Stonewall Brigade

• 1. Introduction

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  The Stonewall Brigade earned its name on a single afternoon in July 1861, and would carry it through three more years of some of the bloodiest fighting of the American Civil War. Of the roughly 6,000 men who served in its ranks, only 219 were still present at the surrender at Appomattox Court House. None of them held a rank above captain. How does a unit begin as raw recruits armed with a mismatched assortment of muskets, some of them flintlocks dating back generations, and end as a skeletal fragment of its former self, having helped reshape the course of the Eastern Theater? The answer runs through a harsh disciplinarian from the Virginia Military Institute, a nickname shouted on a chaotic battlefield, foot marches that would exhaust professional soldiers, and a final stand at a place called the Bloody Angle.

• 2. Forged at Harpers Ferry

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  Thomas J. Jackson assembled the brigade at Harpers Ferry on the 27th of April, 1861, drawing men from the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 27th, and 33rd Virginia Infantry regiments, along with the Rockbridge Artillery Battery of Rockbridge County. Thirteen companies came from the western counties that would eventually break away to form West Virginia. Jackson was not a celebrated officer at the time. He was a professor at the Virginia Military Institute, known more for rigid personal habits than battlefield glory.

  The weapons the men carried told the story of a Confederacy scrambling to arm itself. The brigade drew from the arsenal at Harpers Ferry, where Union forces had left behind a chaotic inventory. Soldiers carried everything from Model 1816/1822 muskets converted to percussion fire, to modern Model 1855 rifles, to VMI cadet muskets built to a downsized .58 caliber. Company K of the 33rd Virginia, the Shenandoah Sharpshooters, drew the shortest straw: flintlock muskets, a technology already half a century behind the times.

  Virginia's governor, John Letcher, wrote to Jackson asking for the VMI muskets back. Jackson replied that they could not be returned until better weapons were available. A trickle of European rifles began arriving in the fall of 1861, but the brigade carried smoothbore muskets well into the Gettysburg Campaign, when most men finally had .58 caliber rifles.

• 3. A Name Earned at Manassas

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  On the 21st of July, 1861, Jackson's brigade was still known informally as "Virginia's First Brigade." By sundown, it had a different name entirely. At First Manassas, Brigadier General Barnard E. Bee of South Carolina was attempting to rally his own shattered brigade when he gestured toward Jackson's men holding a ridge. His exact words were never recorded in the moment, but the version that survived was: "There stands Jackson like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians!" Both the general and the brigade became "Stonewall" from that day forward.

  The battle itself ended in a Union rout, with Federal troops sent reeling back toward Washington. Jackson was promoted to division command in recognition of the performance, but he retained overall authority over the brigade. Richard B. Garnett, a West Point graduate of the class of 1841, took command of the brigade that fall as Jackson shifted to larger responsibilities in the Shenandoah Valley and along the Potomac River.

• 4. Jackson's Foot Cavalry

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  The Valley Campaign of 1862 produced the legend that would define the brigade's identity for the rest of the war. Brig. Gen. Charles S. Winder took command after Garnett was relieved following the First Battle of Kernstown on the 25th of March, 1862. That battle was Jackson's only defeat of the entire conflict. After receiving faulty intelligence, the brigade had been ordered to attack a force far larger than expected. Running out of ammunition and nearly surrounded, Garnett ordered a withdrawal without Jackson's explicit permission. Jackson was furious and initiated court-martial proceedings. Garnett would later seek to restore his reputation at Gettysburg, where he was killed during Pickett's Charge.

  Under Winder, the brigade marched more than 400 miles in four weeks and won six significant battles, helping Jackson achieve a strategic victory in the Eastern Theater. A single 57-mile march completed in 51 hours produced the unit's enduring nickname: "Jackson's foot cavalry." The term was oxymoronic by design. Infantry soldiers had no business moving at cavalry speed, yet here they were.

  When the Valley Campaign ended, the brigade moved to reinforce General Robert E. Lee during the Seven Days Battles on the Virginia Peninsula. At Gaines' Mill, the brigade struck the Federal right and helped Lee win the field. The harder fighting was still ahead.

• 5. Command Consumed by Battle

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  The Northern Virginia Campaign in the summer of 1862 began grinding through the brigade's leadership at a pace that became almost predictable. General Winder was killed at Cedar Mountain on the 9th of August, 1862. Jackson personally rode to rally his old brigade and the battle was won, but the cost was severe. At Second Bull Run on the 30th of August, the brigade repulsed the Union's Iron Brigade and drove a counterattack, but its acting commander, Colonel William S. Baylor, was killed in the fighting. Colonel Andrew J. Grigsby assumed command and led the unit through the Maryland Campaign and into the Battle of Antietam.

  At Antietam, the brigade defended the West Woods. The fighting was so relentless and casualties so heavy that Grigsby ended the day commanding not just the brigade but the entire division. Despite this, Grigsby did not receive permanent brigade command. Jackson never recorded his reasons. Instead, Brig. Gen. Elisha F. Paxton, formerly of the 27th Virginia Infantry and then a staff officer, was given the brigade. He led it at Fredericksburg, where the unit held the right flank of the Confederate defense and counterattacked against the Union division of George G. Meade. By the end of 1862, the brigade's casualties for the year surpassed 1,200 men.

• 6. Chancellorsville and Gettysburg

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  At Chancellorsville on the 2nd of May, 1863, the Stonewall Brigade joined Jackson's sweeping flank attack along the Orange Plank Road, moving in behind J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry. More than 600 of the brigade's 2,000 men were killed or wounded. Among the killed was General Paxton. That same night, Jackson himself was struck down by friendly fire. As he and his staff rode back toward camp, a Confederate North Carolina regiment mistook them for Union cavalry. The regiment shouted a challenge but fired before hearing the reply. Jackson was hit by three bullets: two in the left arm and one in the right hand. He died on the 10th of May, 1863. Colonel James A. Walker of the 13th Virginia was promoted to brigadier general to take Paxton's place, and the men renewed their attacks on May 3 with what witnesses described as renewed ferocity.

  At Gettysburg, the brigade arrived on the evening of July 1, too late for the day's fighting. The following morning they were assigned to screen the Confederate left, sparring with Union skirmishers on Wolf's Hill and then fighting Brigadier General David M. Gregg's cavalry division for control of Brinkerhoff's Ridge along the Hanover Pike. Before dawn on July 3, the 4th, 5th, 27th, and 33rd Virginia regiments were repositioned to Culp's Hill and launched multiple assaults on fortified Union lines. The 2nd Virginia was sent separately to Spangler's Spring and Wolf's Hill, where they repelled probes from several Union brigades including those led by Colonel Silas Colgrove and Brigadier General Thomas Neill.

• 7. The Bloody Angle

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  At Spotsylvania Court House in 1864, the Stonewall Brigade reached its end. The brigade held the left flank of the Confederate position known as the "Mule Shoe" salient, in the section called the Bloody Angle. Winfield S. Hancock's II Corps struck with overwhelming force. When the fighting ended, all but 200 men of the brigade were killed, wounded, or captured as part of the roughly 6,000 Confederate prisoners taken that day. General Johnson, the division commander, was captured. General Walker was seriously wounded. The brigade was officially dissolved and consolidated into a single regiment.

  That remnant continued fighting under Brig. Gen. William Terry as part of Jubal Early's Valley Campaign of 1864. On the 9th of July, 1864, at the Battle of Monocacy, the unit helped rout Union defenders and open the road to Washington. Early's forces were eventually defeated by Philip Sheridan at Cedar Creek, and the survivors rejoined Lee's Army of Northern Virginia for the Siege of Petersburg and the Appomattox Campaign. At the final surrender, 219 men remained. The unit that had once been 6,000 strong ended the war with no officer senior enough to hold the rank of major.

• 8. A Lineage Still Carried

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  The 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the Virginia Army National Guard traces its lineage directly to the 5th Virginia Infantry, one of the five original regiments of the Civil War Stonewall Brigade. The unit was formerly organized as the 1st Brigade of the 29th Infantry Division under the name "The Stonewall Brigade." Army modularization restructured it into a brigade combat team, but the brigade's colors still carry battle streamers earned during the Civil War. Living history reenactment groups also maintain the brigade's memory. The 33rd Virginia Infantry, whose Company K once drew flintlock muskets at the start of the war, is among the units these groups honor.