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;
and it has been said with truth that he resembled rather the
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
lovely,” of this man of fibre so hard and unshrinking;
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,
was as simple as a child, and never seemed to dream that he had
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
great gulf of forgotten things. Oblivion cannot hide it, nor
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.
