Hennessy on the Naming of “Stonewall”

The following appeared in Vol. VIII, No. 2 of Civil War: The Magazine of the Civil War Society, March-April 1990, and is reproduced here with the permission of the author.  My notes in {brackets}.

Stonewall Jackson’s Nickname

What did General Bee really say at First Manassas?  And what did he mean?

By John Hennessy

This is the way the story goes: At noontime on July 21, 1861, a bright, warm summer day, the brash young Confederacy seemed on the brink of woeful disaster.  The brushy fields behind widow Judith Henry’s house were crowded with fugitives, gray-clad and blue-clad Confederates milling about, sweat-soaked, bleeding, confused, and dazed.  Officers rushed among them trying to restore formations shattered in the morning fight, but their yelling, cursing, and speechmaking did little good.

The tangled, frightened mob refused organization.  On the hills a mile to the north were 17,000 Federals, ready to advance, their muskets and bayonets glinting in the mid-day sun and their cannon steadily lobbing shells toward the Confederates.  The battle — the War itself — was only two hours old.  Could all be lost already?

So it seemed.  But then, suddenly, a column of men appeared, marching four abreast up a rutted road on the rear slope of Mrs. Henry’s hill.  Emerging from the timber, the column filed right, then left, the men lying down in the tall grass and pine thickets lining the eastern edge of Henry’s farm.  It consisted of five regiments, nearly 2500 men, all Virginians.  The man at their head was an obscure brigadier, no long ago a professor at the Virginia Military Institute, named Thomas J. Jackson.

Jackson’s arrival did not go unnoticed by those thousands of Confederates milling about in widow Henry’s meadow.  One of them, South Carolinian Barnard Bee, whose commission as Brigadier General carried the same date as Jackson’s, frantically rode up to the Virginian.  “General, they are beating us back”, Bee exclaimed, as if he were appealing to a superior officer.  Jackson, his eyes flashing in that soon-to-be-familiar way, coolly intoned his reply: “Sir, we will give them the bayonet.”  Reassured, Bee wheeled his horse and galloped back to the sorry mob behind Henry’s house.  To the north, the Federals prepared to attack.

Bee dashed among his troops, finding the remnants of the 4th Alabama, and beseeched them to fall in.  But the men, tired and scared, would have none of it.  Then Bee, in desperation, rose in his saddle, drew his sword and pointed through the roiling smoke toward Jackson.  “There stands Jackson like a stone wall!” he bellowed.  “Rally around the Virginians!”

Drummers beat the rally.  Tangled knots of soldiers shook themselves out into ragged lines.  In a short time the dazed mob of Alabamians had formed up into steady ranks, anchored on Jackson’s rock solid regiments.  The Confederates gripped their rifles tightly and peered down their barrels.  After what seemed like an interminable wait, the enemy appeared, stepping ever closer.  At the last possible moment, the Confederate line exploded in a blaze of fire that drove the Federals back.

Again the attack came on, and again Jackson’s men, assisted by Bee’s reformed mob, drove them back.  This time the Confederates rose and dashed headlong in pursuit, toward the Federal cannon.  The enemy troops began to flee in wanton panic.

Teetering on the edge of disaster at mid-day, the Confederates had by late afternoon won a stunning victory on the Plains of Manassas.  And it was largely thanks to a man who, because of his performance that day, would soon be known to the world as “Stonewall” Jackson.  At least, so the story goes.

***

This account of how Jackson received his nickname is one of the enduring legends of the War.  With its high drama and cool heroism, it has thrilled countless school children and battlefield visitors, inspired generations of writers, sculptors, orators and soldiers.

But a century of enthusiastic retellings and embellishments — along with some festering skepticism — have taken their toll.  Fact and fiction have been melded into the story until they are indistinguishable.  And trying to separate them is not merely difficult; it is construed by worshipers of Jackson as a kind of historical blasphemy.  Yet his detractors persist, telling us that the story is overblown or misconstrued — that only the faintest strands of truth remain.

Clearly, it is time for a re-examination.  We must see whether we can find out what, exactly, Bee said — if indeed he said anything.  We must inquire into when he said it, and why.

