indifferent
manner, his composed tones and careless smile, that death or
capture stared the command in the face. And yet these were
just the occasions when Stuart's face of bronze was most unmoved.
Peril brought out his strength. The heaviest clouds
must obscure the landscape before his splendid buoyancy and
“heart of hope” were fully revealed. That stout heart seemed
invincible, and impending ruin could not shake it. I have seen
him strung, aroused, his eye flaming, his voice hoarse with the
mingled joy and passion of battle; but have never seen him
flurried or cast down, much less paralysed by a disaster. When
not rejoicing like the hunter on the traces of the game, he was
cool, resolute, and determined, evidently “to do or die.” The
mens œqua in arduis shone in the piercing blue eye, and his undaunted
bearing betrayed a soul which did not mean to yield—
which might be crushed and shattered, but would not bend.
When pushed hard and hunted down by a swarm of foes, as he
was more than once, Stuart presented a splendid spectacle. He
met the assault like an athlete of the Roman amphitheatre, and
fought with the ferocity of a tiger. He looked “dangerous”
at such moments; and those adversaries who knew him best,
advanced upon their great opponent thus standing at bay, with a
caution which was born of experience.

These observations apply with especial justice to the various
occasions when Stuart held with his cavalry cordon the country
north of the Rappahannock and east of the Blue Ridge, while
General Lee either advanced or retired through the gaps of the
mountains. The work which he did here will remain among his
most important services. He is best known to the world by his
famous “raids,” as they were erroneously called, by his circuits

of McClellan's army in Virginia and in Maryland, and other
movements of a similar character. This, however, was not his
great work. He will live in history as the commander of Lee's
cavalry, and for the great part he played in that leader's most
important movements. What Lee designed when he moved
Northward, or fell back from the valley, it was a matter of the
utmost interest to the enemy to know, and persistent efforts were
made by them to strike the Confederate flank and discover.
Stuart was, however, in the way with his cavalry. The road to
the Blue Ridge was obstructed; and somewhere near Middleburg,
Upperville, or Paris, the advancing column would find the
wary cavalier. Then took place an obstinate, often desperate
struggle—on Stuart's part to hold his ground; on the enemy's
part to break through the cordon. Crack troops—infantry,
cavalry, and artillery—were sent upon this important work,
and the most determined officers of the United States Army
commanded them.

Then came the tug of war. Stuart must meet whatever force
was brought against him, infantry as well as cavalry, and match
himself with the best brains of the Federal army in command
of them. It was often “diamond cut diamond.” In the fields
around Upperville, and everywhere along the road to Ashby's
Gap, raged a war of giants. The infantry on both sides heard
the distant roar of the artillery crowning every hill, and thought
the cavalry was skirmishing a little. The guns were only the
signal of a hand-to-hand struggle. Desperate charges were
made upon them; sabres clashed, carbines banged; in one
great hurly-burly of rushing horses, ringing sabres, cracking
pistols, and shouts which deafened, the opposing columns clashed
together. If Stuart broke them, he pressed them hotly, and
never rested until he swept them back for miles. If they broke
Stuart, he fell back with the obstinate ferocity of a bull-dog;
fought with his sharpshooters in every field, with his Horse Artillery
upon every knoll; and if they “crowded him” too closely
he took command of his column, and went at them with the
sabre, resolved to repulse them or die. It was upon this great
theatre that he displayed all his splendid faculties of nerve,

judgment, dash, and obstinacy—his quickness of conception,
rapidity of decision, and that fire of onset before which few
opponents could stand. The infantry did not know much about
these hot engagements, and cherished the flattering view that they
did all the fighting. General Lee, however, knew accurately
what was done, and what was not done. In Spotsylvania, after
Stuart's fall, he exclaimed: “If Stuart only were here! I can
scarcely think of him without weeping.”

The great cavalier had protected the Southern flanks upon a
hundred movements; guarded the wings upon many battle-fields,
penetrated the enemy's designs, and given General Lee information
in every campaign; and now when the tireless brain was
still, and the piercing eyes were dim, the country began to comprehend
the full extent of the calamity at Yellow Tavern, in
May, 1864, and to realize the irreparable loss sustained by the
cause when this bulwark fell.