Read Online Lee and His Men at Gettysburg: The Death of a Nation by Clifford Dowdey - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Clifford Dowdey
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held—he lost only one man and one gun-limber—and his literally hairbreadth escapes made exciting reading for a Confederate people famished for good news.
The timing of the exploit was perfect. Everything was going wrong everywhere in the newly formed nation, and Richmonders lived in hourly dread of seeing McClellan’s army enter their city. Suddenly the people had a hero, young and golden, who fitted their romantic concepts:
From plume to spear a cavalier,
Whose soul ne’er parleyed with a fear,
Nor cheek bore tinge of shame.
Then twenty-nine years old, Stuart, with his stocky legs and massive torso, was not a graceful man on foot, but on horse he was an eye-filling figure. In a day of beards his thick red-brown whiskers and luxuriant mustaches were things of splendor, and his light eyes, sometimes as cold as morning light on a saber, could also appear merry and flashing. His gray uniform was magnificently tailored, given dash by a red-lined cape; his boots glistened like dark silver, and on his campaign hat fluttered an ostrich-feather plume. There was an air of audacity about him which won the hearts of a discouraged people.
Ladies garlanded his horse with roses, and music followed wherever he went. He sang in a rich baritone when he was riding, and when he wasn’t riding he was dancing. He was a gallant with the girls—too much so, some said. Even loyal troopers complained of him as a ladies’ man. At the Dundee plantation, where he headquartered for a spell when his fame was running in, an elderly lady today remembers her father protesting “Stuart kissing all the girls.”
He savored every moment of it, but no dance or song or pretty pair of lips ever kept him away from duty. Not even Stonewall Jackson, his dear friend, was a more dedicated Confederate. In action he was all business and sometimes was inclined to be hard on his men, of whom he thoughtlessly demanded his own illimitable energy. In the Second Manassas campaign his screening of the infantry and harassment of the enemy were a classic illustration of the proper use of cavalry. Stuart was a Confederate all the way, on a primal conviction, and winning independence came before everything to him—until June 1863.
2
Men, to be successful, must emerge at the right time. Stuart’s star had risen during the early period when the Union cavalry was inferior to the Confederate in skill and performance. Similarly, Sheridan came to Virginia in 1864 and distinguished himself at a time when the Confederate cavalry had passed its physical peak and was in a state of decline.
Stuart’s original troopers were trained riders from childhood, and they brought with them their fine—in many cases, blooded—horses. They knew the country they were fighting over as well as they knew their own rooms. Representing the cavalier stock of the South—the young Ruperts who carried ladies’ handkerchiefs on sabers—they held in their hearts a contempt for “Northern clerks and mechanics.” Stuart’s men rode as they fox-hunted, straight across country, taking all obstacles at a full gallop. They went into action shouting as if they could never die.
The Federals began the war with a lot to learn about handling horses in the field, but the U.S. Navy and Treasury departments, and manpower and industry prosecuted the war until in due time the Union cavalry had learned their lessons in the hardest of all schools—survival. After two years they were good riders, physically tough, and they knew the Vir?ginia countryside pretty well themselves. They were smoldering over the indignities suffered at Stuart’s hands, and they had produced some first-rate officers who were determined to even the score with the Rebels’ beau sabreur. They came close to it at Brandy Station.
On that day Stuart’s invaluable volunteer aide, South Carolina’s Farley, a gentle Shakespearean scholar and savage fighter, was killed by a shellburst. Rooney Lee was wounded in the leg, and Wade
The timing of the exploit was perfect. Everything was going wrong everywhere in the newly formed nation, and Richmonders lived in hourly dread of seeing McClellan’s army enter their city. Suddenly the people had a hero, young and golden, who fitted their romantic concepts:
From plume to spear a cavalier,
Whose soul ne’er parleyed with a fear,
Nor cheek bore tinge of shame.
Then twenty-nine years old, Stuart, with his stocky legs and massive torso, was not a graceful man on foot, but on horse he was an eye-filling figure. In a day of beards his thick red-brown whiskers and luxuriant mustaches were things of splendor, and his light eyes, sometimes as cold as morning light on a saber, could also appear merry and flashing. His gray uniform was magnificently tailored, given dash by a red-lined cape; his boots glistened like dark silver, and on his campaign hat fluttered an ostrich-feather plume. There was an air of audacity about him which won the hearts of a discouraged people.
Ladies garlanded his horse with roses, and music followed wherever he went. He sang in a rich baritone when he was riding, and when he wasn’t riding he was dancing. He was a gallant with the girls—too much so, some said. Even loyal troopers complained of him as a ladies’ man. At the Dundee plantation, where he headquartered for a spell when his fame was running in, an elderly lady today remembers her father protesting “Stuart kissing all the girls.”
He savored every moment of it, but no dance or song or pretty pair of lips ever kept him away from duty. Not even Stonewall Jackson, his dear friend, was a more dedicated Confederate. In action he was all business and sometimes was inclined to be hard on his men, of whom he thoughtlessly demanded his own illimitable energy. In the Second Manassas campaign his screening of the infantry and harassment of the enemy were a classic illustration of the proper use of cavalry. Stuart was a Confederate all the way, on a primal conviction, and winning independence came before everything to him—until June 1863.
2
Men, to be successful, must emerge at the right time. Stuart’s star had risen during the early period when the Union cavalry was inferior to the Confederate in skill and performance. Similarly, Sheridan came to Virginia in 1864 and distinguished himself at a time when the Confederate cavalry had passed its physical peak and was in a state of decline.
Stuart’s original troopers were trained riders from childhood, and they brought with them their fine—in many cases, blooded—horses. They knew the country they were fighting over as well as they knew their own rooms. Representing the cavalier stock of the South—the young Ruperts who carried ladies’ handkerchiefs on sabers—they held in their hearts a contempt for “Northern clerks and mechanics.” Stuart’s men rode as they fox-hunted, straight across country, taking all obstacles at a full gallop. They went into action shouting as if they could never die.
The Federals began the war with a lot to learn about handling horses in the field, but the U.S. Navy and Treasury departments, and manpower and industry prosecuted the war until in due time the Union cavalry had learned their lessons in the hardest of all schools—survival. After two years they were good riders, physically tough, and they knew the Vir?ginia countryside pretty well themselves. They were smoldering over the indignities suffered at Stuart’s hands, and they had produced some first-rate officers who were determined to even the score with the Rebels’ beau sabreur. They came close to it at Brandy Station.
On that day Stuart’s invaluable volunteer aide, South Carolina’s Farley, a gentle Shakespearean scholar and savage fighter, was killed by a shellburst. Rooney Lee was wounded in the leg, and Wade
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