 | II.
PORT REPUBLIC. Hammer and rapier |  |
2. II.
PORT REPUBLIC.
There was in Virginia in 1862 an old officer of the
French army who had followed Napoleon throughout
his greatest campaigns, and was a very enthusiastic
admirer of the Emperor. When the intelligence
of Jackson's victory at Port Republic came,
Col. ———exclaimed:
“He is the greatest of all soldiers! There never
was a greater campaign than the campaign of the
Valley. I will not say that Jackson imitated Napoleon,
but, if he had lived before the Emperor, I would
say that Napoleon imitated Jackson!”
The object of this paper is to describe the action,
the intelligence of which aroused the military enthusiasm
of the old French officer.
To perform this task conscientiously and accurately,
it is necessary to begin at the beginning. The
marches of Jackson were even more remarkable
than his battles—the huge strides of the Colossus
more interesting even than the blows which he dealt.
He aimed to conquer an enemy rather by sweat than
blood—and Port Republic was only the last scene of
the last act in a drama which was from the first scene
movement, movement, movement!
In March of this year, 1862, Jackson was at Winchester
with four thousand men, with orders to hold the
Valley.
One morning the enemy advanced upon him with
about forty thousand men—that is, ten to one; and,
when his friends said, sadly, “Good-bye, General,”
he did not take the hands held out, and replied:
“No! I will never leave Winchester without a fight
—never! never!”
Four hours afterwards he was retreating, but only in
obedience to a peremptory order from Richmond.
“Is everything removed, Major?” he said to his
chief quartermastor.
“Nearly everything, General.”
“Take your time, Major; I am in no hurrry to leave
Winchester.”
Retreating slowly up the Valley, he had reached
Mount Jackson, when Ashby sent him word that the
enemy were moving their forces from Winchester
toward Fredricksburg to reinforce McClellan on the
Chickahominy. At the intelligence Jackson put his
column in motion, and hastened with his “foot cavalry”
toward the Potomac. Fifty miles were passed
over with the speed of horse. The enemy, eleven
thousand in number, were found at Kernstown; and,
although the three thousand men of Jackson were so
much exhausted that they staggered when their feet
were placed upon the rolling stones of the turnpike,
their commander gave the order to attack.
The battle of Kernstown followed—the struggle of
two thousand seven hundred and forty-two men to
drive about eight thousand from the field. That fight
the firing was more rapid and continuous than during
any portion of the battle of Manassas.
The action commenced at four o'clock on a bleak
March evening, with the wind sobbing over the great
fields of broom-straw, soon to be dabbled in blood.
Until nightfall it raged with enormous bitterness.
Time after time the Federal flag went down, and a
Northern officer afterwards declared that the obstinate
stand made by a single Federal regiment “alone saved
them.”
But at dark Jackson was beaten. The enemy were
enveloping both his flanks, and driving his centre.
Ashby at that moment sent him word that if he could
only hold his ground ten minutes longer, the Federal
forces would retire. “I know this to be so,” said
Ashby; he had captured, it is said, a courier of Gen.
Shields', bearing the order. But it was too late The
battle was lost. Jackson's men were retreating—sullenly,
doggedly, “without panic,” as even the Federal
commander said in his report—but they were retreating.
Having moved back three or four miles, Jackson lay
down in a fence corner, slept for an hour or more, and
at daylight commenced his retreat—unpursued, almost.
The enemy followed him no further than Strasburg,
from which point they fell back to Winchester, barricading
the road in their rear.
About the middle of April Jackson was in camp,
near Mount Jackson, when he received intelligence
that the enemy were advancing, in heavy force. Soon
their advance guard struck his front, under Ashby.
heavy force under Banks, and slowly moved across the
Shenandoah toward Swift Run Gap, through which
ran the road to Richmond. Ashby had remained behind,
and it was in endeavoring to destroy the bridge
over the Shenandoah on this occasion, that his historie
white horse received the historic death-wound.
Meanwhile, Jackson had reached his fastness in the
Blue Ridge, and it was evident that he had not the
least intention of retreating further. Like the Scottish
chieftain, his back was against the rock, and he did not
mean to fly.
Gen. Banks advanced no further than Harrisonburg.
From that place he sent, on the 24th of April,
a dispatch to Washington, announcing that “the rebel
Jackson” had abandoned the Valley, and was then in
full retreat upon Richmond.
The commentary upon this statement was amusing.
