 | Wearing of the gray |  |
IV.
ASHBY.
1. I.
In the Valley of Virginia, the glory of two men outshines
that of all others; two figures were tallest, best beloved, and to-day
are most bitterly mourned. One was Jackson, the other
Ashby. The world knows all about Jackson, but has little
knowledge of Ashby. I was reading a stupid book the
other day in which he was represented as a guerilla—almost as
a robber and highwayman. Ashby a guerilla!—that great,
powerful, trained, and consummate fighter of infantry, cavalry,
and artillery, in the hardest fought battles of the Valley campaign!
Ashby a robber and highwayman!—that soul and perfect
mirror of chivalry! It is to drive away these mists of stupid or
malignant scribblers that the present writer designs recording
here the actual truth of Ashby's character and career. Apart
from what he performed, he was a personage to whom attached
and still attaches a never-dying interest. His career was all
romance—it was as brief, splendid, and evanescent as a dream—
but, after all, it was the man Turner Ashby who was the real
attraction. It was the man whom the people of the Shenandoah
Valley admire, rather than his glorious record. There was something
grander than the achievements of this soldier, and that was
the soldier himself.
Ashby first attracted attention in the spring of 1862, when
Jackson made his great campaign in the Valley, crushing one
after another Banks, Milroy, Shields, Fremont, and their associates.
Among the brilliant figures, the hard fighters grouped
Ashby was perhaps the most notable and famous. As the great
majority of my readers never saw the man, a personal outline
of him here in the beginning may interest. Even on this
soil there are many thousands who never met that model chevalier
and perfect type of manhood. He lives in all memories and
hearts, but not in all eyes.
What the men of Jackson saw at the head of the Valley
cavalry in the spring of 1862, was a man rather below the middle
height, with an active and vigorous frame, clad in plain Confederate
gray. His brown felt hat was decorated with a black
feather; his uniform was almost without decorations: his cavalry
boots, dusty or splashed with mud, came to the knee; and around
his waist he wore a sash and plain leather belt, holding pistol
and sabre. The face of this man of thirty or a little more, was
noticeable. His complexion was as dark as that of an Arab;
his eyes of a deep rich brown, sparkled under well formed
brows; and two thirds of his face was covered by a huge black
beard and moustache; the latter curling at the ends, the former
reaching to his breast. There was thus in the face of the
cavalier something Moorish and brigandish; but all idea of a
melodramatic personage disappeared as you pressed his hand,
looked into his eyes, and spoke to him. The brown eyes, which
would flash superbly in battle, were the softest and most friendly
imaginable; the voice, which could thrill his men as it rang like
a clarion in the charge, was the perfection of mild courtesy. He
was as simple and “friendly” as a child in all his words, movements,
and the carriage of his person. You could see from his
dress, his firm tread, his open and frank glance, that he was a
thorough soldier—indeed he always “looked like work”—but
under the soldier, as plainly was the gentleman. Such in his
plain costume, with his simple manner and retiring modesty,
was Ashby, whose name and fame, a brave comrade has truly
said, will endure as long as the mountains and valleys which he
defended.
2. II.
The achievements of Ashby can be barely touched on here—
history will set them in its purest gold. The pages of the splendid
record can only be glanced at now; months of fighting
must here be summed up and dismissed in a few sentences.
To look back to his origin—that always counts for something
—he was the son of a gentleman of Fauquier, and up to 1861
was only known as a hard rider, a gay companion, and the
kindest-hearted of friends. There was absolutely nothing in the
youth's character, apparently, which could detach him from the
great mass of mediocrities; but under that laughing face, that
simple, unassuming manner, was a soul of fire—the unbending
spirit of the hero, and no less the genius of the born master of
the art of war. When the revolution broke out Ashby got in
the saddle, and spent most of his time therein until he fell. It
was at this time—on the threshold of the war—that I saw him
first. I have described his person—his bearing was full of a
charming courtesy. The low, sweet voice made you his friend
before you knew it; and so modest and unassuming was his
demeanour that a child would instinctively have sought his side
and confided in him. The wonder of wonders to me, a few
months afterwards, was that this unknown youth, with the simple
smile, and the retiring, almost shy demeanour, had become
the right hand of Jackson, the terror of the enemy, and had
fallen near the bloody ground of Port Republic, mourned by
the whole nation of Virginia.
Virginia was his first and last love. When he went to Harper's
Ferry in April, 1861, with his brother Richard's cavalry
company, some one said: “Well, Ashby, what flag are we going
to fight under—the Palmetto, or what?” Ashby took off his
hat, and exhibited a small square of silk upon which was
painted the Virginia shield—the Virgin trampling on the tyrant.
“That is the flag I intend to fight under,” was his reply; and
he accorded it his paramount fealty to the last. Soon after this
incident active service commenced on the Upper Potomac; and
His brother Richard, while on a scout near Romney, with a
small detachment, was attacked by a strong party of the enemy,
his command dispersed, and as he attempted to leap a “cattlestop”
in the railroad, his horse fell with him. The enemy
rushed upon him, struck him cruelly with their sabres, and
killed him before he could rise. Ashby came up at the moment,
and with eight men charged them, killing many of them with
his own hand. But his brother was dead—the man whom he
had loved more than his own life; and thereafter he seemed like
another man. Richard Ashby was buried on the banks of the
Potomac—his brother nearly fainted at the grave; then he went
back to his work. “Ashby is now a devoted man,” said one
who knew him; and his career seemed to justify the words.
He took command of his company, was soon promoted to the
rank of a field officer, and from that moment he was on the track
of the enemy day and night. Did private vengeance actuate
the man, once so kind and sweet-tempered? I know not; but
something from this time forward seemed to spur him on to
unflagging exertion and ceaseless activity. Day and night he
was in the saddle. Mounted upon his fleet white horse, he would
often ride, in twenty-four hours, along seventy miles of front,
inspecting his pickets, instructing his detachments, and watching
the enemy's movements at every point. Here to-day, to-morrow
he would be seen nearly a hundred miles distant. The lithe
figure on the white horse “came and went like a dream,” said
one who knew him at that time. And when he appeared it was
almost always the signal for an attack, a raid, or a “scout,” in
which blood would flow.
In the spring of 1862, when Jackson fell back from Winchester,
Ashby, then promoted to the rank of Colonel, commanded
all his cavalry. He was already famous for his wonderful
activity, his heroic courage, and that utter contempt for danger
which was born in his blood. On the Potomac, near Shepherdstown,
he had ridden to the top of a crest, swept by the hot fire
of the enemy's sharpshooters near at hand; and pacing slowly
up and down on his milk-white horse, looked calmly over his
He was now to give a proof more striking still of his fearless
nerve. Jackson slowly retired from Winchester, the cavalry
under Ashby bringing up the rear, with the enemy closely pressing
them. The long column defiled through the town, and
Ashby remained the last, sitting his horse in the middle of Loudoun
street as the Federal forces poured in. The solitary horseman,
gazing at them with so much nonchalance, was plainly seen
by the Federal officers, and two mounted men were detached to
make a circuit by the back streets, and cut off his retreat.
Ashby either did not see this manœuvre, or paid no attention to
it. He waited until the Federal column was nearly upon him,
and had opened a hot fire—then he turned his horse, waved his
hat around his head, and uttering a cheer of defiance, galloped
off. All at once, as he galloped down the street, he saw before
him the two cavalrymen sent to cut off and capture him. To a
man like Ashby, inwardly chafing at being compelled to retreat,
no sight could be more agreeable. Here was an opportunity to
vent his spleen; and charging the two mounted men, he was soon
upon them. One fell with a bullet through his breast; and,
coming opposite the other, Ashby seized him by the throat,
dragged him from his saddle, and putting spur to his horse, bore
him off. This scene, which some readers may set down for
romance, was witnessed by hundreds both of the Confederate and
the Federal army.
During Jackson's retreat Ashby remained in command of the
rear, fighting at every step with his eavalry and horse artillery,
under Captain Chew. It was dangerous to press such a man.
His sharp claws drew blood. As the little column retired sullenly
up the valley, fighting off the heavy columns of General
Banks, Ashby was in the saddle day and night, and his guns
were never silent. The infantry sank to sleep with that thunder
in their ears, and the same sound was their reveille at dawn.
Weary at last of a proceeding so unproductive, General Banks
ceased the pursuit and fell back to Winchester, when Ashby
pursued in his turn, and quickly sent intelligence to Jackson,
which brought him back to Kernstown. The battle there fol
ADVENTURE OF ASHBY AT WINCHESTER.—Page 74.
Ashby seized him by the throat, dragged him from his saddle, and putting spur to his horse, bore him off.
[Description: 521EAF. Illustration page, which depicts General Ashby seizing a Union officer off of his horse by the neck. There is a soldier in front of Ashby, who is trying not to fall off of his horse as Ashby runs into him with his steed. The other soldier is so shocked at being jerked by the throat that he is simply falling forward towards Ashby. In the background a group of Union soldiers is arriving.]
invincible ardour, flanking the Federal forces, and nearly getting
in their rear. When Jackson was forced to retire, he again held
the rear; and continued in front of the enemy, eternally skirmishing
with them, until Jackson again advanced to attack
General Banks at Strasburg and Winchester. It was on a bright
May morning that Ashby, moving in front, struck the Federal
column of cavalry in transitu north of Strasburg, and scattered
them like a hurricane. Separated from his command, but bursting
with an ardour which defied control, he charged, by himself,
about five hundred Federal horsemen retreating in disorder,
snatched a guidon from the hands of its bearer, and firing right
and left into the column, summoned the men to surrender.
Many did so, and the rest galloped on, followed by Ashby, to
Winchester, where he threw the guidon, with a laugh, to a
friend, who afterwards had it hung up in the Library of the
Capitol at Richmond.
3. III.
The work of Ashby then began in earnest. The affair with
General Banks was only a skirmish—the wars of the giants followed.
Jackson, nearly hemmed in by bitter and determined foes,
fell back to escape destruction, and on his track rushed the
heavy columns of Shields and Fremont, which, closing in at
Strasburg and Front Royal, were now hunting down the lion.
It was then and there that Ashby won his fame as a cavalry
officer, and attached to every foot of ground over which he
fought some deathless tradition. The reader must look elsewhere
for a record of those achievements. Space would fail me
were I to touch with the pen's point the hundredth part of that
splendid career. On every hill, in every valley, at every bridge,
Ashby thundered and lightened with his cavalry and artillery.
Bitterest of the bitter was the cavalier in those moments; a man
sworn to hold his ground or die. He played with death, and
dared it everywhere. From every hill came the roar of his guns
as he loved it—and he did love it with all his soul—was less
sweet to him than the clash of sabres. It was in hand-to-hand
fighting that he seemed to take the greatest pleasure. In front
of his column, sweeping forward to the charge, Ashby was
“happy.” Coming to the Shenandoah near Newmarket, he
remained behind with a few men to destroy the bridge, and here
took place an event which may seem too trifling to be recorded,
but which produced a notable effect upon the army. While
retreating alone before a squadron of the enemy's cavalry in
hot pursuit of him, his celebrated white horse was mortally
wounded. Furious at this, Ashby cut the foremost of his assailants
out of the saddle with his sabre, and safely reached his
command; but the noble charger was staggering under him, and
bleeding to death. He dismounted, caressed for an instant, without
speaking, the proud neck, and then turned away. The historic
steed was led off to his death, his eyes glaring with rage it
seemed at the enemy still; and Ashby returned to his work,
hastening to meet the fatal bullet which in turn was to strike
him. The death of the white horse who had passed unscathed
through so many battles, preceded only by a few days that of
his rider, whom no ball had ever yet touched. It was on the
4th or 5th of June, just before the battle of Cross Keys, that
he ambuscaded and captured Sir Perey Wyndham, commander
of Fremont's cavalry advance. Sir Percy had publicly announced
his intention to “bag Ashby;” but unwarily advancing
upon a small decoy in the road, he found himself suddenly
attacked in flank and rear by Ashby in person; and he and his
squadron of sixty or seventy men were taken prisoners. That
was the last cavalry fight in which the great leader took part.
His days were numbered—death had marked him. But to the
last he was what he had always been, unresting, fiery, ever on
the enemy's track; and he died in harness. It was on the very
same evening, I believe, that while commanding the rear-guard
of Jackson, he formed the design of flanking and attacking
the enemy's infantry, and sent to Jackson for troops. A brave
associate, Colonel Bradley Johnson, described him at that moment,
head of the column with General Ewell, his black face in a blaze
of enthusiasm. Every feature beamed with the joy of the soldier.
He was gesticulating and pointing out the country and
position to General Ewell. I could imagine what he was saying
by the motions of his right arm. I pointed him out to my
adjutant—`Look at Ashby! see how he is enjoying himself!' ”
The moment had come. With the infantry, two regiments sent
him by Jackson, he made a rapid detour to the right, passed
through a field of waving wheat, and approached a belt of woods
upon which the golden sunshine of the calm June evening slept
in mellow splendour. In the edge of this wood Colonel Kane,
of the Pennsylvania “Bucktails,” was drawn up, and soon the
crash of musketry resounded from the bushes along a fence on
the edge of the forest, where the enemy were posted. Ashby
rushed to the assault with the fiery enthusiasm of his blood.
Advancing at the head of the Fifty-eighth Virginia in front,
while Colonel Johnson with the Marylanders attacked the enemy
in flank, he had his horse shot under him, but sprang up,
waving his sword, and shouting, “Virginians, charge!” These
words were his last. From the enemy's line, now within fifty
yards, came a storm of bullets; one pierced his breast, and he
fell at the very moment when the Bucktails broke, and were
pursued by the victorious Southerners. Amid that triumphant
shout the great soul of Ashby passed away. Almost before his
men could raise him he was dead. He had fallen as he wished
to fall—leading a charge, in full war harness, fighting to the last.
Placed on a horse in front of a cavalryman, his body was borne
out of the wood, just as the last rays of sunset tipped with fire
the foliage of the trees; and as the form of the dead chieftain
was borne along the lines of infantry drawn up in column,
exclamations broke forth, and the bosoms of men who had
advanced without a tremor into the bloodiest gulfs of battle,
were shaken by uncontrollable sobs. The dead man had become
their beau-ideal of a soldier; his courage, fire, dash, and unshrinking
nerve had won the hearts of these rough men; and now
when they read upon that pale face the stamp of the hand of
June evening was a mockery. That sunset was the glory which
fell on the soldier's brow as he passed away. Never did day
light to his death a nobler spirit.
4. IV.
Mere animal courage is a common trait. It was not the chief
glory of this remarkable man that he cared nothing for peril,
daring it with an utter recklessness. Many private soldiers of
whom the world never heard did as much. The supremely beautiful
trait of Ashby was his modesty, his truth, his pure and
knightly honour. His was a nature full of heroism, chivalry, and
simplicity; he was not only a great soldier, but a chevalier,
inspired by the prisca fides of the past. “I was with him,” said
a brave associate, “when the first blow was struck for the cause
which we both had so much at heart, and was with him in his
last fight, always knowing him to be beyond all modern men in
chivalry, as he was equal to any one in courage. He combined
the virtues of Sir Philip Sidney with the dash of Murat. His
fame will live in the valley of Virginia, outside of books, as
long as its hills and mountains shall endure.”
Never was truer comparison than that of Ashby to Murat and
Sidney mingled; but the splendid truth and modesty of the
great English chevalier predominated in him. The Virginian
had the dash and fire of Murat in the charge, nor did the glittering
Marshal at the head of the French cuirassiers perform
greater deeds of daring. But the pure and spotless soul of
Philip Sidney, that “mirror of chivalry,” was the true antetype
of Ashby's. Faith, honour, truth, modesty, a courtesy which
never failed, a loyalty which nothing could affect—these were
the great traits which made the young Virginian so beloved and
honoured, giving him the noble place he held among the men of
his epoch. No man lives who can remember a rude action of
his; his spirit seemed to have been moulded to the perfect shape
of antique courtesy; and nothing could change the pure gold
of his nature. His fault as a soldier was a want of discipline;
chief huntsman of a hunting party than a general—mingling
with his men in bivouac or around the camp fire, on a perfect
equality. But what he wanted in discipline and military rigour
he supplied by the enthusiasm which he aroused in the troops.
They adored him, and rated him before all other leaders. His
wish was their guide in all things; and upon the field they
looked to him as their war-king. The flash of his sabre as it
left the scabbard drove every hand to the hilt; the sight of his
milk-white horse in front was their signal for “attention,” and
the low clear tones of Ashby's order, “Follow me!” as he
moved to the charge, had more effect upon his men than a hundred
bugles.
I pray my Northern reader who does me the honour to peruse
this sketch, not to regard these sentences as the mere rhapsody
of enthusiasm. They contain the truth of Ashby, and those
who served with him will testify to the literal accuracy of the
sketch. He was one of those men who appear only at long intervals—a
veritable realization of the “hero” of popular fancy.
The old days of knighthood seemed to live again as he moved
before the eye; the pure faith of the earlier years was reproduced
and illustrated in his character and career. The anecdotes
which remain of his kindness, his courtesy, and warmth of
heart, are trifles to those who knew him, and required no such
proofs of his sweetness of temper and character. It is nothing
to such that when the Northern ladies about to leave Winchester,
came and said, “General Ashby, we have nothing contraband
about us—you can search our trunks and our persons;” he
replied, “The gentlemen of Virginia do not search ladies' trunks
or their persons, madam.” He made that reply because he was
Ashby. For this man to have been rude, coarse, domineering,
and insulting to unprotected ladies—as more than one Federal
general at Winchester was—that was simply impossible. He
might have said, in the words of the old Ulysses, “They live
their lives, I mine.”
Such was the private character, simple, beautiful, and “altogether
of dash, nerve, obstinacy, and daring never excelled. Behind
that sweet and friendly smile was the stubborn and reckless soul
of the born fighter. Under those brown eyes, as mild and gentle
as a girl's, was a brain of fire—a resolution of invincible
strength which dared to combat every adversary, with whatever
odds. His intellect, outside of his profession, was rather mediocre
than otherwise, and he wrote so badly that few of his productions
are worth preserving. But in the field he was a master
mind. His eye for position was that of the born soldier; and
he was obliged to depend upon that native faculty, for he had
never been to West Point or any other military school. They
might have improved him—they could not have made him.
God had given him the capacity to fight troops; and if the dictum
of an humble writer, loving and admiring him alive, and
now mourning him, be regarded as unreliable, take the words of
Jackson. That cool, taciturn, and unexcitable soldier never
gave praise which was undeserved. Jackson knew Ashby as
well as one human being ever knew another; and after the fall
of the cavalier he wrote of him, “As a partisan officer, I never
knew his superior. His daring was proverbial, his powers of
endurance almost incredible, his tone of character heroic, and
his sagacity almost intuitive in divining the purposes and movements
of the enemy.” The man who wrote these words—himself
daring, enduring, and heroic—had himself some sagacity in
“divining the purposes and movements of the enemy,” and
could recognise that trait in others.
The writer of this page had the honour to know the dead chief
of the Valley cavalry—to hear the sweet accents of his friendly
voice, and meet the friendly glance of the loyal eyes. It seems
to him now, as he remembers Ashby, that the hand he touched
was that of a veritable child of chivalry. Never did taint of
arrogance or vanity, of rudeness or discourtesy, touch that pure
and beautiful spirit. This man of daring so proverbial, of powers
of endurance so incredible, of character so heroic, and of a
sagacity so unfailing that it drew forth the praise of Jackson,
accomplished anything to make him famous. But famous he
was, and is, and will be for ever. The bitter struggle in which
he bore so noble a part has ended; the great flag under which
he fought is furled, and none are now so poor as to do it reverence.
But in failure, defeat, and ruin, this great name survives;
the cloud is not so black that the pure star of Ashby's fame
does not shine out in the darkness. In the memories and hearts
of the people of the Valley his glory is as fresh to-day as when
he fell. He rises up in memory, as once before the actual eye—
the cavalier on his milk-white steed, leading the wild charge, or
slowly pacing up and down defiantly, with proud face turned
over the shoulder, amid the bullets. Others may forget him—
we of the Valley cannot. For us his noble smile still shines as
it shone amid those glorious encounters of the days of Jackson,
when from every hill-top he hurled defiance upon Banks and
Fremont, and in every valley met the heavy columns of the
Federal cavalry, sabre to sabre. He is dead, but still lives.
That career—brief, fiery, crammed with glorious shocks, with
desperate encounters—is a thing of the past, and Ashby has
“passed like a dream away.” But it is only the bodies of such
men that die. All that is noble in them survives. What comes
to the mind now when we pronounce the name of Ashby, is
that pure devotion to truth and honour which shone in every
act of his life; that kind, good heart of his which made all love
him; that resolution which he early made, to spend the last
drop of his blood for the cause in which he fought; and the
daring beyond all words, which drove him on to combat whatever
force was in his front. We are proud—leave us that at
least—that this good knight came of the honest old Virginia
blood. He tried to do his duty; and counted toil, and danger,
and hunger, and thirst, and exhaustion, as nothing. He died as
he had lived, in harness, and fighting to the last. In an unknown
skirmish, of which not even the name is preserved, the
fatal bullet came; the wave of death rolled over him, and the
august figure disappeared. But that form is not lost in the
time dim the splendour of the good knight's shield. The figure
of Ashby, on his milk-white steed, his face in “a blaze of enthusiasm,”
his drawn sword in his hand—that figure will truly
live in the memory and heart of the Virginian as long as the
battlements of the Blue Ridge stand, and the Shenandoah flows.
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