In a previous article we looked at northern leaders depicted in Death Valley, one for each battle in the box. This article does the same for the Confederates. True, the article’s title is a little inaccurate, as Lee was actually only an advisor to Jefferson Davis until late in Stonewall Jackson’s Shenandoah campaign. But “Davis’s Lieutenants…” seemed to lack a certain sparkle. May readers forgive me for taking the liberty.

1st Kernstown (March 23rd, 1862)

It’s tough to think of the 1862 Valley campaign without thinking of Thomas J. Jackson. He succeeded beyond all expectation despite serious character flaws. The 1st Battle of Kernstown is a good example. Determined to retake Winchester, Jackson was led astray by his cavalry’s overly optimistic reports on Union strength. When he realized the error, he developed a new plan on the spot, but beyond issuing orders failed to inform his brigadiers of his intentions. Despite that, Jackson’s little army remained in the field versus an opponent twice its size, until ammunition shortages compelled a retreat. Yet he then turned on Richard Garnett, who initiated the retreat, blaming him for the defeat.

Historians remark on the small size of Lee’s staff. If the literature on the 1862 Valley campaign is any indication, Jackson doesn’t seem to have had that problem. His staff not only seems efficient but filled with Civil War legends like Sandie Pendleton, Jedediah Hotchkiss, and Hunter McGuire. Their competent assistance may have encouraged Old Blue Light’s tendency to give orders directly to subordinate formations without consulting intermediary commanders. Death Valley reflects this in relation to Jackson’s background as an artillerist. He can directly command all artillery units, including Ashby’s horse artillery. This can be valuable when the Confederate player draws a “1” Efficiency chit, because artillery reporting directly to Jackson activates three times during a given turn regardless of Efficiency, unless out of command.

Despite his shortcomings Jackson eventually inspired his troops to prodigious efforts, and their success electrified the south. As Union armies scored staggering victories in the west and threatened Richmond in the east, Jackson seemed the Confederacy’s only hope. Careless Confederate players beware: lose Jackson, and you will have to work trebly hard to win your game.

1st Winchester (May 25th, 1862)

Richard Taylor was brother-in-law to Jefferson Davis. His father was Zachary Taylor, a Mexican War hero and later 12th president of the United States. Thus, Richard, or “Dick”, as he was known, was well connected. A sugar planter and politician in Louisiana before the war, he avidly read military history. When the Civil War broke out, his friend, Braxton Bragg, asked him to assist in organizing and training Confederate forces. Taylor accepted and was soon commanding a Louisiana regiment. He was promoted in October, and his Louisiana brigade was assigned to Dick Ewell’s division.

In late May Ewell combined with Jackson and drove down the Luray Valley against Nathaniel Banks’ outpost at Front Royal. The Confederates’ easy victory made the main Union position at Strasburg untenable, and Banks retreated his force to Winchester on May 24th. Jackson, hampered by poor reconnaissance, blindly jabbed at the Yankee column, injuring but not crippling his opponent. Overnight the Yankees occupied the high ground south and west of Winchester while their wagon train rumbled northward toward the Potomac and safety.

Early the next day Jackson probed the Union position west of the Valley Pike, while further east the 21st North Carolina blundered into a costly ambush. Three hours passed without progress, but Jackson had summoned Taylor’s brigade, in reserve closer to Kernstown. The Louisianans moved northwest behind Jackson’s line to emerge on the Confederate extreme left, taking fire from Union artillery and small-arms as they executed their flanking march. Taylor then deployed, charged, and swept Bowers Hill of its defenders. At the sight of Taylor’s charge Stonewall Jackson was as near to ecstatic as his staff ever witnessed, ordering his whole division forward. Banks’ line crumbled from right to left, his troops skedaddling through Winchester in the wake of their wagon train.

Taylor and his Louisianans would go on to further fame two weeks later at Port Republic. Following the Seven Days battles, Taylor returned to Louisiana, where for the next two years he defended his state, an effort culminating in the 1864 Red River campaign and a strategic victory over none other than Nathaniel Banks.

Cross Keys, June 8th, 1862

Richard Ewell emerged as one of the Confederacy’s most competent division leaders in 1862, despite a questionable day at Winchester on May 25th, when he sent the 21st North Carolina through the early morning fog and into a northern ambush. Old Bald Head, as his troops called him, operated independently and successfully at Cross Keys, aided by the enterprising Isaac Trimble and a less than enterprising opponent, John C. Fremont.

Ewell deployed two brigades and the bulk of his artillery along the steep slopes south of Mill Creek, a position offering a perfect field of fire should Fremont send anything into the fields opposite the Confederate line. Trimble’s brigade deployed east of the Port Republic Road, Fremont’s most likely route forward. Richard Taylor’s Louisianans and John Patton’s brigade would arrive that afternoon once Jackson was convinced that Union forces east of the Shenandoah South Fork had no immediate designs on Port Republic. The reinforcements were hardly needed. Trimble’s bold thrust forward shattered one enemy regiment and drove Fremont’s left wing back far enough to convince the Union leader that discretion was the better part of valor.

Jackson, having experienced an early morning scare when Union cavalry raided Port Republic, had other things on his mind besides Fremont. It is unclear whether he conferred with Ewell at all that day. Consequently, in Death Valley‘s Ewell need not be within Jackson’s command range to be considered “In Command” at Cross Keys.

Ewell would go on to serve Jackson well at Cedar Mountain and at 2nd Manassas, where he suffered a serious leg wound. He would return by the middle of 1863 to command 2nd Corps in Lee’s reorganized Army of Northern Virginia, and his career from Gettysburg onward constitutes a prominent leitmotif in the drama of the war’s final two years.

Port Republic, June 9th, 1862

Charles Winder, a Marylander and West Point graduate, succeeded Richard Garnett as commander of the Stonewall Brigade following the 1st Battle of Kernstown. Jackson may have valued his new subordinate’s reputation as a stern disciplinarian.

Winder pinned Nathaniel Banks’ right flank at the 1st Battle of Winchester, while Taylor’s Louisianans passed behind the Stonewall Brigade en route to the assault that dislodged the Union line. Port Republic, however, proved a far more severe test.

With Fremont’s force pursuing Ewell’s retreating division on the far side of the Shenandoah South Fork/North River water barrier, and the balance of James Shields’ division presumably hurrying towards Port Republic, Jackson had to act quickly against Erastus Tyler’s two Union brigades already in position. His problem, however, was the South River, so swollen by recent rains that infantry could not ford it. Overnight Jackson had his engineers submerge enough wagons in the South River to allow them to build a plank bridge over them. But the bridge was narrow, the wagons were of different heights, and the planks soon loosened under the tramp of marching feet. The result was a slow crossing in single file.

Winder’s brigade, less the 33rd Virginia, which did not receive its orders, was the first to cross. Jackson sent it into action immediately. Two regiments hooked to the right along the lower slopes of the Blue Ridge and headed for Tyler’s artillery bastion atop a spur of the mountain. That spur was known as “The Coaling”, as it was the site of a charcoal-production facility. Tyler’s troops easily repulsed them. While that attack was failing, Union artillery fire and counterattacks pounded Winder’s two other regiments in the plain between the Blue Ridge and the Shenandoah South Fork. The 5th Virginia was especially hard hit.  But Winder stayed in the field as Richard Taylor’s Louisianans and then two more of Ewell’s brigades toiled over the wagon bridge and finally arrived to help.

Upon joining the Army of Northern Virginia later that month, Jackson functioned as a corps commander in all but name, and Winder rose to command Jackson’s division. At Cedar Mountain Winder’s predilection for the artillery arm led him to assist the Confederate guns near the Crittenden Gate early in the battle. Union gunners happened to focus their counter battery fire on this particular enemy artillery concentration, and a shell mortally wounded him.

New Market, May 15th, 1864

John Cabell Breckinridge was better connected than even Richard Taylor. Vice-president of the United States under Buchanan in the last years before the Civil War, he ran for president against Abraham Lincoln in 1860, garnering the southern states’ electoral votes. He served as senator from Kentucky until late 1861, when he was faced with arrest as a southern sympathizer after both sides violated that state’s declared neutrality.

Fleeing to the Confederacy, Breckinridge was made a brigadier general and given command of the Kentucky “Orphan Brigade”. He led the reserve corps (three brigades) at Shiloh, where he was wounded. Commanding a division at Stones River, his troops took heavy losses in the futile assault of January 2nd, 1863. The bloodbath deepened his already existing distrust of Braxton Bragg’s leadership, but he remained with the Army of Tennessee. Breckinridge’s division participated in the breakthrough at Chickamauga on September 20th, 1863, and he commanded a corps at Missionary Ridge. Early in 1864 he was assigned the Department of East Tennessee and West Virginia, headquartered in the upper Shenandoah Valley.

