James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart (February 6, 1833May 12, 1864) was a Confederate cavalry general during the American Civil War. He was known to his friends as "Jeb", from the initials of his given names. Stuart was a cavalry commander known for his mastery of reconnaissance and the use of cavalry in support of offensive operations. While he cultivated a cavalier image (red-lined gray cape, the yellow waist sash of a regular cavalry officer, hat cocked to the side with an ostrich plume, red flower in his lapel, often sporting cologne), his serious work made him the trusted eyes and ears of Robert E. Lee's army and inspired Southern morale.
Stuart graduated from West Point in 1854 and served in Texas and Kansas with the U.S. Army. Stuart was a veteran of the frontier conflicts with Native Americans and the violence of Bleeding Kansas, and he participated in the capture of John Brown at Harpers Ferry. He resigned his commission when his home state of Virginia seceded, to serve in the Confederate Army, first under Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, but then in increasingly important cavalry commands of the Army of Northern Virginia, playing a role in all of that army's campaigns until his death.
He established a reputation as an audacious cavalry commander and on two occasions (during the Peninsula Campaign and the Maryland Campaign) circumnavigated the Union Army of the Potomac, bringing fame to himself and embarrassment to the North. At the Battle of Chancellorsville, he distinguished himself as a temporary commander of the wounded Stonewall Jackson's infantry corps.
Stuart's most famous campaign, the Gettysburg campaign, was flawed when his long separation from Lee's army left Lee unaware of Union troop movements so that Lee was surprised and almost trapped at the Battle of Gettysburg. Stuart received criticism from the Southern press as well as the proponents of the Lost Cause movement after the war. During the 1864 Overland Campaign, Union Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan's cavalry launched an offensive to defeat Stuart, who was mortally wounded at the Battle of Yellow Tavern.
Early life and education
thumb|250px|Laurel Hill Farm overview, 2017
Stuart was born at Laurel Hill Farm, a plantation in Patrick County, Virginia, near the border with North Carolina. He was the eighth of 11 children and the youngest of the five sons to survive past early age. His father, Archibald Stuart, was a War of 1812 veteran, slaveholder, attorney, and Democratic politician who represented Patrick County in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly, and also served one term in the United States House of Representatives. His mother, Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart, ran the family farm and was known as a strict religious woman with a good sense for business. His great-grandfather, Major Alexander Stuart, commanded a regiment at the Battle of Guilford Court House during the Revolutionary War. His father Archibald was a cousin of attorney Alexander Hugh Holmes Stuart. He entered Emory and Henry College when he was fifteen, and attended from 1848 to 1850.
During the summer of 1848, Stuart attempted to enlist in the U.S. Army, but was rejected as underaged. He obtained an appointment in 1850 to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, from Representative Thomas Hamlet Averett, the man who had defeated his father in the 1848 election. Stuart was a popular student and was happy at the academy. Although he was not handsome in his teen years, his classmates called him by the nickname "Beauty", which they described as his "personal comeliness in inverse ratio to the term employed." He quickly grew a beard after graduation and a fellow officer remarked that he was "the only man he ever saw that [a] beard improved."
Robert E. Lee was appointed superintendent of the academy in 1852, and Stuart became a friend of the family, seeing them socially on frequent occasions. Lee's nephew, Fitzhugh Lee, also arrived at the academy in 1852. In Stuart's final year, in addition to achieving the cadet rank of second captain of the corps, he was one of eight cadets designated as honorary "cavalry officers" for his skills in horsemanship. Stuart graduated 13th in his class of 46 in 1854. He ranked 10th in his class in cavalry tactics. Although he enjoyed the civil engineering curriculum at the academy and did well in mathematics, his poor drawing skills hampered his engineering studies, and he finished 29th in that discipline.
United States Army
Stuart was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant and assigned to the U.S. Regiment of Mounted Riflemen in Texas. He was soon transferred to the newly formed 1st Cavalry Regiment (1855) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Territory, where he became regimental quartermaster and commissary officer under the command of Col. Edwin V. Sumner. He was promoted to first lieutenant in 1855. They became engaged in September, less than two months after meeting. Stuart humorously wrote of his rapid courtship in Latin, "Veni, Vidi, Victus sum" (I came, I saw, I was conquered). Although a gala wedding had been planned for Fort Riley, Kansas, the death of Stuart's father on September 20 caused a change of plans and the marriage on November 14 was small and limited to family witnesses. Their first child, a girl, was born in 1856 but died the same day. On November 14, 1857, Flora gave birth to another daughter, whom the parents named Flora after her mother. The family relocated in early 1858 to Fort Riley, where they remained for three years. The couple owned two slaves until 1859, one inherited from his father's estate, the other purchased.
Bleeding Kansas
Stuart's leadership capabilities were soon recognized. He was a veteran of the frontier conflicts with Native Americans and the antebellum violence of Bleeding Kansas. He was wounded on July 29, 1857, while fighting at Solomon River, Kansas, against the Cheyenne. Colonel Sumner ordered a charge with drawn sabers against a wave of Native American arrows. Scattering the under-armed warriors, Stuart and three other lieutenants chased one down, whom Stuart wounded in the thigh with his pistol. The Cheyenne turned and fired at Stuart with a .36 caliber Allen & Thurber pepperbox pistol, striking him in the chest with a bullet, which did little more damage than to pierce the skin. Stuart returned in September to Fort Leavenworth and was reunited with his wife.
John Brown
In 1859, Stuart developed a new piece of cavalry equipment, for which he received patent number 25,684 on October 4: a saber hook, or an "improved method of attaching sabers to belts." The U.S. government paid Stuart $5,000 for a "right to use" license and Stuart contracted with Knorr, Nece and Co. of Philadelphia to manufacture his hook. While in Washington, D.C., to discuss government contracts, and in conjunction with his application for an appointment into the quartermaster department, Stuart heard about John Brown's raid on the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Stuart volunteered to be aide-de-camp to Col. Robert E. Lee and accompanied Lee with a company of U.S. Marines from the Marine Barracks, 8th & I, Washington, DC and four companies of Maryland militia. While delivering Lee's written surrender ultimatum to the leader of the group, who had been calling himself Isaac Smith, Stuart recognized "Old Osawatomie Brown" from his days in Kansas.
Resignation
Stuart was promoted to captain on April 22, 1861, but resigned from the U.S. Army on May 3, 1861, to join the Confederate States Army following the secession of Virginia. On June 26, 1860, Flora gave birth to a son, Philip St. George Cooke Stuart. However, the following year, upon learning that his father-in-law, Col. Cooke, would remain in the U.S. Army during the coming civil war, Stuart was so disgusted that he changed his son's name to James Ewell Brown Stuart Jr. ("Jimmie") in late 1861. In a letter addressed to his brother-in-law, John Rogers Cooke (who also joined the CSA, rising to the rank of Confederate Brigadier General), Stuart wrote of his father-in-law's decision to remain loyal to the Union: "He will regret it but once, and that will be continuously." When he heard that George H. Thomas, a fellow Virginian, had also decided to stay with the Union, Stuart wrote "I would like to hang, hang Thomas as a traitor to his native state."
American Civil War
Early service
Stuart was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel of Virginia Infantry in the Confederate Army on May 10, 1861. He was promoted to colonel on July 16.
However, when General Robert E. Lee became commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, he requested that Stuart perform reconnaissance to determine whether the right flank of the Union army was vulnerable. Stuart set out with 1,200 troopers on the morning of June 12 and, having determined that the flank was indeed vulnerable, took his men on a complete circumnavigation of the Union army, returning after 150 miles on June 15 with 165 captured Union soldiers, 260 horses and mules, and various quartermaster and ordnance supplies. His men met no serious opposition from the more decentralized Union cavalry, coincidentally commanded by his father-in-law, Col. Cooke, and their total casualties amounted to one man killed. The maneuver was a public relations sensation, and Stuart was greeted with flower petals thrown in his path at Richmond. He had become as famous as Stonewall Jackson in the eyes of the Confederacy.
Northern Virginia
thumb|CSA Cavalry General J. E. B. Stuart
Early in the Northern Virginia Campaign, Stuart was promoted to major general on July 25, 1862, and his command was upgraded to the Cavalry Division—the fact that the Army of Northern Virginia's cavalry had been brigaded and were now a full division made for an important organizational advantage over the Army of the Potomac's mounted arm, which was ineffectually organized as regiments attached to infantry brigades and treated as an extension of the army signal corps. He was nearly captured and lost his signature plumed hat and cloak to pursuing Federals during a raid in August, but in a retaliatory raid at Catlett's Station the following day, managed to overrun Union army commander Major General John Pope's headquarters, and not only captured Pope's full dress uniform, but also intercepted orders that provided Lee with valuable intelligence concerning reinforcements for Pope's army.