Jackson moved rapidly to Staunton, advanced thence
to the western mountains, struck and defeated Milroy,
who was coming to join Banks, drove him from
McDowell to Franklin, and then, having drawn up his
army, and returned thanks to God for the victory,
while the enemy were still firing, returned by rapid
marches to the Valley. Gen. Banks had fallen back to
Strasburg, where he was fortifying. Such had been
the result of Jackson's “retreat upon Richmond.”
No time was lost by the Virginian. He summoned
Ewell to meet him at Newmarket; from that point
crossed the Shenandoah and the Massinutton, advanced
down the Luray Valley, and, before the enemy were
aware of his presence, made a furious assault upon
on the flank of General Banks at Strasburg.
The Federal force at Front Royal disappeared, as
though swept away by the wind, and Jackson pushed
on rapidly to strike the Valley turnpike, between
Strasburg and Winchester, full in the enemy's rear.
He struck their column moving back in haste upon
Winchester. At the sudden thunder of his artillery,
the long columns of cavalry broke and vanished like
phantoms in the woods; the trains and artillery ran off
at a gallop, and the tail of the long snake, cut off from
the rest, retreated rapidly upon Strasburg, whence it
escaped to the mountains.
Jackson now hastened on, without pausing for a
moment, toward Winchester. Moving steadily all
night, and driving before him every Federal force
which barred the way, he came within sight of Winchester
at dawn, and, an hour afterwards, made a resolute
attack. General Banks had assembled all his
available forces there, and occupied the high hill to the
west of the town; but Jackson knew that no real resistance
would await him from troops thus demoralized.
He formed his line of battle, sent word to Ewell, on
the Front Royal road, to close in, and the two columns
rushed, right and left, upon the town, meeting, and
driving everything before them.
The blue lines were utterly broken, in full retreat,
and were hastening out at the northern end of the
town while Jackson's men were entering the southern
suburbs.
The scene which followed will long be remembered
by those who witnessed it. Men, women, and children
their handkerchiefs; and such was the enthusiasm of
the young girls to welcome their gray defenders, that
men had to be sent forward to motion them out of the
way, in order that the platoons might deliver their fire.
“Thank God, we are free! Thank God, we are free
once more!” resounded upon every side, and Jackson
exhibited an emotion which he had never been known
to display before. He caught his cap from his head,
waved it in the air, and he, the sedate, serious Stonewall
Jackson—cheered! But the ovation did not
divert him from his work. He rode on rapidly through
the town, and followed so closely, ahead of his own
column, the footsteps of the enemy, that a staff officer
said:
“Don't you think you are exposing yourself to danger,
General?”
To this caution he paid not the least attention. His
brief reply was:
“Tell the troops to press right on to the Potomac!”
But the infantry was broken down, and the cavalry
was not in place. This fact alone saved the Federal
forces from capture. They reached Martinsburg, rapidly
passed the Potomac, and General Banks said, in
his report of these events, “It is seldom that a river
crossing of such magnitude is achieved with greater
success, and there were never more grateful hearts, in
the same number of men, than when, at mid-day on the
26th, we stood on the opposite shore.”
At Winchester, Jackson captured great quantities of
stores; but the work was not done, and the time for
rest was still far distant. The enemy retained possession
Stonewall Brigade, under that brave spirit, Winder,
was promptly sent.
Winder advanced to Charlestown, and, at the first
roar of his guns, the enemy there retreated, pursued by
the Southerners to Halltown. Jackson arrived on the
following morning with his main body, advanced
straight upon Harper's Ferry, and was about to attack,
when intelligence reached him which communicated a
very unexpected and most disagreeable aspect to affairs.
A few words will explain. The advance of the formidable
athlete toward the Potomac had excited the
utmost consternation in Washington. The daring of
the man was so well known that the Federal authorities
trembled for the fate of their capital. The wildest
rumors were everywhere prevalent. “Where is Jackson?”
“Has he taken Washington?” These and a
hundred similar questions were asked; at least, the
northern journals said so. The government certainly
shared this anxiety. President Lincoln had already
writeen a hurried dispatch to General McDowell, at
Fredericksburg, in which he said: “You are instructed,
laying aside for the present the movement on
Richmond, to put twenty thousand men in motion at
once for the Shenandoah, to capture the forces of Jackson
and Ewell.” The Federal Secretary of War now
telegraphed to the Governor of Massachusetts: “Send
all the troops forward that you can, immediately.
Banks completely routed. Intelligence from various
quarters leaves no doubt that the enemy in great force
are advancing on Washington. You will please organize
and forward immediately all the volunteer and
said to have been sent to the other States—ex uno
disce omnes.
The “great force” at Jackson's command was at
this time about fifteen thousand men. This he stated
to Col. Boteler of his staff.
“What will you do if the enemy cut you off, General?”
asked the Colonel.
“I will fall back upon Maryland for reinforcements,”
was the cool response.
Credo quia absurdum est. Jackson believed in many
things which other Generals thought absurd until he
accomplished them.
The intelligence which came to Jackson, now at
Harper's Ferry, was enough to try his nerves. The
heavy column sent up by General McDowell from
Fredericksburg was at Front Royal, and had captured
the Confederate force there. The advance was hastening
toward Strasburg; and, as if this were not enough,
Gen. Fremont, with an army estimated at twenty thousand
men, was hurrying to the same point, Strasburg,
from the West—had reached the town of Wardensville
across the mountain.
Thus a force of about forty thousand or fifty thousand
men was closing in rapidly upon Jackson's rear
at Strasburg. If the columns under Shields and
Fremont made a junction there before his arrival—
“good-night to Marmion!” Fifteen thousand resolute
men could accomplish much, but they could scarcely
cut their way through fifty thousand. The great point,
therefore, was to reach the village of Strasburg before
the enemy. Then the little army would be safe.
Jackson began to move without delay.
“I will return again shortly, and as certainly as
now,” he said, in his brief, calm voice, to the women
and children of Winchester, when he left them. Then
he rode on, and rejoined his column. The captured
stores, and the prisoners, some three thousand in number,
were rapidly sent forward; the army followed;
it was a race between the Confederate commander
and his adversaries which would arrive first. The
stake was not an unimportant one—it was nothing
less than Jackson's army.
Hastening forward, Jackson reached Strasburg just
as Fremont's advance force came in sight; the column
under Shields was yet some miles distant. Unfortunately,
the old Stonewall Brigade had been left behind
at Harper's Ferry; until it arrived, no one who knew
the character of Jackson for a moment believed that
he would continue his march.
He halted, and waited. Fremont pressed on, intent
upon his prey; soon his advance force was in sight of
Strasburg, and came on rapidly in line of battle.
“Ewell, attack!” was Jackson's order, as at the
second Manassass his brief words were, “Ewell, advance!”
Ewell attacked, as that hardy soldier always did,
with vigor. The head of Fremont's column was driven
back upon the main body. Ewell pressed forward; the
long rattle of his musketry echoed from the mountain
side, and that echo reached the ears and stirred the
pulses of a little column of foot-sore and weary men,
who were hastening on to join their commander.
It was the Stonewall Brigade, now only an hour or
worn-out men pressed on more rapidly. All knew
that their fate depended upon the speed of that march.
An hour gained meant safety—an hour lost meant
capture and destruction.
At Middletown, Winder, then commanding the
Brigade, saw motionless on the turnpike the long lines
of Ashby's cavalry. That stout cavalier never yet
deserted comrade; at the sight of Winder the brown
eyes flashed.
“I never felt so much relieved in my life!” exclaimed
Ashby, grasping is friend's hand. “I was
certain you would be cut off, and had made up my
mind to join you, and advise you to force your way
through Ashby's Gap at Gordonsville!”[1]
Ewell was still fighting obstinately when bayonets
were seen to glitter in the direction of Winchester; a
red flag flashed in the sunshine; steadily the weary
column came—the old Brigade was safe “at home”
with its commander.
As it entered the town, Jackson ordered Ewell to
fall back. Then the army moved; Ashby's cavalry
retired, the last, from Strasburg; as they disappeared,
the enemy rushed in to seize their prey.
That prey had escaped. The lion was out of the
meshes.
The army moved on steadily, Ashby holding the
rear, and drawing blood with his teeth when they
pressed him too closely. Thus pushing before it the
long train of captured stores, and the blue line of
was reached and passed; the Shenandoah crossed;
Harrisonburg attained. If Jackson could now strike
across to Port Republic—a little village in the forks
of the Shenandoah—he could send off his captures
through Brown's Gap to Richmond, place his back
against the mountain, and strike a mortal blow either
at Fremont in his front, or at Shields, advancing up
the Luray Valley, on his flank.
Without delay, the formidable “game” continued
to press forward to the harbor of refuge.
On the morning of the 6th of June, Jackson's
column was moving steadily across to Port Republic
—Fremont pressing closely on the rear, and Shields,
as the signal-flags on the mountain announced, hastening
up to cut off the army at Brown's Gap.
Jackson did not hurry. Those who saw him will
testify that he never was more calm.
Ashby brought up the rear, fighting over every foot
of the ground, with splendid gallantry.
On this day he ambushed and captured Col. Percy
Wyndham; three hours afterwards the chevalier,
“without reproach of fear,” was dead.