When Franz Sigel moved south in May, Breckinridge marched to meet him.  Faced with a shortage of troops, he called upon the Virginia Military Institute to furnish a battalion. The mostly teenaged cadets responded enthusiastically, and the ensuing fight at New Market was one of the most poignant of the war. Rather than following instructions and double-quicking forward early in the battle to avoid losses from enemy artillery fire, the VMI cadets advanced in parade ground formation, astounding the veterans to their right and left. Upon reaching the orchard just beyond the Bushong farm buildings, they endured further punishment as they waited behind a worm fence for orders.

As the battle reached a crisis, Breckinridge threw them in to plug a gap in the line, exclaiming, “Put the boys in…and may God forgive me for the order.” The cadets participated in the charge on Bushong Hill, capturing one of the guns that had so tormented them. Death Valley includes a counter for the Cadet battalion, as well as special rules for its employment.

With the threat to the Valley neutralized, Breckinridge brought his division east to assist Lee at Cold Harbor, but returned to the Shenandoah when Robert Hunter led another Union invasion to the gates of Lynchburg. Breckinridge was at Early’s side all through the summer, returning to far southwest Virginia only after the 3rd Battle of Winchester. He was the Confederacy’s last secretary of war; his first official act was to promote Lee to general-in-chief of the Confederate armies.

2nd Battle of Kernstown, July 24th, 1864

Jubal Early. Robert E. Lee’s “Bad Old Man” had been a dependable brigade and division leader before taking over command of 2nd Corps from Richard Ewell following the battle of Spotsylvania. He and Breckinridge were sent west after Cold Harbor to take on Robert Hunter. Early proceeded to work what must have appeared as wonders during the summer of 1864. After successes at Lynchburg, Monocacy, and Cool Springs, he fell back when the equivalent of three Union corps combined against him.

With the Valley Army seemingly scampering back to Richmond, Grant recalled VI and XIX Corps, as he needed them at Petersburg. That left George Crook’s Army of West Virginia to keep watch on the Shenandoah. Crook’s cavalry under William Averell scored a smashing success at Rutherford’s Farm just north of Winchester on July 20th, routing Early’s rearguard under Stephen Ramseur. However, Early soon learned of VI and XIX Corps’ departure, and headed back toward Winchester on July 23rd, sending his cavalry ahead to probe Crook’s positions around Kernstown.

Confident of his numerical superiority, Early sent his four infantry divisions forward the next day, preceded by his cavalry. Crook’s own cavalry failed to penetrate the Confederate cavalry screen. He assumed the Confederates again intended nothing more than skirmishing, and not only failed to concentrate his own three divisions, but sent two of them forward into the jaws of the approaching enemy. Gabriel Wharton’s division, concealed by high ground, outflanked the Union position and then attacked in concert with John Gordon’s and Stephen Ramseur’s divisions. The result was a Union disaster. Participating Confederates called it their easiest victory of the war. For Jubal Early it was a triumph to rival the one he had scored a little over a year before during the first day’s fight at Gettysburg.

The Valley Army prudently fell back again before Sheridan’s revitalized and reinforced Army of the Shenandoah. But with the arrival of Kershaw’s division from the Richmond area, Early fought his way back down the Shenandoah. Sheridan refused to take the offensive as long as Kershaw remained, leading Early to conclude his opponent was “timid”. Early maintained his pressure even after Kershaw’s departure and was off balance when Sheridan finally struck back heavily on September 19th near Winchester. Matter would go from bad to worse as the autumn days shortened and the forests turned red and gold.

In addition to a Rutherford’s Farm scenario, Death Valley includes a full battle scenario for 2nd Kernstown, as well as two scenarios that start the action later in the day with Crook’s attack and Wharton’s flank attack, respectively.

3rd Battle of Winchester, September 19th, 1864

Robert Rodes. As much as I love the film, Gods and Generals, I’m the first to admit it has more than its share of lame scenes. One of those occurs just before the film’s depiction of Jackson’s flank attack at Chancellorsville. Jackson is astride Little Sorrel with division leader Rodes to his right. Three times Jackson addresses Rodes, at one point delivering his famous remark, “Well, General Rodes, it appears the Virginia Military Institute will be heard from today”. Each time Rodes vacantly and wordlessly nods his assent.

