University of Virginia Library

GENERAL JACKSON'S LAST WINTER IN CAROLINE

From a very remarkable paper read before the Military
Historical Society of Massachusetts by the late James Power
Smith, Captain and A. D. C. to Stonewall Jackson, we learn
that the General spent his last winter in an office building adjacent
to the residence of James Parke Corbin at Moss Neck, Caroline
county.

"Moss Neck," Where Jackson Spent His Last Winter—House to Right

Colonel Corbin was a man of large estate, and generous heart,
and so when Jackson decided to go into winter quarters at Moss
Neck the Corbin mansion was placed at the disposal of the famous
General. The courtesy was declined on the grounds that Jackson
was unwilling to enjoy the comforts of a mansion when his men
were poorly clad and living in tents, and so he and his men went
into tents together.

Owing to the severity of the weather the General contracted a
serious cold which caused his friend and Medical Director, Dr.
Hunter McGuire, to insist that he seek better shelter and,
reluctantly consenting, he compromised by occupying the office
building which stood in the yard of the mansion.

During the winter at Moss Neck many famous men visited
Jackson's Headquarters, among them Generals Lee and Stuart;
Colonel Leslie, of England; Colonel Freemantle, of the famous
Cold Stream Guards; Lord Wolsley, afterward British Commanderin-Chief;

John Esten Cooke the famous novelist; Mr. Lawley,
editor of The London Times; and the Marquis of Hartington,
afterward the Duke of Devonshire.

Some time in March General Jackson broke up headquarters
at Moss Neck and pitched his tents at Yerby's place in the
Massaponax Valley, a short distance from General Headquarters
and here made preparations for what proved to be one of the
most remarkable series of battles in all history, and which were
fought at Fredericksburg, Salem Church, Chancellorsville and
the Wilderness.

James Power Smith related that, "Generals Lee and Jackson
spent the night before the battle of Chancellorsville sleeping on
the pine straw at a point about one mile and a half east of
Chancellorsville, where the Catherine Furnace road leaves the
old Orange Plank road and sometime during that night I was
awakened by the chill and saw the two generals seated on cracker
boxes, leaning forward, warming their hands over a scant fire
of twigs." Captain Smith further relates that 3:00 P. M. of the
following day he saw Jackson seated on a stump, on the old Brock
Road, writing what proved to be his last dispatch to General
Lee, the original of which is now in the Virginia State Library.
A part of this stump for many years had an honoured place in
the home of Mr. Smith.

Probably the most accurate story of the wounding of Jackson
is to be found in the paper above referred to, the substance of
which is as follows: On the evening of May 2nd, after a day of
signal victories, General Jackson, in his eagerness to press his
front lines on to Chancellorsville, consented that the reserve
division of General A. P. Hill should be brought up and placed
in the front, and, while the new line was forming, Jackson rode
forward with two of his staff and a number of signal sergeants
and couriers.

He had not gone very far when he came upon a detachment
of Federal infantry, lying on their arms, who fired upon him
causing him to turn back toward his line. As he approached the
the Confederate line he and his horseman were mistaken for a
party of the enemy and fired upon, the volley disabling several
of his companions. Spurring his horse across the road he was
met by a second volley from a company of Lane's North Carolina
Brigade, from which he received a ball through the palm of his
right hand, a ball through his left wrist, and a third through the

left arm, half-way between the shoulder and the elbow. The
latter bullet splintered the bone and severed an artery.

Litter bearers were brought and, under a galling fire, started
with the wounded to the rear, but before reaching an ambulance
the stretcher bearers were twice shot down, and once the fainting
General fell to the ground.

At a field hospital in the wilderness, after midnight, Dr. Hunter
McGuire amputated the left arm near the shoulder, and removed
a bullet from the right hand.

"The Office" at Fairfield, in which Stonewall Jackson Died—House on Left

On the following day General Jackson was removed to Guiney
Station in Caroline county, on the Richmond, Fredericksburg and
Potomac Railroad, and there on Sunday, May 9, 1863, in "The
Office"—a building which stood near the manor house on the
estate of "Fairfield," established at the beginning of the eighteenth
century by John Thornton, of the famous Thornton family of
"Ormesby," but owned at the time by Thomas Coleman Chandler,
whose descendants still occupy a prominent place in the life of
the Guinea community, the great general passed over the river
to "rest under the shade of the trees."

The house in which the great strategist died, a picture of which
appears in this volume, was purchased many years after the
Civil War, by the Richmond Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad
Company, and is kept as a shrine for the lovers of the Lost Cause.