Maryland
During the Maryland Campaign in September 1862, Stuart's cavalry screened the army's movement north. He bears some responsibility for Robert E. Lee's lack of knowledge of the position and celerity of the pursuing Army of the Potomac under George B. McClellan. For a five-day period, Stuart rested his men and entertained local civilians at a gala ball at Urbana, Maryland. His reports make no reference to intelligence gathering by his scouts or patrols. As the Union Army drew near to Lee's divided army, Stuart's men skirmished at various points on the approach to Frederick and Stuart was not able to keep his brigades concentrated enough to resist the oncoming tide. He misjudged the Union routes of advance, ignorant of the Union force threatening Turner's Gap, and required assistance from the infantry of Major General D. H. Hill to defend the South Mountain passes in the Battle of South Mountain. His horse artillery bombarded the flank of the Union army as it opened its attack in the Battle of Antietam. By mid-afternoon, Stonewall Jackson ordered Stuart to command a turning movement with his cavalry against the Union right flank and rear, which, if successful, would be followed up by an infantry attack from the West Woods. Stuart began probing the Union lines with more artillery barrages, but these were answered with "murderous" counterbattery fire, and consequently the cavalry movement intended by Jackson was never launched.
Three weeks after Lee's army had withdrawn back to Virginia, from October 10–12, 1862, Stuart performed another of his audacious circumnavigations of the Army of the Potomac, the Chambersburg Raid — travelling 126 miles in under 60 hours, from Darkesville, West Virginia to as far north as Mercersburg and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, around to the east through Emmitsburg, Maryland, and then south through Hyattstown, Maryland and White's Ford to Leesburg, Virginia — once again embarrassing his Union opponents and seizing horses and supplies, but at the expense of exhausting his men and animals, and without gaining much military advantage. Jubal Early referred to it as "the greatest horse stealing expedition", and that it only "annoyed" the enemy. Stuart gave his friend Jackson a fine, new officer's tunic, trimmed with gold lace, commissioned from a Richmond tailor, which he thought would give Jackson more of the appearance of a proper general (something to which Jackson was notoriously indifferent).
Urged by President Lincoln to pursue Lee, McClellan slowly pushed his army south, crossing the Potomac starting on October 26. As Lee began moving to counter this, Stuart screened Longstreet's corps and skirmished numerous times in early November against Union cavalry and infantry around Mountville, Aldie, and Upperville. On November 6, Stuart was notified by telegram that his daughter Flora had died of typhoid fever on November 3, just before her fifth birthday.
Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville
thumb|180px|Stuart's hat, sword and [[LeMat Revolver (Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, VA)]]
In the December 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg, Stuart and his cavalry—most notably his horse artillery under Major John Pelham—protected Stonewall Jackson's flank at Hamilton's Crossing. General Lee commended his cavalry, which "effectually guarded our right, annoying the enemy and embarrassing his movements by hanging on his flank, and attacking when the opportunity occurred." Stuart reported to Flora the next day that he had been shot through his fur collar but was unhurt.
After Christmas, Lee ordered Stuart to conduct a raid north of the Rappahannock River to "penetrate the enemy's rear, ascertain if possible his position & movements, & inflict upon him such damage as circumstances will permit." With 1,800 troopers and a horse artillery battery assigned to the operation, Stuart's raid reached as far north as four miles south of Fairfax Court House, seizing 250 prisoners, horses, mules, and supplies. Tapping telegraph lines, his signalmen intercepted messages between Union commanders, and Stuart sent a personal telegram to Union Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs, "General Meigs will in the future please furnish better mules; those you have furnished recently are very inferior."
On March 17, 1863, Stuart's cavalry clashed with a Union raiding party at Kelly's Ford. The minor victory was marred by the death of Major Pelham, which caused Stuart profound grief, as he thought of him as close as a younger brother. He wrote to a Confederate congressman, "The noble, the chivalric, the gallant Pelham is no more. ... Let the tears of agony we have shed, and the gloom of mourning throughout my command bear witness." Flora was pregnant at the time and Stuart told her that if it were a boy, he wanted him to be named John Pelham Stuart. (Virginia Pelham Stuart was born October 9.)