The real Rodes does not strike me as quite that colorless; in fact, Douglas Southhall Freeman described his as a “Norse god” in gray. A VMI graduate, Rodes competed against Jackson for the Institute’s open professorial chair in 1851, losing out to his future commander. His brigade did as much as any Confederate formation on the field to stem the Union’s progress at South Mountain and again three days later in the Sunken Road at Antietam. He was the Confederacy’s first division leader who hadn’t attended West Point. Although few give his performance at Gettysburg good marks, equally few fault his performance in the Valley in 1864.

It was there on September 19th at the 3rd Battle of Winchester that a Union shell felled Rodes, who was in the midst of conducting a counterattack that rocked Sheridan’s troops back on their heels. For that reason, of course, Rodes does not appear in Death Valley‘s orders of battle for Fisher’s Hill or Cedar Creek. But the Confederate player in the game’s two large 3rd Winchester scenarios is likely to breathe a sigh of relief when Rodes’ division arrives to relieve Ramseur’s exhausted battle line.

Fisher’s Hill, September 22nd, 1864

Stephen Dodson Ramseur, like George Armstrong Custer, brought the fire of youth to Confederate command. He graduated from West Point in 1860, a year before Custer. Wounded at Malvern Hill, he was promoted to brigade command at the start of November, 1862, at the age of 25, the youngest southern general at that time. His brigade led Jackson’s flank attack at Chancellorsville on May 2nd, 1863. Ramseur was wounded the next day as the battle reached its climax.

Ramseur returned to duty in time for Gettysburg, where he dislodged the Union I Corps elements defending along Mummasburg Road. He could not understand why he was then ordered to halt rather than assault Cemetery Hill.

His aggressive spirit was again in evidence during the Overland Campaign. He hit Burnside’s IX Corps with a flank attack in the Wilderness and counterattacked when Hancock’s II Corps broke through at the Mule Shoe on May 12th, suffering another wound in that action. Ramseur was promoted to major general on June 1st, the youngest West Point graduate to attain that rank in the Confederate army.

He headed west with the rest of Early’s command and fought in all its battles from Lynchburg to Cedar Creek. His combative nature got him into trouble on July 20th at Rutherford’s Farm just north of Winchester. Although there is some controversy over what happened, it appears Ramseur dismissed reports of Union strength and deployed his fatigued troops obliquely rather than perpendicularly across the Valley Pike, leaving his left flank vulnerable to the oncoming enemy. He also failed to post a skirmish line. William Averell’s federals ended up routing the Rebs as a result. Ramseur fought with more competence at 3rd Winchester and took over Rodes’ division when the latter was killed, leading it three days later at Fisher’s Hill.

Fisher’s Hill is actually only the easternmost of a series of hills along the south bank of Tumbling Run. Early’s line extended across all of these rises, stopping short of Little North Mountain to the west. The Confederates were strongest on their right, along the Valley Pike. Ramseur’s division occupied a long stretch of the line’s left center, with only Lomax’s dismounted cavalry further to the left of what came to be known as Ramseur’s Hill. When Crook’s Army of West Virginia swept down the slope of Little North Mountain, taking Lomax by surprise, the cavalry quickly broke. Ramseur managed to refuse his flank by shifting Cox’s brigade from the right of his line to the left, with rallied elements of Lomax’s command extending the new line to the southwest. For a time he checked Union progress, even counterattacking at one point. But when VI Corps added the weight of its frontal assault to Crook’s flank attack, Ramseur’s division caved in, and Early’s line unraveled from left to right.

Death Valley features not only a historical Fisher’s Hill scenario, but a “free set-up” allowing the Confederate player to second-guess Old Jube’s dispositions.

Ramseur had married in October, 1863. Just short of a year later he received word of the birth of his daughter. The next day, late in the afternoon, Sheridan counterattacked at Cedar Creek. At the height of the crisis Ramseur was mortally wounded while trying to rally his men. Two versions of his last words express the same sentiment, but I prefer the Wikipedia version: “Bear this message to my precious wife—I die a Christian and hope to meet her in heaven.”

Cedar Creek, October 19th, 1864

John Brown Gordon, a pre-war lawyer and businessman with no military experience, became one of the south’s most fabled commanders. He was wounded five times in the Sunken Road at Antietam. No one expected him to return to service, but his wife nursed him back to health. During Lee’s second invasion of the north Gordon’s brigade briefly occupied Wrightsville on the Susquehanna River, having advanced further east in Pennsylvania than any other Confederate formation. Two days later his brigade smashed Barlow’s IX Corps division north of Gettysburg, and Gordon paused to aid his stricken foe. At the Wilderness he led a flank attack against Sedgewick’s VI Corps late on May 6th, 1864, routing two brigades before darkness and stiffening Union resistance stopped him. Rising to corps command in 1865, he planned and conducted the Army of Northern Virginia’s last major offensive action on March 25th, briefly capturing Fort Stedman before being driven back to his start line. Just before the surrender at Appomattox he led the army’s last charge. Some historians criticize Gordon for exaggerating his exploits in his memoirs. If he did, there was certainly no need — his credentials speak for themselves.

After the battle of Fisher’s Hill, Joseph Kershaw’s division again reinforced Early’s Valley Army. In October the Confederates sallied forth past miles of fields and farms intentionally burned by Sheridan’s troops — a scorched earth policy designed to deny the enemy a ready source of sustenance in this richest part of Virginia. Sheridan’s army was camped just east of Cedar Creek, between Strasburg and Middletown. Early’s troops reoccupied Fisher’s Hill and pondered their future as their stomachs growled.

Gordon, however, conducted a reconnaissance with Jedediah Hotchkiss on October 17th. They climbed Signal Knob at the northern end of Massanutten Mountain, from which they had a panoramic view of the Union camps. The next day Jubal Early agreed to Gordon’s proposal to march the three divisions of 2nd Corps across the Shenandoah North Fork that night, then along a trail traversing the lower elevations of Massanutten, and finally across the Shenandoah again, downstream from the mouth of Cedar Creek. The corps would hit Sheridan’s left flank before sunrise.

Gordon commanded 2nd Corps for this operation, arguably the most audacious of the war. It was startlingly successful, rolling up the Union line, scattering two of Sheridan’s corps, and besting two VI Corps divisions before Getty’s division checked Confederate progress just west of Middletown.

Death Valley simulates Gordon’s surprise attack in ways reminiscent of the way Dead of Winter (volume V in Great Battles of the American Civil War) handles Bragg’s dawn attack on Rosecrans at Stones River. Complicating the Union situation, of course, is the fact that most of its troops were still in their tents when Gordon struck, and Sheridan was not on the field. Returning from a conference with the secretary of war in Washington, he had spent the night at Winchester, about 10 miles north along the Valley Pike. Thus the Union troops must cope with uncertain leadership as well as an attack that took them completely by surprise.

Conclusions

While Jackson can be taken to task for vindictive pettiness in the case of Richard Garnett and for the secretiveness which compromised his subordinates’ ability to effectively serve him, there is no questioning the success of his 1862 Valley campaign. True, he did not spare his men, either on the march or in battle, and they suffered heavy losses in three of five major engagements. But how many American Civil War battles featured the kind of Hannibalic precision required for a battle of annihilation? A fair assessment of Jackson must set the bar of success in a manner relative to the performance of his peers.

Jackson was blessed with steady subordinates who generally managed to do the right thing despite the handicaps their leader imposed on them. The most outstanding example is Ewell, who stood on his own at Cross Keys.

Jubal Early’s leadership in the 1864 campaign was as audacious as Jackson’s had been, and his lieutenants were a more gifted group than Jackson’s, especially John B. Gordon. That is not to say Early’s record was flawless. His low estimate of Sheridan backfired at 3rd Winchester, and his assumption that the enemy would attack his strongest point at Fisher’s Hill proved disastrously wrong. Lastly, one wonders why he did not take his captured guns and pull back across Cedar Creek before Sheridan reorganized his army and came to reclaim them.

By 1864 the Lincoln administration was wiser than it had been in 1862. It chose clear-thinking commanders and left them free to wield their superior numbers. The results were far better, especially in the Shenandoah.

It should be kept in mind that neither Jackson nor Early operated in a vacuum. Richmond set their priorities. In both cases the mission was to use the Shenandoah Valley’s unique geographic features to threaten a crossing of the Potomac and tie down a disproportionate number of the enemy. The strategy paid off until late October, 1864.  Just two months later it was becoming clear that Early could not have changed the outcome of the war, even if he had not been vanquished at Cedar Creek.

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