Just at sunset, as the woodlands slept in the dreamy
light of one of the most beautiful afternoons of June,
he had rushed forward at the head of a small force
to assail the Pennsylvania “Bucktails,” under Col.
Kane; the ranks had closed in, in a bitter struggle;
Ashby's horse was shot; he sprung to his feet; but as
he was waving his sword—as “Virginians, charge!”
came from his lips—a bullet pierced his breast. He
expired almost immediately, but not before the enemy
cavalryman.
The brave Col. Kane, who had been captured, was
told of it.
“I am sorry,” he said; “he was a noble fellow!”
It was an enemy who said that; but Ashby did not
need the praise of friend or foe. His brief career was
like a dream of chivalry; but to-day his name and
fame are cut upon a tablet warmer and more durable
than “monumental alabaster.”
That tablet is the great heart of Virginia.
From this moment commenced that series of superb
manoeuvres, which culminated in the excellently fought
battle of Port Republic.
To understand the “situation,” it is absolutely necessary
to look at the map. Fremont was at Harrison
burg; Shields at Conrad's Store, in the Luray Valley;
Jackson at Port Republic. These three points are
nearly the angles of an equilateral triangle,—the sides
ten or fifteen miles in length.
Jackson had twelve thousand men; Shields about
the same; Fremont about twenty thousand, according
to the records captured by Gen. Ewell. It must have
been near that.
If Fremont joined Shields, or Shields joined Fremont,
a column of about thirty-two thousand troops
would thus be opposed to twelve thousand. If he
joined him—but that had been provided against.
Jackson had destroyed the bridge at Conrad's Store,
as he had destroyed that near Newmarket. Trying a
second time to cross, Shields found the swollen current
directly in his path. No junction was possible
could spring either on Fremont or Shields, according
to his fancy.
It will soon be seen that he intended to crush them
before they could unite—to tear to pieces Shields, and
then attack and destroy Fremont, or be destroyed by
him. It might have been thought that the great gladiator
was tired of retreating—that the spirit of “fight”
flushed his pulses. Those near him at that moment
saw an expression upon his face, which is best described
by the word “dangerous.”
A moment of great personal peril to the commander
was to precede the hour of danger for his command.
The incident about to be related is curious.
Jackson's main body reached the Shenandoah, opposite
Port Republic, on the night of June 7th. The
General sent some cavalry in the direction of Shields,
and then established his head-quarters in the town.
On the next morning he had just mounted his horse,
when the cavalry came back panic-stricken, pursued
by Federal horse and artillery, one piece of which galloped
up, and unlimbered at the bridge.
Jackson was cut off from his army. That bridge
was his only means of return to his forces, and it was
commanded by the muzzle of a piece of artillery,
loaded and ready. The General acted with rapidity.
Riding straight toward the gun he called out,
“Who ordered you to post that gun there? Bring
it here!”
Who could give such an order but a Federal officer
of rank? The gun was quickly limbered up—began
staff spurred rapidly across the bridge.
The ruse was discovered too late by the artillery
officer—Captain Robinson, of Portsmouth, Ohio. He
fired three shots at the fugitives, but they screamed
above them. Jackson continued his way, and, passing
rapidly through the camps, with his cap in his hand,
exclaimed:
“Beat the long roll!”
It was beaten; the troops sprung to arms; Taliaferros'
brigade rushed straight to the bridge, and in fifteen
minutes the Federal artillery was captured, their
cavalry in full flight.
The Confederates were still pursuing them, when a
low, continuous thunder—sullen and ominous—was
heard in the direction of Harrisburg. Ewell was fighting
Fremont at Cross Keys. The hardy Virginian, at
the head of his five thousand bayonets, had thrown
himself impetuously against the twenty thousand of
the enemy, at the spot where the “Cross Keys Tavern”
used to stand, about midway between Port Republic
and Harrisonburg.
Cross Keys was one of the “neatest” fights of the
war. It may be said of the soldier who commanded
the Southerners there, that he thought that “war
meant fight, and that fight meant kill.” He threw forward
his right—drove the enemy half a mile—
brought up his left—was about to push forward, when,
just at nightfall, Jackson sent him an order to withdraw
with the main body of his command to Port
Republic.
Ewell obeyed, and put his column in motion, leav
the last to leave the field, and was seen helping the
wounded to mount upon horseback. To those too
badly hurt to be moved from the ground, he gave
money for their necessities out of his own pocket.
Health to you, General! wherever you may be. A
heart of steel beat in your breast in old days; but at
Cross Keys the groans of the wounded melted it.
