“…If you want to catch the Devil—If you want to have fun—If you want to smell Hell—Jine the Cavalry!”

Stuart’s official theme song, the irreverent  “Jine the Cavalry”

In the 1860s, General J.E.B. Stuart put the glory into being a cavalryman. He lifted his troopers above the muck, sweat, and terror of being the hard-worn reconnaissance arm of the service, and into believing that they were romantic knights of old driving back the dragon of ‘Union oppression.’

Over and over his forces crushed the Yankees in battle. They rode around the entire Army of the Potomac several times stealing thousands of mounts, cutting supply lines, and making the bluecoats look like a gaggle of keystone cops. His force constantly informed General Lee of the Yankee movements so that the small Army of Northern Virginia could block them or out maneuver them.  His cavalrymen were legend.

Sometimes Stuart’s own men fell into grumbling the truth that, “Raiding with General Stuart is poor fun and hard business. Thunder, lightning, rain, storm, nor darkness can stop him when he is on a warm fresh trail of Yankee game.”

Stuart created his dashing caviler legend by living it. A West Point graduate and veteran of the Indian Wars, he led by example with his signature plumed hat, scarlet lined cape, huge boots, and golden spurs. He put the swagger in the men’s step and nursed them upon the firm belief that they were unbeatable. And until the closing of the war, when they were ground down by lack of food, horses, and modern weapons, his cavalrymen were every inch the mighty juggernaut he preened them into believing they were.

Though Stuart was fiercely religious and neither drank nor smoked, if you’re envisioning a grumpy, puritanistic, hell-spitting commander, nothing could be further from the truth. It’s said that “He was always whistling, singing, and laughing.” Stuart had an insatiable appetite for music and jokes. Soldiers generally agreed that he was the only man in the entire Confederate Army who could get dour, old Stonewall Jackson to laugh.

Once after stealing all the Federal Army’s supply of pack mules on a raid, he tapped the federal telegraph lines and interrupted military communications to send a teasing message to the U.S. quartermaster general telling him,

“General Meigs will in the future please furnish better mules; those you have furnished recently are very inferior—JEB Stuart.”

In battle, his personal weapons were as modern as the Confederacy could supply. He carried the new 1860 pattern U.S. saber and a ten-shot, LeMatt ‘grapeshot’ revolver, the most advanced handgun of the war.

He was personally brave to a fault and a dashing and aggressive cavalryman…but was he a ‘great general’?

Well, history proves that he was certainly not a ‘perfect’ general. Sometimes doing ‘great deeds’ is not as efficient in a war as simple soldiering. And J.E.B. Stuart was always a man of great deeds. His overconfidence led him to sometimes disregard the growing skill of the Union cavalry opposing him, but his leadership, training, and the tenacity of his troops always shone through.

When Stonewall Jackson was critically wounded at Chancellorsville, Stuart was raised up to command the entire Second Army Corps. In order to drive off the overwhelming Federal Army, he had to order his troops to assault strongly entrenched Union positions. It was an ugly business, especially because his Corps was out-gunned and vastly outnumbered by the defending Army of the Potomac. Although he had a horse shot out from under him in the first 30 minutes of battle, he borrowed another and rode the lines, ignoring shot and shell, “With flashing eyes and heroic courage.”  He rode along the ranks and seemed to be everywhere, organizing and controlling his troops, even getting soldiers to sing with him as they loaded and fired. There were more than 17,000 American casualties that day, divided about equally between North and South. When the battle was over, the Confederates held the field. He is said to be the only American General in history to take over an entire army corps—infantry, cavalry, and artillery—in the midst of a pitched battle and win.

However, by the end of the war, skill and élan failed before the waves of murderous new technology. At the battle of Yellow Tavern, Stuart deployed 3,000 men to defend Richmond from a massed Union cavalry thrust. But ‘Little Phil’ Sheridan hadn’t brought the largest cavalry force of the war to attack Richmond, he had brought ten thousand troopers backed by artillery and armed with the latest, 7-shot carbines—to crush Stuart.

Stuart’s men had learned about the dreaded Spencer repeaters at Gettysburg. Now the entire force of Union cavalry was armed with them. In their defensive position, however, the Confederates were at less of a disadvantage with their older, single-shot and muzzle-loading weapons. They made the Yankees pay for every foot in blood. Yet even with a superior position, to face seven times their firepower and more than 3-1 odds was no dog-fall.

The Confederates took the Federal attacks and drove them back several times, despite the overwhelming numbers and firepower. But as Stuart encouraged one of the Virginian counterattacks from the front of the lines, a fleeing Yankee turned and put a .44 pistolball through the general’s stomach.

Stuart was taken from the field in an ambulance, dying. The Confederates retreated. Sheridan turned his force back to Union lines. The U.S. commander had done what he’d come to do. The ‘Knight of the Golden Spurs’ had fallen; the heart of the Confederate cavalry had been stilled.

“His death was possibly a greater loss to the Confederate Army even than that of the swift-moving General “Stonewall” Jackson.” —James Longstreet, LtGen CSA

Here’s a few more video links for your listening enjoyment:

“The Month at the Bauer” ~ what cavalrymen do when they have some leisure time

“Riding a Raid” ~ A cavalry favorite

“The Cavalier’s Glee” ~ Another of Stuart\’s favorites

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