The Civil War: A Narrative: Fredericksburg to Meridian (65 page)

Unquestionably, this latest addition to the lengthening roster of Confederate victories was a great one. Indeed, considering the odds that had been faced and overcome, it was perhaps in terms of glory the greatest of them all;
Chancellorsville
would be stitched with pride across the crowded banners of the Army of Northern Virginia. But its ultimate worth, as compared to its cost, depended in large measure on the outcome of Stonewall Jackson’s present indisposition. As Lee had said on Sunday morning, when he first learned that his lieutenant had been wounded, “Any victory is dearly bought which deprives us of the services of General Jackson, even for a short time.”

So far—that is, up to the time when Hooker threw in the sponge and the northern army fell back across the Rappahannock—Dr McGuire’s prognosis had been most encouraging and the general himself
had been in excellent spirits, despite the loss of his arm. “I am wounded but not depressed,” he said when he woke from the sleep that followed the amputation. “I believe it was according to God’s will, and I can wait until He makes his object known to me.” Presently, when Lee’s midday note was brought, congratulating him on the victory, “which is due to your skill and energy,” Jackson permitted himself the one criticism he had ever made of his commander. “General Lee is very kind,” he said, “but he should give the praise to God.” Next day, May 4, with Sedgwick threatening the army’s rear, he was removed to safety in an ambulance. The route was south to Todd’s Tavern, then southeast, through Spotsylvania Court House, to Guiney Station, where he had met his wife and child, two weeks ago today, to begin the idyl that had ended with the news that Hooker was on the march. All along the way, country people lined the roadside to watch the ambulance go by. They brought with them, and held out for the attendants to accept, such few gifts as their larders afforded in these hard times, cool buttermilk, hot biscuits, and fried chicken. Jackson was pleased by this evidence of their concern, and for much of the 25-mile journey he chatted with an aide, even responding to a question as to what he thought of Hooker’s plan for the battle whose guns rumbled fainter as the ambulance rolled south. “It was in the main a good conception, sir; an excellent plan. But he should not have sent away his cavalry. That was his great blunder. It was that which enabled me to turn him, without his being aware of it, and to take him by the rear.” Of his own share in frustrating that plan, he added that he believed his flank attack had been “the most successful movement of my life. But I have received more credit for it than I deserve. Most men will think that I had planned it all from the first; but it was not so. I simply took advantage of circumstances as they were presented to me in the providence of God. I feel that His hand led me.”

By nightfall he was resting comfortably in a cottage on the Chandler estate near Guiney Station. He slept soundly, apparently free from pain, and woke next morning much refreshed. His wounds seemed to give him little trouble; primary intention and granulation were under way. All that day and the next, Tuesday and Wednesday, he rested easy, talking mainly of religious matters, as had always been his custom in times of relaxation. The doctor foresaw a rapid recovery and an early return to duty. Then—late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, May 7—a sudden change occurred. McGuire woke at dawn to find his patient restless and in severe discomfort. Examination showed that the general faced a new and formidable enemy: pneumonia. He was cupped, then given mercury, with antimony and opium, and morphine to ease his pain. From that time on, as the drugs took effect and the pneumonia followed its inexorable course, he drifted in and out of sleep and fuddled consciousness. His wife arrived at midday, having been delayed by Stoneman’s raiders, to find him greatly changed from the
husband she had left eight days ago. Despite advance warning, she was shocked at the sight of his wounds, especially the mutilated arm. Moreover, his cheeks were flushed, his breathing oppressed, and his senses numbed. At first he scarcely knew her, but presently, in a more lucid moment, he saw her anxiety and told her: “You must not wear a long face. I love cheerfulness and brightness in a sickroom.” He lapsed into stupor, then woke again to find her still beside him. “My darling, you are very much loved,” he murmured. “You are one of the most precious little wives in the world.” Toward evening, he seemed to improve. Once at least, in the course of the night, he appeared to be altogether himself again. “Will you take this, General?” the doctor asked, bending over the bed with a dose of medicine. Stonewall looked at him sternly. “Do your duty,” he said. Then, seeing the doctor hesitate, he repeated the words quite firmly: “Do your duty.” Still later, those in the room were startled to hear him call out to his adjutant, Alexander Pendleton, who was in Fredericksburg with Lee: “Major Pendleton, send in and see if there is higher ground back of Chancellorsville! I must find out if there is high ground between Chancellorsville and the river.… Push up the columns; hasten the columns! Pendleton, you take charge of that.… Where is Pendleton? Tell him to push up the columns.” In his delirium he was back on the field of battle, doing the one thing he did best in all the world.

All that day and the next, which was Saturday, he grew steadily worse; McGuire sent word to Fredericksburg and Richmond that recovery was doubtful. Lee could not believe a righteous cause would suffer such a blow. “Surely General Jackson will recover,” he said. “God will not take him from us now that we need him so much.” The editor of the Richmond
Whig
agreed. “We need have no fears for Jackson,” he wrote. “He is no accidental manifestation of the powers of faith and courage. He came not by chance in this day and to this generation. He was born for a purpose, and not until that purpose is fulfilled will his great soul take flight.” Jackson himself inclined to this belief that he would be spared for a specific purpose. “I am not afraid to die,” he said in a lucid moment Friday. “I am willing to abide by the will of my Heavenly Father. But I do not believe I shall die at this time. I am persuaded the Almighty has yet a work for me to perform.” On Saturday, when he was asked to name a hymn he would like to hear sung, he requested “Shew Pity, Lord,” Isaac Watts’s paraphrase of the Fifty-first Psalm:

This seemed to comfort him for a time, but night brought a return of suffering. He tossed sleepless, mumbling battle orders. Though these
were mostly unintelligible, it was observed that he called most often on A. P. Hill, his hardest-hitting troop commander, and Wells Hawks, his commissary officer, as if even in delirium he strove to preserve a balance between tactics and logistics.

Sunday, May 10, dawned fair and clear; McGuire informed Anna Jackson that her husband could not last the day. She knelt at the bedside of the unconscious general, telling him over and over that he would “very soon be in heaven.” Presently he stirred and opened his eyes. She asked him, “Do you feel willing to acquiesce in God’s allotment if He will you to go today?” He watched her. “I prefer it,” he said, and she pressed the point: “Well, before this day closes you will be with the blessed Savior in his glory.” There was a pause. “I will be the infinite gainer to be translated,” Jackson said as he dozed off again. He woke at noon, and once more she broached the subject, telling him that he would be gone before sundown. This time he seemed to understand her better. “Oh no; you are frightened, my child. Death is not so near. I may yet get well.” She broke into tears, sobbing that the doctor had said there was no hope. Jackson summoned McGuire. “Doctor, Anna informs me that you have told her I am to die today. Is it so?” When McGuire replied that it was so, the general seemed to ponder. Then he said, “Very good, very good. It is all right.” After a time he added, “It is the Lord’s day; my wish is fulfilled. I have always desired to die on Sunday.”

At 1.30 the doctor told him he had no more than a couple of hours to live. “Very good; it’s all right,” Jackson replied as before, but more weakly, for his breathing was high in his throat by now. When McGuire offered him brandy to keep up his strength, he shook his head. “It will only delay my departure, and do no good,” he protested. “I want to preserve my mind, if possible, to the last.” Presently, though, he was back in delirium, alternately praying and giving commands, all of which had to do with the offensive. Shortly after 3 o’clock, a few minutes before he died, he called out: “Order A. P. Hill to prepare for action! Pass the infantry to the front.… Tell Major Hawks—” He left the sentence unfinished, seeming thus to have put the war behind him; for he smiled as he spoke his last words, in a tone of calm relief. “Let us cross over the river,” he said, “and rest under the shade of the trees.”

II

The Beleaguered City