The story gained notoriety quickly.  Only four days after the battle, a correspondent of the Charleston Mercury informed his readers of Jackson’s stoic retort to Bee, and Bee’s comparison of Jackson to a stone wall.  The story, and the inevitable nickname, spread quickly through the army, and within a few months General Jackson had become simply “Stonewall.”  And as such, by the end of the War, he had become one of the most famous men in the world.

As a foremost martyr to the Lost Cause, Jackson became after the War a subject of veneration, as did the legend of his christening at First Manassas.  Alleged eyewitnesses to the event (most of them members of the Stonewall Brigade) stepped forward by the dozens to reiterate and embroider the now-unshakeable myth.   Sanitized and polished, the story became a treasured piece of Virginiana, a staple of Southern lore.

Lurking in the shadows of the rosy glow, however, was a small but growing army of skeptics who, with considerable vigor, questioned the basic circumstances and meaning of the events of July 21, 1861.  Some, claiming that no reliable eyewitnesses ever emerged, went so far as to insist the Bee-Jackson incident never occurred.  North Carolinian D. H. Hill, for example, probably motivated as much by the age-old Carolinian resentment of Virginia gentility as by the absence of verifiable sources, labeled the entire episode “sheer fabrication.”

Others chose to re-interpret the legend, perhaps to reflect their own regional loyalties.  Bee’s fellow South Carolinian, Colonel John Cheves Haskell, said that according to sources he deemed reliable, Bee was actually denouncing Jackson by calling him a “stone wall,” because Jackson had refused to come to the aid of Bee’s “hard pressed” troops.  Virginians, on the other hand, put special emphasis on the postscript to the stone-wall reference – the part that went “rally around the Virginians.”  It is not surprising that the impressive statue of Jackson that today commands Henry Hill bears those very words.  It was erected by the State of Virginia.

Historians picking their way through this minefield of sectional and personal partisanship had to step carefully.  Most referred to the incident vaguely enough to avoid error; as R. M. Johnston put it in 1913, “something was said by somebody, during or immediately after the battle, that likened Jackson or his men or both to a stone wall.”  What these writers lacked was not the will to tackle the issue, but rather two essentials: reliable eyewitness accounts of the Jackson-Bee exchange, and comprehensive details of the events on Henry Hill that Sunday.

For some time, in fact, there was available only one primary account of what Jackson said to Bee, and vice versa.  It was written long after the war, in the 1890s, by Lieutenant William Robbins of Bee’s 4th Alabama Infantry.  By the time it appeared, the legend was already in place, and historians tended either to interpret the Robbins account to fit the legend, or in the case of a lack of fit, to discount Robbins’s account altogether.

Recently, however, three new eyewitness accounts have come to light, all written by members of the 4th Alabama, that confirm and expand upon Robbins’s account.  Two of them, a diary kept by Chaplain James G. Hudson {James G. Hudson, A Story of Company D, 4th Alabama Infantry Regiment, C.S.A., edited by Alma H. Pate, Alabama Historical Quarterly, (Spring 1961), XXIII} and the official report of Captain Thomas Goldsby, were in all probability written within a week of the battle.  The other account is an unpublished history of the 4th Alabama, by Robert T. Coles, written in 1909 {since published: Robert T. Coles, From Huntsville to Appomattox: R. T. Coles’s History of 4th Regiment, Alabama Volunteer Infantry, C.S.A., Army of Northern Virginia, edited by Jeffrey D. Stocker, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1996}.  Together, these four memoirs provide a clear and consistent picture of a very trying day for the 4th Alabama Infantry.

That July Sunday began full of hope and excitement for the men of the 4th Alabama, poised as they were near the center of the Confederate line at Blackburn’s Ford, certain they would be in the thick of the day’s fighting.  At 7 a.m., however, anticipation turned to disappointment.  The 4th was ordered into column and marched several miles north to the Stone Bridge — away, the grumbling men were sure, from the combat and the glory they craved.

As they neared the Stone Bridge, however, their mood changed yet again.  In front they could hear the rattle of musketry, and word came down the line of a potential crisis.  The Federals were trying to outflank the Confederates by crossing Bull Run two miles to above the Southerner’s left.  Eager for what one man called, “a chance to get a dab at the Yankees”, Bee’s men hurried over narrow roads and fence-studded farmland and, after only the briefest halt, threw themselves into the desperate fight on Matthew’s Hill.

Bee’s bloody attempt to drive back the Federal flanking column failed miserably.  By 11:30 a.m., the wreck of the 4th Alabama, along with two or three thousand other overwhelmed Confederates, was streaming back across the Warrenton Turnpike and up the slope of Mrs. Henry’s hill.

Once there, as the legend correctly holds, the Confederates milled about in disorganized mobs, edging toward the rear.  Then Jackson and his five regiments arrived.  Bee saw him, rode to him and, as related by a correspondent of the Mercury, told him of his plight.  “Sir, we will give them the bayonet”, Jackson told him.  Jackson in his after-action report confirmed the meeting with Bee: “Before arriving within cannon range of the enemy I met General Bee’s forces falling back.  I continued to advance with the understanding he would form in my rear.”

Here the legend and the eyewitness accounts begin to differ dramatically.  In the legendary version of the story it was at this time, about noon, that Bee returned to his troops and launched Jackson toward immortality.  But according to all four eyewitness accounts, Bee’s famous words were not spoken until two or three hours later.  By that time the tactical situation, and hence the meaning of what Bee said, were fundamentally changed.

The eyewitnesses recalled that Bee’s men, in serious trouble, continued rearward and formed 400 yards behind the right of Jackson’s line.  Captain Goldsby, on command of the 4th Alabama, wrote in his report, “Without any field officers, and almost surrounded by the enemy, we again fell back through a pine woods to an open field where we halted and awaited orders.  The thirst of the men was intense and almost intolerable.”

Meanwhile, one-quarter of a mile away, Jackson hurried to patch together a line of artillery in front of his now-prone infantrymen along the eastern edge of Henry Hill.  Benefitted greatly by a propitious lull granted him by the Federals, by 2 p.m. he had between 13 and 16 guns (no one knows for sure precisely how many) blazing away, including Alburtis’s Battery (the Wise Artillery), commanded by young Lieutenant John Pelham.

At about 2:30 p.m., 11 Union guns unexpectedly wheeled into position abreast of Widow Henry’s house, not 500 yards from Jackson’s line, and opened fire.  They were soon followed by Federal infantry.  The blueclad troops slowly closed with Jackson’s line, but hesitated, unsure of what they were facing.  Jackson’s men — at least a good number of them — rose and fired the first volley.

It was a savage firefight for a few minutes, but soon the Federals beat a hasty retreat to the cover of Sudley Road.  Jackson’s men, well satisfied by the apparent ease of their success, did not pursue.  In a few minutes yet another line of Unionists appeared, and again the Yankees approached Jackson’s line.  The Virginians’ task would not be so simple this time.

Meanwhile, Captain Goldsby and his tired band of Alabamians lay in the fields to Jackson’s right rear, waiting for someone to tell them what to do.  Soon General Bee galloped up to the regiment.  He had apparently been lost for some time, unable to find any familiar troops, and was anxious to get back into the fight.

All four eyewitnesses noted Bee’s bewildered arrival.  According to Goldsby, “At this place, a half mile behind our original position amid the bursting shells and the rattling storm of musketry, our heroic General Bee rode up to the regiment and inquired what troops we were.  Being told that ‘it was what remained of the 4th Alabama,’ he replied with an expressive gesture, ‘This is all of my brigade that I can find — will you follow me back to where the firing is going on?’  ‘To the death’ was the response.”

Regimental Chaplain Hudson, writing in his diary soon after the battle, recalled Bee’s arrival similarly: “While the 4th Regiment was recovering, General Bee rode up and asked who would follow him to the conflict.  Every man rose up, raised a shout and replied, ‘We will follow you to the death.'”

Lieutenant Robbins, writing in the 1890s, left yet another description that helps fix the position of the 4th Alabama and clearly indicates that by now Jackson’s men had become heavily engaged.  General Bee, wrote Robbins, ‘galloped up to the remnant of the 4th Alabama Regiment, which was so cut to pieces that Bee seemed not to recognize us at first, and he asked the question, ‘What regiment is this?’  We answered him, ‘The Fourth Alabama.’  At that time the heaviest masses of the Federals had so inclined to the left as to leave us comparatively unengaged, with little more than a skirmish line in our immediate front; but Jackson and his brigade, who were in position on high ground about 500 yards to our left, were being assailed by mighty masses of the enemy.  It was plainly the crisis of the day.  Bee then said to us, ‘Men can you make a charge of the bayonet?’ to which our poor battered regiment still had the pluck to respond, ‘Yes General; we’ll go wherever you lead and do whatever you say.'”

Private Robert Coles wrote in 1909 that at 2 p.m. “General Bee, very much depressed at the unfortunate turn of affairs, then proceeded to collect his forces.  Riding up to the 4th Alabama, he inquired what regiment is this; Captain Richard Clark and Captain Porter King quickly replied, ‘Why General, don’t you know your own men — this is what is left of the 4th Alabama.'”

These four accounts, remarkably consistent, point out two important facts that belie the legendery version of the story.  First, it is clear that at the time Bee spoke to the 4th, it was the general, not the regiment, who was discombobulated.  The regiment was simply lying still, waiting for orders.  There was, contrary to the legend, no rallying to be done (a point stressed by Lieutenant Robbins in another of his descriptions published in the Southern Historical Society Papers).

Bee, on the other hand, had been separated from his command for quite some time and was frantically trying to hunt up troops to bring back into the battle.  Which leads to the next point.  As Robbins explicitly states and the rest of the chroniclers imply, Jackson’s men were mightily engaged at the time of the incident.  It was Jackson, not Bee, who needed help.

Of Bee’s famous words, interestingly (and perhaps revealingly), the two men who wrote their recollections soon after the event said nothing, although clearly they were describing the same event as the post-war chroniclers.  Captain Goldsby wrote that after Bee spoke to the regiment, “he put himself on the left of our line and marched us by the left flank to where the fight was ranging around Sherman’s Battery.”  (Ricketts’s and Griffin’s batteries, the two Union batteries engaged on Henry Hill, were erroneously referred to by the Confederates as “Sherman’s Battery.”)  Parson Hudson remembered in his diary, “General Bee then led off in the direction of the house where the old lady [Mrs. Henry] was killed, and near where Sherman’s Battery was taken.”

But both of the post-war writers remembered that before Bee led the regiment into the fight he had something else to say.  Private Coles wrote: “After stating that this was the only part of his command he could find, he then said, “Come with me and go yonder where Jackson stands like a stone wall.”  Lieutenant Robbins described the moment more precisely, and only slightly differently: “Bee then pointed to the conflict going on upon the elevated ground to our left and said: ‘Yonder stands Jackson like a stone wall; Let’s go to his assistance.’  I, myself, was there and heard the words.”

These descriptions, the only eyewitness accounts available, put a distinctly different light on the entire incident.  Rather than the Virginians helping the Alabamians, as the legend generally holds, Bee’s men were instead going to help the Virginians.  This rather revolutionary perspective — guaranteed to raise a Virginians hackles and warm the heart of a Carolinian or Alabamian — is borne out further by the descriptions of Bee’s and his men’s subsequent activities.

Following Bee’s words the 4th Alabama rose, fell into column, and marched to Jackson’s assistance.  En route the regiment became confused when Alburtis’s battery of artillery left Jackson’s line and split the Alabama regiment.  Bee rallied them, and with 100 men joined Jackson in the counterattack that captured much of the Federal artillery on Henry Hill.  In this attack Bee was mortally wounded.

It is the descriptions of Bee’s march to Jackson’s aid that remove virtually all question of the timing of the “stone wall” incident, placing it at nearly 3 p.m., several hours later than the legend holds.  The key event that times Bee’s move, witnessed by all four writers, is the withdrawal of Jackson’s artillery, led by Alburtis’s battery, from Henry Hill.  That artillery, as related to William Nelson Pendleton’s after-action report, pulled out only when Jackson’s men became heavily involved with Yankee infantry.

Goldsby wrote of the 4th’s march to aid Jackson’s counterattack, “[Bee] put himself on the left of our line and marched us by the flank to where the fight was going on around Sherman’s Battery.  As we were nearing the scene, a train of artillery that was falling back cut our line, thus separating the left company from the rest of the regiment.  This company, with our general at its head, obliqued to the right, upon the open plain, and proceeded about 100 yards, when our gallant and beloved commander fell mortally wounded.”

Chaplain Hudson’s diary reads, “As the regiment was moving up a narrow road, through a pine thicket, Alburtis’s battery, which had been driven from the position, came dashing down the road under full headway.  The men were compelled to file right and left into the thicket to prevent being run over.”  Hudson goes on to add, supporting Goldsby, that Bee then gathered about a company and led them to “where the battle was raging hottest,” where he was very soon mortally wounded.

Robbins also describes the advance: “General Bee at once placed himself at our left and led the 4th Alabamians towards Jackson’s position.  During this movement Alburtis’s Battery was compelled to fall back and galloped right through our ranks, producing considerable confusion.”  And Robbins also says that Bee was wounded shortly thereafter.

Finally, Private Coles remembered the incident briefly, his account varying only to the extent that he claimed Alburtis’s battery was then going into position rather than leaving it, as is so clearly stated by the others.

This then is the evidence.  The four accounts – two wartime and two post-war — are convincingly consistent.  They lack even a hint of the speculation, fabrication, or embellishment so apparent in most descriptions of the affair, most of which were written by Virginians who were nowhere near Bee that day.  Moreover, the Alabamian’s descriptions dovetail precisely with the terrain (including the monument marking the spot of Bee’s mortal wounding) and the known sequence of events.  In short, there is no reason to doubt their veracity.  They make sense.  Where does all this leave the legend?

Clearly the circumstances surrounding Bee’s words were not nearly as dramatic as depicted in the legend.  The event took place about three hours later than is commonly believed.  The crisis of the day — the mayhem following the retreat from Matthew’s Hill — had long since passed.  There were no disorganized mobs, and the Confederacy was not gasping its last.  Instead, the 4th Alabama, with only a captain in command, lay quietly waiting for orders, hundreds of yards behind the main battle lines.  If anyone needed rallying at that moment it was Bee, not the 4th.  The general had been separated from his battered command for at least an hour and by all accounts was confused and discouraged.

The general’s language, and its impact on the battle, is perhaps disappointing to those fond of the more dramatic tradition.  “Yonder stands Jackson like a stone wall: let’s go to his assistance,” is hardly the stuff novelists, movie-makers, or sculptors would wish for, or would have you believe.  And while tradition tells us the image of Jackson standing like a stone wall electrified thousands of retreating Confederates and helped turn the battle’s tide, the evidence suggests that instead Bee’s words — some of the most famous uttered by any American — were probably heard by no more than 50 men and had not the slightest impact on the outcome of the battle.

On the other hand the circumstance of Jackson’s command at the time, according to the Alabamians, was significantly more trying than is commonly portrayed.  The Virginians were not lying quietly while the fight raged in front of them.  (There is no support for the Carolinians’ charge that Bee was damning Jackson’s inactivity by referring to him as a “stone wall”.)  Rather, they were heavily engaged in driving back a Union attack; even more literally than in the traditional versions, they were indeed standing like a stone wall.  And following the Federal repulse, Jackson’s men, joined by the ill-fated Bee, launched a counterattack that was in fact one of the day’s decisive moments.

So while this legend, like most, is not entirely accurate, devotees of Jackson and of romantic legend need not be disappointed, for neither is it apocryphal.  When Bee turned in his saddle, pointed through the billowing smoke toward Jackson’s battling men and yelled, “Yonder stands Jackson like a stone wall,” he established Jackson and his men as a standard of excellence, objects for emulation.  To this day their conduct, at First Manassas and on a dozen other fields, remains the soldier’s benchmark for excellence.  Even when stripped of hyperbole and bias to the bare-bones eyewitness accounts, the sentiment of the legend, if not its details, survives intact.