Chapter Text

James, as ever, was as good as his word and I was back in Richmond a couple of days later, and made my way sheepishly to see Norris, my story of the kidnapping debacle already prepared. Booth had beaten me to it, though, and given the good major chapter and verse. Fortunately his story and mine coincided almost completely and I managed to come up smelling of roses yet again, just as Hickok had predicted.

‘Take your ease, Colonel’, said Norris as I hobbled, saddle sore, into his office. ‘Mr Booth was here yesterday and recounted your heroic behaviour and self sacrifice once you divined it was a trap. Very smart work to realise that Mr ‘Lincoln’ was an impostor so quickly, and shout a warning ! All but one of your co-conspirators escaped. Without you they would either be dead or prisoners. Mr Booth was most impressed, especially by the way you rode singlehanded at the cavalry troopers to give him time to escape. You’re truly a gallant officer. We won’t make too much of it publicly but be assured that your actions are the talk of the upper echelons of the army, not that you have anything to prove there, of course. Now, how did you escape from the Yankees ?’

‘Born on a horse, Major, though I say so myself. None of those northern clerks and storekeepers could catch me once I’d broken through. Just had to be careful I didn’t stumble into any of ‘em as I made my way back here’. I told him. Yet again my fire eater reputation had caused all I did to be misinterpreted. Talk about give a dog a bad name, eh ?

‘Well’, he answered with a smile, I don’t think we’ll be trying that again for a while, so your orders, after a night’s rest, are to return to General Lee’s army for a more permanent attachment to old Stonewall’s Corps’, and with that he ushered me out.

While that had gone as well as I could have hoped for I wasn’t keen on the idea of having to follow Jackson around. That man put his head above the parapet far too often for his good, and mine. As it turned out, I was right yet again, and the South was dealt a fearful blow. Still, I don’t want to run ahead of myself, so I’d best get back to the rest of my story.

The next few weeks were tediously occupied with Lee’s plans for a new campaign, designed again to take the fight to the North and off Confederate territory. Lee wanted to keep the pressure up so the anti war parties in the north would gain popularity and force the war to end before their superior industrial strength and manpower overwhelmed the Confederacy. In addition he wanted to limit damage in the south and if possible capture some supplies that he was desperately in need of. Now Robert Lee stands with anyone as a fighting soldier but to me his plan was strategically flawed because he didn’t have the resources to finally defeat the North in the field. He could win any number of battles but still would find the Union fielding more armies against him, while he couldn’t afford to lose the numbers of men he did. Casualties for both sides in a battle could be around a third of the men fielded, whereas in British army losing a tenth of our men was regarded as a bloodbath. If it was hellish for the North it was completely unsupportable for the Confederacy. He’d have been far better off defending the South’s borders rather than taking the offensive. He’d lose far less men, use fewer supplies and be better able to wear down the enemy so that their morale would collapse and the war end in the rebel’s favour. You may recall that I suggested such a course to Judah Benjamin all those months ago. That was the Confederate president, Jefferson Davis’s view too. Aye, well, perhaps Robert E Lee didn’t have my strategic vision, but whatever the reason Jackson kept his staff hard at it over those weeks, as Lee planned another spring offensive, aimed at circumventing Washington and invading Pennsylvania, posing a threat to the Union’s northern cities. Over in the west Sam Grant was laying siege to Vicksburg, which was the key to controlling all the Mississippi, thereby splitting the Confederacy in two.

Being a staffer for a man like Stonewall wasn’t like it would be for any other commander, Lee included, who tended to work with a minimal staff. For one thing, as I think I mentioned, Jackson liked to keep things close to his chest and would only tell you the minimum amount to enable you to complete your task. He wasn’t keen on delegation either, which I suppose is natural enough given his secrecy, but his aloofness from everyone made it very difficult to get things done properly. His eccentricity was a problem as well – he could fall asleep in the middle of a conversation or meeting, or decide to go and plunge his head in a basin of cold water for as long as he could hold his breath (to help his eyesight !) at a whim. Personally I grew to hate lemons, on which he sucked constantly, though God knows where he managed to get them from. All in all it was about as much fun as a tea party with little Vicky, though without the decent commons you’d get at the Palace. I was beginning to wish myself back in chokey in Washington with Pinkerton – at least you could get a drink there.