[[File:Chancellorsville May3a.png|thumb|alt=A map showing Stuart's attack on General Daniel Sickles's position on the western outskirts of Chancellorsville.|Chancellorsville, May 3, 1863
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At the Battle of Chancellorsville, Stuart accompanied Stonewall Jackson on his famous flanking march of May 2, 1863, and started to pursue the retreating soldiers of the Union XI Corps when he received word that both Jackson and his senior division commander, Major General A. P. Hill, had been wounded. Hill, bypassing the next most senior infantry general in the corps, Brigadier General Robert E. Rodes, sent a message ordering Stuart to take command of the Second Corps. Although the delays associated with this change of command effectively ended the flanking attack on the night of May 2, Stuart, who had no prior experience leading infantry, performed creditably as an infantry corps commander the following day, launching a strong and well-coordinated attack against the Union right flank at Chancellorsville. When Union troops abandoned Hazel Grove, Stuart had the presence of mind to quickly occupy it and bombard the Union positions with artillery. Stuart relinquished his infantry command on May 6 when Hill returned to duty. Historian Stephen W. Sears wrote:
Stonewall Jackson died on May 10. Stuart was once again devastated by the loss of a close friend, telling his staff that the death was a "national calamity." Jackson's wife, Mary Anna, wrote to Stuart on August 1, thanking him for a note of sympathy: "I need not assure you of which you already know, that your friendship & admiration were cordially reciprocated by him. I have frequently heard him speak of Gen'l Stuart as one of his warm personal friends, & also express admiration for your Soldierly qualities."
Brandy Station
Returning to the cavalry for the Gettysburg campaign, Stuart endured two of the lowest points in his career, starting with the Battle of Brandy Station, the largest predominantly cavalry engagement of the war. By June 5, two of Lee's infantry corps were camped in and around Culpeper. Six miles northeast, holding the line of the Rappahannock River, Stuart bivouacked his cavalry troopers, mostly near Brandy Station, screening the Confederate Army against surprise by the enemy. Stuart requested a full field review of his troops by General Lee. This grand review on June 5 included nearly 9,000 mounted troopers and four batteries of horse artillery, charging in simulated battle at Inlet Station, about two miles (three km) southwest of Brandy Station.
thumb|left|260px|alt=A map showing Union actions and Stuart's responses at the Battle of Brandy Station|[[Battle of Brandy Station, June 9, 1863]]
Lee was not able to attend the review, however, so it was repeated in his presence on June 8, although the repeated performance was limited to a simple parade without battle simulations. Despite the lower level of activity, some of the cavalrymen and the newspaper reporters at the scene complained that all Stuart was doing was feeding his ego and exhausting the horses. Lee ordered Stuart to cross the Rappahannock the next day and raid Union forward positions, screening the Confederate Army from observation or interference as it moved north. Anticipating this imminent offensive action, Stuart ordered his tired troopers back into bivouac around Brandy Station.
The Army of the Potomac commander, Major General Joseph Hooker, interpreted Stuart's presence around Culpeper to be indicative of preparations for a raid on his army's supply lines. In reaction, he ordered his cavalry commander, Major General Alfred Pleasonton, to take a combined arms force of 8,000 cavalrymen and 3,000 infantry on a "spoiling raid" to "disperse and destroy" the 9,500 Confederates. Pleasonton's force crossed the Rappahannock in two columns on June 9, 1863, the first crossing at Beverly's Ford (Brigadier General John Buford's division) catching Stuart by surprise, waking him and his staff to the sound of gunfire. The second crossing, at Kelly's Ford, surprised Stuart again, and the Confederates found themselves assaulted from front and rear in a spirited melee of mounted combat. A series of confusing charges and countercharges swept back and forth across Fleetwood Hill, which had been Stuart's headquarters the previous night. After ten hours of fighting, Pleasonton ordered his men to withdraw across the Rappahannock.
Although Stuart claimed a victory because the Confederates held the field, Brandy Station is considered a tactical draw, and both sides came up short. Pleasonton was not able to disable Stuart's force at the start of an important campaign, and he withdrew before finding the location of Lee's infantry nearby. However, the fact that the Southern cavalry had not detected the movement of two large columns of Union cavalry, and that they subsequently fell victim to a surprise attack, was an embarrassment that prompted serious criticism from fellow generals and the Southern press. The fight also revealed the increased competency of the Union cavalry, and foreshadowed the decline of the formerly invincible Southern mounted arm.