What Jackson intended on this night of June 8th, is
known from the memoir of an officer. Col. Patten,
left to command the small force in Fremont's front,
went at midnight to ascertain Jackson's exact instructions.
“Hold your position as well as you can,” was his
order; “then fall back when obliged; take a new position,
and hold it in the same way, and I'll be back to
join you in the morning. By the blessing of Providence,
I hope to be back by ten o'clock.”
That is to say, before ten o'clock Shields would be
crushed, and Jackson designed returning to assail
Fremont.
That enormous will had determined upon everything
—the mathematical brain had mapped out, in advance,
the whole series of manoeuvres. I have said above
that at this time Jackson was perfectly calm and composed.
A singular proof of that statement will now
be given, and, perhaps, some readers may find it supports
the strange theory, held by not a few of his men,
that Jackson was mentally “inspired.”[2]
At one o'clock in the day, during the fight at Cross
Keys, he rode up and dismounted from his horse near
the bridge at Port Republic, “unusually absorbed, but
perfectly tranquil.”
“Major,” he said, turning with the sweet smile of a
child to an officer near, “would it not be a glorious
thing if God would give us a great victory to-day?”
Two hours passed slowly; the cannonade from Cross
Keys became, if anything, more violent. The remainder
of the scene shall be described in the words
of the brave officer who furnishes the memoir:
“Great was my astonishment,” says Captain Howard's
MS., “when, after a long silence, the General
called abruptly, `Pendleton! write a note to General
Ewell—say the enemy are defeated at all points, and
to press them with cavalry, or, if necessary, with
Wheat's battalion and artillery.' What could have led
him to such a conclusion, I was, and still am, utterly
unable to imagine, for my knowledge was certain that
he had received no other dispatches from the field, and
in the hearing of all of us, the noise of conflict was at
least as loud and as near as ever; besides, Jackson
would have been one of the last to draw any inference
from the latter sign, for, as he told me once before
himself, he was `deaf in one car, and could not well
distinguish the direction of sounds.' Captain Pendleton,
however, without remark, wrote the order, or whatever
it might be termed, to Gen. Ewell, and, as he
placed the sheet of paper against my horse's shoulder
for a writing desk, I saw that he used almost exactly
Jackson's words. With no little expectation, I awaited
the result, and, accordingly, in about half an hour, and
battle-field, the cannonade began to slacken, and
presently arrived a dispatch from Gen. Ewell stating,
not, indeed, that the enemy were routed so as to be
pursued, but that they were repulsed at all points.”
Observe that Captain Howard states that “Jackson
returned from the direction of Cross Keys about
one o'clock, and dismounted from his horse near the
bridge.” In the second place, “I remained near his
side for at least two hours, during which time only
couriers came from the battle-field,”—and at this
time, that is, at three o'clock, Jackson sent his singular
order.
In Febuary, 1864, the writer of this wrote to Gen.
Ewell on the subject of Cross Keys, and received a
detailed and interesting memoir of the action.
“About 11, A. M.,” says Gen. Ewell, “the enemy
advanced on my front, driving in the Fifteenth Alabama.
Their batteries were mostly opposite mine,
near the church, and the artillery engagement began
about noon. After firing some time, the enemy advanced
a brigade against Trimble's position,” and
Trimble attacked, drove them, advanced, and reached a
point “more than a mile” beyond his first position.
By the least calculation that firing, which lasted “some
time,” after noon, and this hard attack, will bring the
hour to three. Thus the enemy were really “defeated
at all points,” as Jackson stated when he sent his
curious order.
“I did not push my success at once, because I had
no cavalry,” says Ewell in his report.
“Press them with cavalry,” said Jackson in his singular
dispatch, sent from the bridge at Port Republic.
Who will undertake to explain this very curious incident?
The day of Port Republic dawned. It was the 9th
of June, 1862.
Two days before, Gen. McClellen had written to
Washington: “I shall be in perfect readiness to
move forward and take Richmond the moment McCall
reaches here, and the ground will admit the passage of
artillery.”
Jackson was to “have his say” in that.
At nightfall on the 8th this was the situation of affairs.
Fremont had been repulsed, and was held in
check at Cross Keys; Shields was rapidly advancing
up the Luray Valley, and had almost come in sight of
Port Republic; Jackson had concentrated his main
body on the east side of the Shenandoah, and was
ready to attack.
At sunrise he moved forward the Old Stonewall
Brigade in front, and soon the dropping fire of skirmishers
announced that his advance had struck the
enemy.
It was a “day of days,” and no more beautiful spot
could have been selected in all that land of lands, Virginia,
for a decisive struggle. The sun which rose
over Austerlitz was not more brilliant than this one
whose rosy beams lit up the fields of golden wheat,
the shining river, and the forests, echoing with the
songs of birds. Those who died that day were to fix
their last looks on a sky of cloudless blue—to fall
asleep amid the murmur of limpid waves.
Gen. Shields had selected an admirable position
for his line. His right rested on the river, bending
here in the shape of a crescent; thence the line extended
across a field of wheat to a rising ground at
the foot of Cole mountain, a spur of the Blue Ridge;
there his left flank was protected by the acclivity, and
strengthened by artillery.
If Jackson attacked the enemy's right flank, the
river stopped him. If he attacked their left, the steep
side of the mountain, crowned with artillery, met him.
If he assailed the centre, to the infantry fire from the
front would be added the terrible enfilade fire of the
guns upon the heights.
Any other general would have paused, reconnoitered
and perhaps retired. Jackson advanced and attacked.
His plans required an assault, and he assaulted.
The sun had scarcely risen above the shaggy summit
of the Blue Ridge, when the Sic Semper banner of
Virginia was seen bending forward, rippling as it
moved; the rattle of musketry resounded; cheers
echoed from the mountain side; and the Virginians
of the Old Brigade threw themselves upon the foe
whom they had so often encountered.
In thirty minutes they were hurled back, torn,
bleeding, and leaving behind them, dead or dying,
some of the best men of the command. The enemy
had met them with veritable feu d'enfer. From the
Federal infantry in front had issued rolling volleys of
musketry—this they could stand; but from the acclivity
to the right came a fire of shell, round shot, and
canister, so furious that no troops could face it. The
field was swept as by the besom of destruction. The
the thunders of Manassas, Kernstown, McDowell,
and Winchester, recoiled from this terrific fire;
and with the Seventh Louisiana Regiment, under the
daring Harry Hays, fell back in disorder.
The repulse seemed decisive. The Federal troops
rushed forward with wild cheers, the Star-spangled
Banner fluttering in the wind. Winder's guns went
off at a gallop to escape the danger to which they were
exposed; and although two Virginia regiments were
thrown forward, and fought obstinately, the enemy
still advanced. The earth was littered with dead
bodies in gray coats. A gun of was overturned,
and had to be abandoned. The enemy rushed on,
cheering and delivering volleys as they came. At
that moment the battle of Port Republic was lost.
Jackson sat his horse, looking on with that grim
flash of the eye, which in him boded no good to his
opponents. The stern “fighting jaw” was locked;
the cheeks glowed.
A rapid glance revealed all. It was not the fire of
the infantry in front that stopped the troops. They
had met that fire often, and were more than a match
for it. It was the murderous enfilade fire of shell and
canister which swept the field from the heights on the
right, tearing them to pieces whenever they essayed to
advance. In face of that fire, the bravest veterans
were unwilling to move forward. “Why do so?” they
may have said; “Jackson is coming; the day is before
us; he will find some way to stop that fire.”
Such was probably the reasoning of the troops; at
least it was correct. A single glance showed Jackson
artillery. As long as these swept the field, he was
paralyzed; and every moment counted. Beside the
foe in his front, there was another more dangerous—
Fremont and his fifteen or twenty thousand men at
Cross Keys. In front of Fremont was only a “corporal's
guard” of infantry; he heard the thunder of
the fight beyond Port Republic; he knew that Shields
was heavily engaged with Jackson,—at all risks he
would come to his succour. Then once united, the
Federal force would number about thirty thousand
men, against Jackson's force of ten or twelve thousand.
It was easier to charge the artillery, drive the enemy,
and gain a victory, when that enemy numbered only
twelve thousand, than when he numbered thirty thousand.
Nothing remained but the charge. If those guns
continued to pour their fire on the Confederate flank,
the battle was lost—retreat through Brown's Gap the
only course left. Jackson looked at the artillery vomiting
shell and canister more furiously than before.
Gen. Taylor was near him—his brigade had just arrived.
“Can you take that battery, General? It must be
taken!” said Jackson, briefly.
Taylor's sword flashed from the scabbard, his face
glowed. Wheeling his horse, he galloped back, without
a word, to his men, and, rising in his stirrups,
shouted, pointing with his sword to the Federal artillery:
“Louisianians! can you take that battery?”
Wild cheers replied, and, reaching at a bound the
guns.
They were four Louisiana regiments, one from Virginia,
and Wheat's battalion of “Tigers.” As they
moved, loud cheers from the Federal lines on their left
resounded—there the enemy was driving everything
before him. They pressed on. The ground they moved
over was terrible—steep, rugged, tangled, almost impassable.
But this did not stop them. Up the rough
ascent, through the undergrowth, scattering, but reforming
quickly, they continued to advance.
Soon they reached a wood, beyond which a narrow
valley of open ground only, intervened between them
and the Federal artillery. From the left rose a roar
of triumph more ferocious than the first; it was the
Federal right wing driving Jackson's line before it.
An echo to that shout comes back from the mountain.
It is the cheer of the Louisianians as they emerge
from cover, sweep down the hill, and, crossing the
valley, rush headlong toward the muzzles of the Federal
artillery.
The charge is magnificent. There will be only one
more as desperate—that of Pickett's Virginians on the
last day of Gettysburg. As they rush up the hill, the
Federal batteries direct upon them their most fatal
thunders. Shell, round shot, and grape strike them in
the face; the ranks are torn asunder; and where a line
but now advanced, are seen only dead bodies, without
legs, without arms, without heads, with breasts torn
open, the whole lying still, or weltering in pools of
blood. The Louisianians have dashed into the mouths
of the cannon; had their bodies torn to pieces; and
and fifty-eight out of three hundred and eight
men of the Seventh Louisiana have fallen. The other
regiments tell the same story. The command is shattered;
but enough men are left to mount the slope,
seize the guns, and bury their bayonets in the breasts
of the cannoneers as they fly. The Federal infantry
supports recoil like the artillerists; the cannon are
taken; Taylor holds the crest, every foot of which he
has bought with blood.
But he is not to retain it. A fresh brigade advances
upon his weary handful; a determined charge is made;
the Louisianians are driven back by weight of numbers,
and the enemy recapture the guns. But they have
hard metal to deal with. No hammer stroke seems to
break or even weaken it. The Louisianians again advance
before the guns can be turned on them; make a
furious countercharge, and the second time the guns
are taken by them.
Three times the Federal artillery was thus lost and
won, in spite of the most desperate fighting. All honor
to courage wherever it displays itself, under the blue
coat or under the gray; and the Federal forces fought
that day with a gallantry that was superb. They died
where they stood, like brave men and true soldiers—
an enemy records that, and salutes them.
Taylor's charge won the day of Port Republic. That
battle belongs to Louisiana, and she has a right to be
proud of it. To meet the heavy assault thus directed
against his left, Gen. Shields was forced to send thither
a large body of fresh troops. These were taken from
were relieved.
The Federal guns had swept the field—Taylor had
silenced them. The Federal infantry had concentrated
in the centre—Taylor drew it off. That was the result
of the great charge.
Jackson saw all at a glance. The moment for the
great blow had arrived. The enemy were moving to
their left; that enabled him to move to his right.
Then the gray masses were seen hastening toward
the mountain, as though driven by the wind. Winder's
old brigade formed in serried phalanx; his batteries
redoubled their thunders. Connor rushed to the relief
of Taylor, who, thus reinforced, turned like a tiger
upon his foes. From that instant the battle was a wild,
furious, insensate grapple. The mountain gorges thundered;
the musketry rolled through the woods in one
sustained and deafening crash. Under this resolute
and unshrinking advance the Federal lines began perceptibly
to hesitate and waver.
Hesitation in the decisive hour of battle is destruction.
That last charge broke the army of Gen.
Shields to pieces. Struck in front by the musket fire,
and torn in flank by the artillery, the Federal lines
gave way; the Confederates rushed upon them—in
ten minutes the battle-field presented the tragic spectacle
of one army flying in disorder before another
pressing on with cheers of triumph.
Fremont had been only checked; Shields was
routed. His forces were pursued by infantry, artillery,
and cavalry, until they disappeared beyond a bend of
the river, and Jackson was master of the country.
“I never saw so many dead in such a small space in
all my life before,” he said, as he rode over the field;
but never was blood shed to more advantage.
It was while Jackson was riding thus slowly across the
ground, that a roar came suddenly from the opposite
bank of the river. Then shell began to whistle—and these
shell burst right in the midst of the ambulances
full of wounded, and the parties engaged in burying
the Federal as well as Confederate dead. Mr.
Cameron, chaplain of the First Maryland, was reading
the burial service when a cannon ball tore through
the group, and the bearers dropped the dead. Now,
whence came that fire, so opposed, one would say, to the
usages of war?
It came from Gen. Fremont. Unable to cross
the river, as Jackson had burned the bridge, and
forced thus to witness the defeat of his Lieutenant before
his very face, he vented his wrath upon the victor
by that firing.
That roar was a grim sound, but not so grim as the
frown of Jackson.
“While the forces of Shields,” he wrote afterwards,
“were in full retreat, and our troops in pursuit, Fremont
appeared on the opposite bank of the Shenandoah
with his army, and opened his artillery on our ambulances
and parties engaged in the humane labors of attending
to our dead and wounded, and the dead and
wounded of the enemy.”
Jackson makes no comment; let us imitate him, or
nearly.
It was natural, perhaps, that Gen. Fremont should
fire at gray uniforms; but did he know that those
were Federal dead we were burying, as well as Confederate;
Federal souls were prayed for as well as
others. It was a harsh interruption, that fire upon the
dead men in blue uniforms, and it was a pity. They
were brave—never men fought better.
A few paragraphs will terminate this sketch of a
memorable battle.
Port Republic is a landmark. It sums up one
epoch—after it, the war entered upon a new phase—
invasion. It may be objected that Cold Harbor terminated
this first epoch; but the reply is, that Port
Republic decided Cold Harbor. From the moment
when Jackson crushed the Federal column operating
in the Valley, Gen. Lee could concentrate the entire
force in Virginia, in front of McClellan, and that
concentration, as events showed, meant victory.
Thus Port Republic was not only the successful
termination of a rapid, shifting, and arduous campaign
—it was, besides this, one of those peculiar contests
which act upon events around them, as the keystone
acts upon the arch. With Jackson beaten here, Richmond,
humanly speaking, was lost, and with it Virginia.
With Jackson victorious, Richmond and Virginia
were saved, for McClellan was repulsed, and the
Southern Cross moved northward to invade in turn the
territory of the enemy.
It is seen to have been a hard fight. At Manassas,
Cold Harbor, Cedar Run, the second Manassas, Sharpsburg,
Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg,
Spottsylvania, and Petersburg, the Confederate forces
Jackson fought nearly man to man—and victory was
long doubtful. At one time the battle was lost; it
was only gained at last by the fire, force, rush, and
dogged obstinacy of the élite of the Southern troops
resolved to conquer or die.
“Through God's blessing,” Jackson wrote in his
despatch, “the enemy near Port Republic was this day
routed, with the loss of six pieces of his artillery.”
That phrase, “through God's blessing,” probably indicated
more in the silent soldier than in others. At
the moment when his lines were reeling, an unseen
Hand had seemed to support him, an invisible Power
to fight for him. And he had triumphed.
On the morning of the 10th of June, Jackson was
as free as the wind to move whithersoever he willed.
Shields was beaten; Fremont retreating—the splendid
prize of the Virginia Valley, for which the opponents
had been playing, had fallen to the lot of Jackson.
“What would he do with it?” What were his
plans?
Six days afterwards a cavalier entered the little village
of Mount Crawford, on the valley turnpike, about
midnight. In the middle of the street, deserted at
that hour by all citizens, a solitary figure on horseback
was awaiting the new comer—Col. Munford, commanding
the cavalry. He had received that day a
note from Jackson, directing him to “meet him at
eleven that night at the head of the street at Mount
Crawford, and not to ask for him or anybody.”
Jackson was punctually at the rendezvous, as has
for some time in low tones. When they parted,
the Colonel had received his instructions, and returned
to Harrisonburg.
Let us follow the Colonel. At his head-quarters
were a number of Federal surgeons, with ambulances,
come to carry off Fremont's wounded. To their request
Colonel Munford replied that he must first send
to Jackson for instructions, and a messenger was sent
at once. He speedily returned, and in the hearing of
the Federal surgeons, through a wooden partition,
reported:
“Gen. Jackson told me to tell you, Colonel, that
the wounded Yankees are not to be taken away, and
the surgeons are to be sent back with the message that
he can take care of their wounded men in his hospitals.
He is coming right on himself, with heavy reinforcements.
Whiting's division is up, and Hood's is coming.
The whole road from here to Staunton is perfectly
lined with troops, and so crowded that I could
hardly ride along.”
The Federal surgeons overheard every word of this,
and when Col. Munford summoned them in and informed
them simply that Jackson would care for their
wounded, they said no more. On the same day they
returned to Gen. Fremont. On the next, the whole
Federal army fell back to Strasburg, and began to entrench
against the anticipated attack.
Colonel Munford had successfully carried out the
order of the solitary horseman at Mount Crawford:
“Produce upon the enemy the impression that I am
going to advance.”
While Fremont was fortifying at Strasburg, Jackson
was crossing the Blue Ridge to throw himself against
the right wing of Gen. McClellan in the Chickahominy.
| II.
PORT REPUBLIC. Hammer and rapier | |