But of course while Lee and his commanders were putting together their plans for a spring offensive the Federal army, under ‘Fighting’ Joe Hooker, were hatching their own schemes which brought both sides together in early May, resulting in a huge, improbable victory for the rebels, and one which illustrated that for all his oddities, Jackson was a field commander of the first rate.

Word came of movement by the Army of the Potomac around the end of April as they crossed the rivers and began concentrating in area of Virginia called Spotsylvania County, around a small place called Chancellorsville. It looked like another attempt by the North to force battle by threatening a move on Richmond. By the beginning of May there must have been sixty to seventy thousand Federal soldiers in the area, far outnumbering Lee’s forces which were scattered all over the north of the state, from the main force at Fredericksburg to Longstreet, whose corps was near Norfolk, guarding against a thrust on Richmond from the coast. It would take up to a week for the dispersed units to join up with the main body of Lee’s army facing the new threat, and by that time, properly handled, the northern forces would be able to roll over Lee’s weakened forces and go on to Richmond. Lee being Lee, of course, he didn’t sit on his hands and wait for the enemy to move. Leaving Jubal Early at Fredericksburg to face the balance of the enemy army left there he hurried south, bringing Stonewall Jackson, with an ever reluctant Flashy in tow, in from the east to link up with Richard Anderson’s division at Chancellorsville, which wasn’t much more than a hamlet, dominated by a large mansion at the junction of two roads. By that time intelligence reports estimated that Lee was outnumbered by not far off two to one. A conventional general would have dug in ready to repel the forthcoming assault, but conventional was something that neither Lee or Jackson were.

The first fighting in the battle began on the morning of May 1st, as I, along with the rest of Stonewall’s men, was moving west to join up with Anderson. Union forces attacked Anderson, attempting to force their way out of the scrub, bush and woodland that covered a lot of the area, which was known as the Wilderness of Spotsylvania, to fight in more open ground where their advantage in men and especially guns would tell. It didn’t last long, though, and for some reason the Federal troops fell back to their positions round the mansion house.

I wasn’t the only one surprised at this. I accompanied Jackson to a meeting with Lee that evening at the rebel HQ, which was at the junction of two roads. Both generals were puzzled by the brief advance and withdrawal. ‘Well now, Jackson’, said Lee,’ what do you make of Hooker and his movements?’ He was sat by a camp fire in a clearing, on what looked to be an old packing case. In deference to his chief Jackson plumped himself down on a tree stump opposite him.

‘Very strange, General’, says Jackson. ‘Of all the Yankee commanders he’s probably the most aggressive. It’s not like him to fall back when he’s begun a favourable advance, especially when he needs to get out from under to fight in the open’.

‘I thought the same’. Lee replied. ‘Well, whatever the reason we have to get at him and fight, split his forces and taken them on piece by piece. We can’t sit here waiting to see if he advances from out of his cover, leaving other Union armies free to attack us elsewhere. We need to defeat him here and now so we can respond to other threats. But while he stays in that thicket we can’t get at him without breaking the army. I’ve been down to see it myself. It’s so thick you could lose an army in there, and fighting effectively is impossible. We must get round and turn his flank someways. I’ve sent Stuart to scout around the flanks of the Union position to the west, see if he can find us some way round or through to Hooker’.

Stuart duly obliged, of course, finding a plank road through the woods to the west of Hooker which would allow an attack on the Union right flank, which Stuart reported as totally unprepared. Early next morning, before dawn, we met with General Lee again to decide how to exploit Jeb’s discovery. Both generals pored over a map of the area laid out by one of Lee’s engineers, Jed Hotchkiss, on another cracker box. After a few minutes anxious study Jackson pointed at the map and spoke.

‘General Lee, I propose to go right around there’, he said. Peering nervously over his shoulder I could see he was tracing a route past an old furnace, turning first south and then northward on another turnpike called Brock Rd, then turning eastward onto the Orange Plank Road to take Hooker’s force in the flank. It must have been more than a dozen miles and it was taking a hellish risk because he could be spotted at any time. Quite how big a risk he was taking I hadn’t yet realised.

‘What do you propose to do it with ?’, asked Lee, to which Jackson responded ‘With my whole command’. This was a corps not far short of twenty six thousand men, and prompted Lee to ask ‘What will you leave me here to hold the Federal army with ?’, to which Jackson responded ‘The two divisions you have here’. Now if you’ve been following what I’ve been saying you’ll realise that the rebel army was split in two already, and that Jackson was proposing to split it again, and leave Lee with a mere seventeen thousand men facing a Union force four times his number, which if it realised what was going on, could break out and crush Lee’s men in the time it would take me to eat my dinner. It was a violation of a basic principle of war, compounded by the detachment of Jackson’s large force from the rest of the army in the face of the enemy. But Lee just looked at the map, paused for a moment as he thought, and then just said ‘Well, go ahead’ at which Jackson smiled, saluted and gestured us all to follow him as he prepared to take his entire force on a long and dangerous march round the Union flank.

So off we set soon after, with the owner of the old furnace, a chap named Wellford, as our guide, and the whole manoeuvre was screened by Stuart’s cavalry. It was hard country to cross, even using the roads where we could, as the ground was rough and broken, with little rivers that had to be forded and areas of marshy ground, and all the while we were in fear of being discovered, and of hearing sounds of heavy fighting to the south which could only mean the ruse had been discovered and the Lee’s small force was being crushed by the overwhelming numbers of the enemy army facing him. It took all of the morning and a good part of the afternoon to complete and at one stage I thought the game was up as there was some skirmishing at the rear of our column, but nothing came of it and by mid afternoon the entire corps began to form into battle order in the thick woods and undergrowth to the west of the Federal army’s right flank. There was no sign of the Union cavalry scouting, which was very strange. At around 5 pm Jackson called all his brigade commanders in, issuing them with their final orders and saying that once the attack, scheduled for around 5:30pm, began ‘under no circumstances was there to be any pause in the advance’. As always before a battle there seemed to be a hush in the air, as if even the trees were holding their breath, readying themselves for the onslaught.

It didn’t last long, though, and the rebel army erupted from the woods at the appointed time, bellowing the rebel yell and preceded by sheets of flame as they fired at the unprepared Yankees. The only warning the Federal army had were the hundreds of deer and other wild animals who fled out of the woods in fear of the mass of grey clad men who had begun to move forward out of the tree line. The Union men were sitting playing cards or preparing for supper as the grey wave crashed upon them. Most of them were unarmed, their weapons stacked together so there was little return fire. A few units and individuals attempted to stand against the tide with varying degrees of success but in most cases they broke and ran for cover, as the attack turned into a rout. I was riding with Jackson who, as usual, was just behind the front line watching the progress of the assault and ready to turn it to attack another point if an opportunity should present itself. As the rebels charged forward behind the fleeing Yankees one of his officers called to him ‘They are running too fast for us. We cannot keep up with them’, to which Jackson shouted ‘They never run too fast for me. Press them, press them’ as he drove his men forward. Eventually, though, the steam went out of the attack as other Federal units steadied the line, and the advance stalled. Still, it was an outstanding day. The right wing of the Union army had crumbled, thousands of prisoners had been taken, and Jackson had pushed his men within sight of the Hooker’s headquarters at Chancellorsville and was ready to link up with the rest of Lee’s army, which he had detached from only that morning.

But that wasn’t enough for Jackson. Sensing that confusion was still widespread amongst the Union forces he decided not to wait for the next day, by which time they may have recovered, but to push forward if possible, even by night, link up with Lee, and press his advantage home against the Union army. With a small escort and some of his staff, which included a very nervous Flashy, he rode forward along the plank road to reconnoitre. In his foolhardy eagerness Jackson got ahead of us on his horse, Little Sorrell, and was clearly silhouetted in the cold moonlight. I spurred forward a little and called him to ‘slow down, General, let us catch up with you’, to which he shouted back ‘the danger is all over, the enemy is routed’. As we caught up with him we heard some shouting and then there was the crash of a volley of rifles out of the darkness into our ranks, hitting both horses and men. I don’t know how many were killed in that first volley but I think it was the second that got Stonewall and he was hit several times. His horse bolted, dragging Jackson through the trees, and he smashed his face against the lower branches before one of his staffers, Willbourn, got to him, stopped Little Sorell, and with my help, got Jackson off his horse and onto the ground. He’d been hit at least twice in the left arm and was so dazed we had to take his feet out of his stirrups for him. The arm was smashed – I’d seen wounds like that before, and I knew they’d little chance of saving it. But he didn’t seem to have been hit anywhere vital, so if the sawbones made a good job of it and he didn’t get any infections he’d likely survive to fight again. In the meantime General Hill, commanding the rebel troops who had opened fire on us by mistake, arrived and together with another officer cut off Jackson’s sleeve and staunched the blood with handkerchiefs until we could get him to a doctor. Then we got him on a litter and carried him back to the aid station. At one point one of the bearers was hit by rifle fire and Jackson fell off the litter onto the ground, injuring his chest. Eventually, though, he was carried west to an aid station near the Wilderness Tavern, where, just before midnight his doctor, McGuire, took off his left arm near the shoulder, as well as taking a bullet from his right hand. The arm was buried nearby in the grounds of a mansion owned by a friends of Jackson’s – strange thing to do, I thought at the time, and still do.

While Jackson was out of the fight – it was planned to take him to Richmond to recover when he was strong enough – it didn’t mean the end of the battle. The natural successor to take command of his corps was A P Hill, who’d tended to Jackson after he’d been mistakenly shot by some of Hill’s men. Trouble was that Hill himself was injured soon after, and the command eventually passed to Jeb Stuart, who’d never handled infantry in action before. Despite Lee and Jackson’s daring the battle was still in the balance, with Hooker’s main force still unbroken. If Hooker showed any of the daring and tenacity he had in the past as a corps commander the Confederates would be on a very sticky wicket. Unfortunately for the Yankees all of a sudden Joe Hooker, as he said himself later, lost faith in Joe Hooker, and left the initiative with the rebels. With Jeb being inexperienced in command of a corps I was kept hard at it. For one thing only Pendleton of Jackson’s staff reported to him when he took over. To add to that Jeb had no idea of the disposition of the corps he was taking command of, and as usual Stonewall had kept his plans to himself so even if his full staff had reported it’s likely that Stuart wouldn’t have gained much useful information from them. As the various commanders presented themselves or sent reports Jeb turned to me late that night and said ‘What’s your assessment of the present situation, Harry ?’.

‘Well, Jeb’, I said, ’things have got mighty confused out on the field. Rodes and Colstons brigades will have to be withdrawn to reform – they’ve become thoroughly mixed up pursuing the enemy. Hill’s division can hold off an advance from the direction of the mansion, but any attack we make towards them will be hit very hard by the Union artillery positioned there. I recommend we make plans for an early attack in the morning, and concentrate our fire on their artillery. If we can clear this plateau of their guns’, and I pointed at the map, ‘it will give us a chance to take on their guns defending the mansion, and then put the infantry down the road and attack the western flank of Hooker’s position. Lord knows the men could do with the rest, as well’.

Jeb looked doubtful at that – he was still full of fire and bravado, and eager to impress, given the chance of corps command, but I think my last words swung it.

‘You’re right, Harry. its been a hard day’s fighting for the infantry. I have to think as a corps commander now, not just as a cavalry soldier. Let them rest for a few hours, while we prepare for a morning advance’, he said. With that he sent Jackson’s artillery commander, Alexander, to make a reconnaissance and prepare to place his guns. He soon reported back that the Union army still held the plateau, known as Hazel Grove, to our right flank .

‘It’s the best gun position in the area’, I reminded Jeb, ‘and well worth taking’.

‘I agree, Colonel. We must get our guns up there as soon as we can. The position lets us enfilade the house and most of the enemy’s positions around it’, said Alexander.

‘Get to it, then. Capture it and then get as many pieces up there as you can’, Jeb told him. ‘Now, Harry, I need your help to plan the infantry attack at dawn. General Lee expects us to attack with all three divisions right along the front and reunite the two wings of the army. I’ll lead the attack and I’ll need you alongside’. I hadn’t expected any less from Stuart, but I hoped that he might not drag me along with him. No such luck, of course, and so, with my bowels starting to quake yet again at the prospect of close, deadly action, I set to the task of getting the three divisions organised for the attack and resupplied as far as possible in the time available.

Unfortunately it passed far too quickly, and I found myself alongside Jeb in the early dawn, as the mist began to clear, and the rebels prepared to engage what seemed to be two Union corps entrenched around a clearing in front of Chancellorsville. As the thousands of men cursed, shuffled and coughed in the early light as they made ready it promised to be another hot and bloody day in the life of H Flashman, KCB, lately of Mayfair, London and Leicestershire. How I wished I was back there, and I cursed the twists and turns of ill fortune that had taken me all over this bloody country. Back home I’d be finishing a late breakfast with Elspeth, perhaps looking at The Times or dealing with the post, a pleasant spring ride through the park later maybe, before going out to dinner or the theatre that evening. How long had I been away this time, I thought ? Well over a year, at least. No, it was getting on for two now. Little Havvy would be forgetting what his father looked like, and that thought caused a great sweep of homesickness and longing to well through me, and I nearly had to wipe a tear from my eyes. That shows you how far gone I was, maundering over a noisy, greedy little brat I wasn’t even sure was mine. But instead of all these pleasant, homely activities I was hunched on a borrowed horse behind thousands of ill equipped, ignorant rebel hayseeds ready to fight to the death – mine as well as theirs – in a ridiculous cause they could barely hope to win. Next to me was the biggest target in the Confederate army, with his great sash, stupid plumed hat, huge grey cloak, and personal piper to play ‘Dixie’ for him. It couldn’t have been more obvious who was in command if he’d worn a crown, sat on a throne, and carried an orb and sceptre. Well, I told myself, I won’t make the mistake I did with Grant if it comes to it. Any Union sharpshooter drawing a bead on Stuart won’t find me blocking his line of fire, and I unconsciously tugged on my horse’s bit to pull him a few feet further away from Jeb. He looked round at me and smiled.

‘Old warhorse eager for the fight, Harry ?’, he said. ‘Don’t you fret, it won’t be long now. You’ll soon be in the thick of it. You’d not have it any other way, I know that for sure’. I gave him a wan smile in reply, and then it was time, and the rebels, led by the Stonewall brigade, moved into the attack, with Stuart crying ‘Charge, and remember Jackson !’

We were moving against Union troops entrenched in a clearing before Chancellorsville itself but to get at them the army had to move mainly through the trees and undergrowth that covered the area. It was damned eerie country, with parts of it impenetrable woodland. Even where the ground was clearer the thick undergrowth limited a soldier’s sight so that he might almost stumble into the enemy before seeing him. The ground itself was uneven, with low ridges, narrow ravines, and spots of wet marshy land where streams pooled. I’ve soldiered and fought in mountains, deserts, plains, and jungle, but I can’t recall a landscape as dark and threatening to advance into as that seventy odd square miles in Virginia known as The Wilderness.

Not that it bothered Jeb, of course, who was in his element. He’d replaced his normal coat with a bright blue one, wrapped around with a bright red artillery sash. It was a bright, warm spring morning and he looked as happy as a pig in muck, singing to himself ‘Old Joe Hooker, won't you get out of the Wilderness’.

The leading rebels were less than half a mile from the Yankees and as they moved off the Union artillery began to fire, shredding the trees and loping limbs off men and horses as well as the woods. The noise was deafening, a combination of artillery, gunshots and men screaming and shouting. They soon reached the most forward defences and the fighting became savage, with the two sides often separated by just the log breastworks built by the Federal army. All the time Stuart kept feeding his men forward in waves, trying to overwhelm the defenders by weight of numbers. Once the fighting began in earnest the woods themselves began to burn, the smoke adding to the confusion and fear. Quite a few men, mainly the injured who weren’t able to escape, were burnt alive as the fire took hold, the poor devils.

All that morning Stuart roamed the battlefield like a demon, rushing hither and tither, usually where the fighting was hardest, dragging me with him. His horse was shot from under him within the first hour so he just commandeered another one, and carried on. One minute he was scolding Colston for a botched attack, the next we were dashing across the battlefield so he could redirect the attack of a rebel brigade. At one point he rallied the Stonewall brigade back into battle after they’d been repulsed by picking up a fallen standard, riding into the retreating men, and dragging them forward by his example. It’s still a mystery to me how he – and I - survived that day unhurt. Looking back at it from forty years on it strikes me how similar he was to Grant at Shiloh. His style was different – all dash and vim compared to Grant’s dour presence - but they both led from the front and gave heart to their men by keeping themselves visible, no matter what risks they exposed themselves to. I tell you, this generalship business can be damned dangerous.

Still, for all his inspirational leadership the rebels were having a hard fight of it. The Union men were well entrenched and stood firm as the waves of grey soldiery crashed into their positions. Casualties on both sides were mounting and for two hours the battle ebbed and flowed with no clear advantage. That changed suddenly as cannon fire began to fall from the plateau onto federal guns to the north east, and down onto the clearing where the northern army was concentrated. Alexander had somehow managed to clear Hazel Grove of the enemy, and his guns began to rain bloody ruin down on the defenders below. As Union resistance began to wilt under the cannonade Stuart sent Anderson’s division through on the right of the Federal line, and pushed the rest of Second Corps through the middle. They swept over the last line of defences, surged across a crest, and charged forwards to Chancellorsville itself, Stuart close behind them, yelling ‘Go forward boys ! We have them running, and we’ll keep them at it !’ I wasn’t showing quite the same enthusiasm myself, and allowed my horse to take a stumble that put me off for a few minutes, so that by the time I’d caught up the main fighting was over and the rebel advance had run out of steam in the grounds of the house itself. Soon Lee and Stuart, the army reunited, were riding through the clearing together to the house, as their soldiers cheered them wildly and waved their hats in the air. When things had quietened down a bit I rode over to them.

‘General Lee’, I said, ’Hooker still has sizable forces in the field. We must be ready for further action today’.

‘That is so, Colonel, but don’t you fret, we’ll be ready. Let the boys have their moment. It will stand them in good stead when they next see the enemy’, he replied.

‘ The turning point of the fight was Alexander opening up from the plateau. They took it without a fight. It seems Hooker simply ordered a withdrawal, probably to shorten his lines and avoid leaving his troops in a vulnerable salient. Foolish thing to do in the circumstances. It played right into our hands’, said Stuart.

‘It did, but now, as Flashman says, we must make ready for further fighting. Jubal Early is also holding a sizeable enemy force at Fredericksburg. He may need our assistance’. With that Lee began to organise the army for the next stage of the battle. During the course of the afternoon a large Union force under Sedgewick pushed Early off Marye’s Heights in Fredericksburg to the east, and then began to chase him back towards the south of Chancellorsville. Lee despatched troops to stop him and a battle raged over the course of the afternoon around Salem Church and eventually the Union forces were held as night fell. The next day there was more fighting and the Federal troops were pushed back off the Heights but withdrew and defended solidly so that the rebels couldn’t make any further headway against them. Meanwhile Hooker solidified his line and secured a line of retreat across the Rappahannock. I’m glad to say that Stuart’s command took no part in this fighting, and I was able to get my nerve back. A couple of days after that Hooker retreated from the area and the battle was effectively over, though as ever the cost in casualties was staggering – around eighteen thousand for the rebels, a rate of loss they couldn’t hope to bear. They’d also seen that the Federal army were now becoming veterans as well and if led properly would fight just as hard and as well as any southerner. Still, by any measure it was a huge victory for Lee and the south.

While Lee was winning his greatest battle his most trusted lieutenant was losing his final one. The plan to take Jackson to Richmond to recover had been abandoned as his condition worsened and he was being nursed in a room in some farm buildings to the west of the battle, at Guinea’s Station. He was seriously ill not from his wounds nor from any infection resulting from them, but from pneumonia. A few days after the battle, when it became clear how ill he was, Lee sent me, as one of his senior staff men, to see if anything else could be done for him.

When I reached Guinea’s Station I was shown into a small room where a grey faced and sweating Jackson was lying, babbling quietly to himself, in a single bed which faced a small fireplace, a clock ticking quietly on the mantelpiece. His wife Mary, who I’d not met before, was sat by his bed with their baby daughter in her arms. Alongside her was his servant Jim, who’d attended him constantly, and a number of his personal staff. One look at him told me that he wasn’t long for this world – you’ll own I’ve had a fair amount of experience, what with Scud East, Comber, and that Pathan who taught me how to use a lance, amongst the many that I’ve seen shuffle off their mortal coil, as the bard would say - and that was confirmed to me by his doctor, Hunter McGuire, who came over to me as soon I as went in.

‘General Lee has sent me to ask if anything more can be done for Stonewall’, I told him.

‘I fear not, Colonel Flashman, I fear not. I believe the general will not live out the day. He made me tell him the truth a little while ago. All he said in answer was that he was happy it was the Lord’s day, and that he had always wished to die on a Sunday’. I couldn’t see what difference it being a Sunday made but then I wasn’t a god botherer the way Jackson was. As far as I was concerned any day to die was as bad as any other. Still, I thought it politic not to mention that, and instead enquired about how he’d contracted his illness.

‘What’s mystifying General Lee, and a lot more of us, is that he’s dying of pneumonia, not from his wounds. How did that come about ?’, I asked him.

‘I believe that he may have brought it on himself’, answered McGuire. ‘You’ll recall his habit of covering his belly with wet towels to combat his stomach ailments. From when he was first here he was insistent, against all my advice, on continuing with it. It wasn’t until he became delirious that I was able to remove them, but by then it was too late’.

‘Good God’, I said quietly, ‘what a waste’. I looked over at Jackson again – he seemed to have gone into a deep sleep. ‘Well, I’m sorry to hear the news, and General Lee will be sorrier still, but I should report back to him at once’.

‘Can I suggest you wait here a little longer ? As I said I doubt he will last the day, and it will be better that you report back with certain news’, McGuire answered. Waiting around for a dying man to finally expire wasn’t my idea of the way to spend a Sunday afternoon but put like that I didn’t feel I had any choice, so I nodded, then excused myself to get a drink and a bite to eat before I came back to witness the final moments of this little drama.

It was just after 3pm when I was summoned back to Jackson’s deathbed. As I went in he was calling out orders in his delirium to A P Hill. Then he settled back in his bed, and after a few minutes smiled peacefully, sat up, and spoke out quite softly in that quiet room ‘Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees’. Lying back down, he exhaled his final breath. I looked at the clock on the mantelpiece – it was 3:15. They set the clock to stay at that time, and for all I know it’s still set to it now.

It wasn’t only Mary Anna, his widow, who cried as he died. There were strong men in that room, not used to tears, who dissolved into grief. I was sorry for him myself – he may have been slightly mad, but he was a fine soldier. However, as I don’t make it a habit to hang around deathbeds, I made my excuses about reporting back to Lee to the doctor and left ‘em to it.

Lee’s face when I told him the news was a picture of sadness and pain. It wasn’t just the loss of a great soldier that affected him. He’d no compunction about committing thousands of men to battle, even against the odds, and never let it dissuade him. I think it was the shock of losing Jackson when he seemed likely to have survived, that really affected him. ‘You know, Flashman’, he said to me, ’I wrestled in prayer for him last night, as I have never prayed, I believe, for myself. Now you must excuse me’, he said, turning away with tears in his eyes, ‘I must draft a general order to the army, telling them of this grievous news’. If the outcome of the battle was enough to make Lincoln exclaim ‘My God, what will the country say ?’ the loss of Stonewall Jackson caused an equal amount of consternation in the south – they knew he was irreplaceable. They buried him in the Presbyterian churchyard in Lexington where he’d been a member. They left his arm at Chancellorsville, by the way.