Stuart's ride in the Gettysburg Campaign
thumb|alt=A map showing Union and Confederate movements at the corps level during the opening phases of the Gettysburg Campaign, with Stuart's cavalry ride shown with a red dotted line.|Stuart's ride (shown with a red dotted line) during the [[Gettysburg campaign, June 3 – July 3, 1863]]
Following a series of small cavalry battles in June as Lee's army began marching north through the Shenandoah Valley, Stuart may have had in mind the glory of circumnavigating the enemy army once again, desiring to erase the stain on his reputation of the surprise at Brandy Station. General Lee gave orders to Stuart on June 22 on how he was to participate in the march north. The exact nature of those orders has been the subject of argument by the participants and historians ever since, but the consensus is that, in essence, Stuart was instructed to guard the mountain passes with part of his force while the Army of Northern Virginia was still south of the Potomac, and that he was to cross the river with the remainder of the army and screen the right flank of Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell's Second Corps. However, instead of taking a direct route north near the Blue Ridge Mountains, Stuart chose to reach Ewell's flank by taking his three best brigades (those of Brigadier General Wade Hampton, Brigadier General Fitzhugh Lee, and Colonel John R. Chambliss, the latter replacing the wounded Brigadier General W. H. F. "Rooney" Lee) between the Union Army and Washington, moving north through Rockville to Westminster, Maryland and on into Pennsylvania, hoping to capture supplies along the way and cause havoc near the enemy capital. Stuart and his three brigades departed Salem Depot at 1 a.m. on June 25.
Unfortunately for Stuart's plan, the Union army's movement was already underway, and his proposed route was blocked by columns of Federal infantry, forcing him to veer farther to the east than either he or General Lee had anticipated. This prevented Stuart from linking up with Ewell as ordered and deprived Lee of the use of his prime cavalry force, the "eyes and ears" of the army, while advancing into unfamiliar enemy territory.
Stuart's command crossed the Potomac River at 3 a.m. on June 28. At Rockville they captured a wagon train of 140 brand-new, fully loaded wagons and mule teams. This wagon train would prove to be a logistical hindrance to Stuart's advance, but he interpreted Lee's orders as placing importance on gathering supplies. The proximity of the Confederate raiders provoked some consternation in Washington, and two Union cavalry brigades and an artillery battery were sent to pursue the Confederates. Stuart supposedly said that, were it not for his fatigued horses, "he would have marched down the 7th Street Road [and] took Abe & Cabinet prisoners."
On June 29, Stuart's men clashed briefly with and overwhelmed two companies of Union cavalry in Westminster, chasing them a significant distance down the Baltimore road, which Stuart claimed caused a "great panic" in the city itself. The head of Stuart's column encountered Brigadier General Judson Kilpatrick's cavalry as it passed through Hanover and scattered it on June 30; the Battle of Hanover ended after Kilpatrick's men regrouped and drove the Confederates out of town. Stuart's brigades had been better positioned to guard their captured wagon train than to take advantage of the encounter with Kilpatrick. After a 20-mile trek in the dark, his exhausted men reached Dover on the morning of July 1, as the Battle of Gettysburg was commencing without them.
Stuart headed next for Carlisle, hoping to find Ewell. He lobbed a few shells into town during the early evening of July 1 and burned the Carlisle Barracks before withdrawing to the south towards Gettysburg. He and the bulk of his command reached Lee at Gettysburg the afternoon of July 2. He ordered Wade Hampton to cover the left rear of the Confederate battle lines, and Hampton fought against Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of Hunterstown before joining Stuart at Gettysburg.
Gettysburg and its aftermath
When Stuart arrived at Gettysburg on the afternoon of July 2—bringing with him the caravan of captured Union supply wagons—he received a rare rebuke from Lee. No one witnessed the private meeting between Lee and Stuart, but reports circulated at headquarters that Lee's greeting was "abrupt and frosty." Colonel Edward Porter Alexander wrote, "Although Lee said only, 'Well, General, you are here at last,' his manner implied rebuke, and it was so understood by Stuart." On the final day of the battle, Stuart was ordered to move into the enemy's rear and disrupt their lines of communications at the same time as Pickett's Charge was being sent against the Union positions on Cemetery Ridge, but his attack on East Cavalry Field was repelled by Union cavalry under Brigadier Generals David Gregg and George Custer.
During the retreat from Gettysburg, Stuart devoted his full attention to supporting the army's movement, successfully screening it from the aggressive Union cavalry forces in pursuit, and escorting thousands of wagons with wounded men and captured supplies over difficult roads and through inclement weather to safety. Numerous skirmishes and minor battles occurred during the screening and delaying actions of the retreat. Stuart's men were the final units to cross the Potomac River, returning to Virginia in "wretched condition—completely worn out and broken down."
The Gettysburg campaign was the most controversial of Stuart's career. He became one of the scapegoats (along with James Longstreet) who was blamed for Lee's loss at Gettysburg by proponents of the postbellum Lost Cause movement, such as Jubal Early. This was fueled in part by opinions of less partisan writers, such as Stuart's subordinate, Thomas L. Rosser, who stated after the war that Stuart did, "on this campaign, undoubtedly, make the fatal blunder which lost us the battle of Gettysburg." In Lee's report on the campaign, he wrote: