THE CIVIL WAR: THE TRUE STORY BOOK 1

Robert E. Lee and Jeb Stuart

Robert E. Lee's Famed Letter to J.E.B. Stuart, Post-Gettysburg, Praising Stuart's Bravery and Effectiveness, Urging Him on to New Victories, and Bringing Him Back into the Fold

The two lions of the Confederacy, Lee symbolizing its brilliance, nobility, and honor and Stuart symbolizing its gallantry, dash and youth.

In 1853, the distinguished career military officer Robert E. Lee, then age 46, accepted a position at West Point as the school's new superintendent. The 20-year old J.E.B. Stuart was then a cadet there, and over Stuart's two final academic years he established a very close relationship with Lee, and indeed with Lee's family, one that would have an enormous impact on the impending Civil War and the Southern Confederacy. But Lee and Stuart actually served together before the war broke out. In October 1859, hoping to incite a slave rebellion, John Brown led a band of 21 abolitionists who seized the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia. President James Buchanan gave Lee command of detachments of militia, soldiers and Marines to suppress the uprising and arrest its leaders. Accompanying Lee on that mission, riding out with him to the scene of the incident, and going into the arsenal itself, was Stuart. The two men thus participated in the capture of Brown.
At the start of the war Stuart joined the Confederate service, and in May 1861 was commissioned a lieutenant colonel. Lee then commanded the armed forces of Virginia, and ordered Stuart to report to Gen. Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson, who assigned him to command all the cavalry companies in his army. Before long the 29-year old Stuart was given command of the cavalry brigade for his army and was promoted to general. In 1862, when Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia during the Peninsula Campaign, he requested that Stuart perform reconnaissance to determine whether the right flank of the Union Army of the Potomac 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 150 mile complete circumnavigation of the Union army. He returned to Lee on July 15 with important information, 165 captured Union soldiers, 260 horses and mules, and various quartermaster and ordnance supplies. The maneuver was a sensation and Stuart was greeted with flower petals thrown in his path at Richmond. In fact, this ride and another around Union forces in October 1862 were particularly popular, as the exploits seemed to vividly demonstrate the enemy's ineptness. Stuart was promoted to major general on July 25, 1862, and his command was upgraded to the Cavalry Division.

Stuart was the scout Lee always felt he could depend upon, the only cavalry commander about which he would say, "He never brought me false information." Stuart's energy, his ceaseless activity, and his eye for enemy movements and intentions were remarkable. He scouted, skirmished, and fought tirelessly, accepting hardships in the field as a matter of course and expecting his men to do the same. He was always pressing the enemy to find out where they were and what they were doing, while at the same time screening the movements of his own army from enemy scouts. Moreover, he stayed in constant touch with Lee and his staff.

He was a key element in the successes of the Army of Northern Virginia, and there were many all the way up to June 1863. To name them is to feel again the emotion of the rising tide of the Confederacy: Second Bull Run (where Stuart managed to overrun Union army commander Maj. Gen. John Pope's headquarters, and not only captured Pope's full uniform, but also intercepted orders that provided Lee with valuable intelligence); Fredericksburg (about which Lee noted, "To the vigilance, baldness and energy of Gen. Stuart and his cavalry is due chiefly the early valuable information of the movements of the enemy"); and Chancellorsville (where Stuart discovered that Union General Hooker was across the river, and later that Hooker's right flank was "in the air", which intelligence led Lee to make his famous turning movement). Lee paid him the highest possible accolade by saying of him, "He was second to none in valor, in zeal, in unflinching devotion to his country...To military capacity of a high order, and all the virtues of the soldier, he added the brighter graces of a pure life..."