Crossing the River, Part 1

On Monument Avenue, a parkway in Richmond, Virginia, on consecutive corners are monuments to three of the most revered leaders of the short-lived Confederacy, Robert E. Lee, Thomas J. Jackson, and James E.B. (JEB) Stuart. A short distance away stands the Confederate Museum, in what was the Confederate Capitol building, a testament to a time that many Southerners do not wish to forget. To many, these men were, and still are, heroes.

JEB Stuart, jaunty, happy-go-lucky, and roguish, was an outstanding horseman. Wearing a plumed hat, he was the perfect picture of the cavalier of days gone by. Bold and daring, he rode into the camp of Union General John Pope and stole his dress uniform from his tent. He earned a place in the hearts of his countrymen during the first three years of the Civil War by riding circles around the Army of the Potomac, and making the Union cavalry look inept. His troops would have ridden "to hell and back" with him.

Then, during a skirmish at an abandoned inn called Yellow Tavern on May 11, 1864, Stuart was wounded in the abdomen and died the next day in great pain, calling for his wife to be at his side. His last words were, "I am resigned, God's will be done."

Quite in contrast to Stuart, Robert E. Lee was majestic and dignified, a magnificent sculpture of manhood. An accomplished horseman himself, he was a hero of the Mexican War and superintendent of West Point before the Civil War. Refusing to go against his own state, Virginia, he joined the Confederacy and became the commander of the famed Army of Northern Virginia. A brilliant strategist, and willing to take unheard of risks, he won a dozen victories over an army often two or three times the size of his own. So beloved was he by his men, they would have charged the gates of hell itself for him, and on the third day at Gettysburg, they did.

During the war Lee never smiled. He carried the burden of the war and the weight of the entire South on his shoulders. He alone could have engineered a Southern victory with slightly different circumstances, but it was not to be. After the war another Lee emerged, one with a sense of humor, who would get on the floor to laugh and play with his grandchildren. On October 12, 1870, lying on his bed he suddenly said, "Strike the tent," and passed away at age 63.

Thomas J. Jackson was an enigma. Orphaned as a child, he struggled through school and life in poverty. Through a connected uncle he gained admission to West Point, where once again he struggled with academics. Through sheer determination and self-discipline, he made up for his weaknesses with a stubborn routine of study, and finished 16th in his graduating class.

Also a hero of the Mexican War, he was teaching artillery at the Virginia Military Institute, where students were known to call him "Tom Fool" Jackson. But when the war broke out Jackson's brilliance burst out with it and no one ever called him a fool again.

He earned his sobriquet, "Stonewall," at the first Battle of Bull Run when his brigade stood its ground while the rest of the Confederate army ran taking with it any hope of a separate nation. Jackson's stand turned the battle around and the South was for real. His valley campaign in the Shenendoah in 1862 was a textbook masterpiece still studied in war colleges today. Outnumbered four to one he raced his "foot cavalry" all over the valley defeating the Union forces by surprise at every turn, giving rise to the speculation that his troops didn't have to charge hell, they would have outflanked it and captured the Devil himself.

With the valley secured Lee called Jackson to join him on the peninsula and together, through deception and daring, they were virtually undefeatable. Jackson became a legend for his flanking movements, and the oft argued debate is whether or not if he had been at Gettysburg he would have driven the Union right flank off Culp's Hill on day one and changed the course of the battle and the entire war.

All three were devout Christian gentlemen outside the war, but in battle they were as cold and hard as steel. Jackson was the most curious. He was almost painfully shy and uncomfortable speaking to people in public, but put a uniform on and he barked orders with the command of an evangelist calling people to repentance. He always tried to avoid fighting on Sunday and would pray all night before a battle, but then challenge his troops to "give them the bayonet."

On May 2, 1863 at a whistle stop called Chancelorsville, Lee divided his army not once, but twice, and sent Jackson on a flanking movement that crushed the Union army just as it was sitting down to dinner. Jackson had made his greatest march, and Lee won his greatest battle, but late in the evening Jackson rode ahead of his lines to reconnoiter. In the darkness his own men opened fire and Jackson was wounded. He lost his left arm, but would have recovered from it except for pneumonia setting in. On Sunday, May 10, a day he saw as fitting, Stonewall Jackson passed from this life.

News spread quickly and papers reported that for the first time people in both the North and the South mourned together. Jackson's last words were, "Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees."