Calamity at Chancellorsville Page 16
An 1878 article in the Southern Historical Society Papers written by Jubal A. Early, one of Jackson’s divisional generals who was not present during the event, appears to be the first narrative that describes Jackson as suffering two separate falls from the litter. Early’s primary source for the article was Capt. Richard Wilbourn, who wrote a series of letters to Early in which he described Jackson falling from the stretcher only once, as a result of a litter bearer being wounded. In order to continue the story after the point at which Wilbourn wrote that he left the scene, Early turned to previous accounts written by Benjamin Leigh and James Smith. Both authors described a single fall from the litter during Jackson’s removal, but document it as happening when a litter bearer tripped in the woods. Since Leigh and Smith related a fall under different circumstances than the one by Wilbourn, Early combined the accounts into a single narrative detailing two separate falls from the litter.9
Combining the accounts in such a fashion is problematic, as Wilbourn actually changed details of his story over time. The earliest known account describing Jackson’s wounding is a letter Wilbourn wrote within days of the event—prior even to Jackson’s death—to Lt. Col. Charles Faulkner, the Second Corps assistant adjutant general. In that letter, Wilbourn specifically mentions that “one of the litter bearers had his arm broken but did not let the litter fall—then another man just after this fell with the litter, in consequence of getting his foot tangled in a vine.” Wilbourn’s subsequent accounts and letters, including the one he sent to Early, alter the story to Jackson falling when the bearer was wounded, and he completely omits any reference to another bearer tripping in the woods.10
Following the publication of Early’s article, Joseph Morrison wrote a letter to the author disagreeing with some minor details. Morrison’s letter notes that Jackson fell “about 3 feet” from the litter when the bearer was wounded and a second fall occurred when a bearer tripped “tho this time the fall was very light.” Prior to Morrison’s letter, all first-person accounts, including one Morrison wrote himself in 1866 for the magazine The Land We Love, described only a single fall from the litter.11
Benjamin W. Leigh of A. P. Hill’s staff wrote a letter to his wife on May 12, 1863, detailing circumstances of the event. In his letter, Leigh states they were compelled to lay Jackson down in the middle of the road during the artillery barrage that wounded the bearer, and later one of the “litter bearers got his foot tangled in a grapevine and fell—letting Gen. Jackson fall on his broken arm.”12
James P. Smith, who was carrying the corner of the litter opposite that of the wounded bearer, consistently maintained in all accounts that Leigh caught the corner of litter when the bearer was wounded, preventing Jackson from falling, and that the general rolled off only when another bearer tripped in the woods. Jackson himself, in relating details of the event to others, as recorded by Hunter McGuire and Tucker Lacy, spoke repeatedly of his “fall” from the litter—singular, not plural.13
As the story of Jackson’s wounding was told and retold by eyewitnesses for decades after the actual event, details blurred and facts merged to cause confusion and disagreement in written accounts. If one ascribes to the idea that the most accurate reports are likely to be those written within the shortest time following the actual event, when memories are the most fresh, then Wilbourn’s original account to Faulkner and Leigh’s letter to his wife would be deemed the most factual. Both accounts, written within days of the event by individuals on different staffs, corroborate each other perfectly in documenting that Jackson suffered only one fall from the stretcher and that it occurred after a litter bearer tripped on a vine in the woods. The multiple, consistent narratives from Smith—who was a litter bearer at the time—serve as confirmatory evidence of this single-fall interpretation.
Last Words
Perhaps the best-known aspect of Jackson’s death is the uttering of his final words: “Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.” Despite several primary sources documenting that Jackson spoke the words, in the years following Jackson’s death some questions were raised as to the authenticity of the quote.
Initial confusion concerning the phrase centered on its exact wording, as some accounts quote the verb “pass” in place of “cross.” For instance, the two most widely read early biographies of Jackson use different quotes. John Esten Cooke, in his 1866 book Stonewall Jackson: A Military Biography, uses the words “cross over the river,” while Robert L. Dabney writes “pass over the river” in his 1866 Life and Campaigns of Lieut-Gen. Thomas J. Jackson. Anna Jackson was the likely source for Dabney’s book, as her personal account to him uses “pass” in the phrase she records as being her husband’s “last audible words.” However, in her two postwar books, Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson (1891) and Memoirs of Stonewall Jackson (1895), Anna uses the phrase “cross over the river.”14
It was the publication of Life and Letters that led to the most noted questioning of the event. In the margin of his copy of the book, Henry K. Douglas, one of Jackson’s assistant adjutants at the time, wrote next to the quote: “I never believed Jackson said that and don’t believe it now.” A later, undated addition to the margin by Douglas read, “When I doubted—after the war, I wrote to Smith of Richmond that he heard the General speak the words. I never believed it until he . . . told me that he heard it.” Douglas was convinced enough to eventually use the phrase as Jackson’s last words in his own manuscript, I Rode with Stonewall (1899).15
The most widely cited descriptions of Jackson’s deathbed scene, including his last words, are from his doctor, Hunter H. McGuire, and were published in The Richmond Medical Journal (1866) and the Southern Historical Society Papers (1886). Although McGuire’s accounts have become the accepted version of Jackson’s final moments, the physician admits in an early handwritten account to his friend Jed Hotchkiss that he was not present when Jackson said his final words. In the letter, McGuire writes that he left the room and “those who remained report that a smile of ineffable sweetness spread itself over his pale face and he added presently, ‘Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees,’ and then without pain or the least struggle he died.” McGuire omitted from his later accounts the fact that he was not in the room at the exact moment of Jackson’s death and during the speaking of the famous phrase.16
Any question of Jackson’s final words being a postwar fabrication is dispelled by the fact that the quote was widely circulated in newspapers within days of his death. Both the Richmond Sentinel on May 16, 1863, and the Richmond Daily Dispatch on May 20, 1863, quote an earlier story from the Central Presbyterian that record Jackson’s final words as being: “Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.”
The timing of the phrase, however, is more ambiguous. Most postwar accounts dramatize the scene by giving the impression that Jackson uttered the words immediately prior to his death. In her account of the event for Dabney’s book, Anna Jackson states that her husband said the words while in a “dozing state” and they were his “last audible words” (underline present in original manuscript). McGuire, who left the room “about half an hour before he died,” admits to not hearing the words before leaving. Jimmy Smith, who apparently entered before McGuire left, did hear the phrase, but related to Dabney that Jackson spoke no more after approximately 2:30 p.m. Taking the accounts together, with allowances for inexact timing due to recall, it appears that Jackson spoke the phrase 30 to 45 minutes before he died at 3:15 p.m.17
Although the romanticized version, with Jackson uttering the phrase with his last dying breath, is not supported by the primary accounts of those in the room at the time, there is sufficient evidence to document they were his last intelligible words and that he uttered them approximately 30 minutes before he died.
Cause of Death
Hunter H. McGuire and the other military physicians involved in Jackson’s care established pneumonia as the immediate cause of his death. That
diagnosis was largely unquestioned until more modern times, when medical authorities reviewed the case and offered alternate possibilities. Most of the newly suggested diagnoses center around blood clots to the lungs (pulmonary embolus) or septicemia, also known as blood poisoning. Although medical knowledge at the time of the Civil War was limited in regard to both the causes and treatment of most diseases, physicians of the time were able to differentiate many conditions based on their presentation and physical findings.18
Medical statistics of the Civil War reveal that “inflammation of the lungs and pleura,” the classification to which pneumonia belonged, was the third most common cause of death from disease during the conflict. Pneumonia was an easily recognized and frequently encountered condition that carried a 24 percent mortality rate in the pre-antibiotic era of the Civil War. In describing pneumonia, a respected medical textbook of the era stated that the diagnosis of “no disease is more readily recognized in a large majority of cases,” and that it was “the most fatal of all acute diseases.” Without means to alter the course of pneumonia, 19th-century physicians were able to observe the natural history of the disease and became adept at predicting its outcome. Hunter McGuire demonstrated this remarkable ability when he informed Anna Jackson on May 10, 1863, that her husband had but two hours to live, then pronouncing Jackson dead one hour and forty-five minutes later.19
Patients dying from pneumonia typically progressed through stages of prostration, “muttering delirium,” drowsiness, semi-consciousness, and coma—all consistent with Jackson’s course of illness. Succumbing to pneumonia was such a peaceful way of passing in the 19th century that the disease was euphemistically referred to as “the old man’s friend.”20
With such a familiarity with pneumonia and its presentation, it is highly improbable that all five physicians involved in Jackson’s care at Guiney Station would misdiagnose another disease as pneumonia. As a result, Jackson almost assuredly had the condition, and the course of his illness and death is consistent with the natural history of pneumonia before outcomes were altered by the present-day use of antibiotics.
McGuire and the other military physicians attributed the development of Jackson’s pneumonia to a lung bruise, or pulmonary contusion, that he may have suffered after his fall from the litter. Pulmonary contusions during the Civil War often occurred—as they do today—without any evidence of external injury or rib fracture. In modern medicine, early-onset pneumonia (occurring within three to four days of injury) continues to be a well-recognized complication of pulmonary contusions.21
As the germ theory of disease had not yet been advanced at the time of the Civil War, physicians had no knowledge of bacteria, and consequently no understanding of the need for sterile technique. Nonetheless, Civil War surgeons recognized septicemia—or pyemia, as it was often called at the time—as an almost uniformly fatal complication that could occur after amputation. With no knowledge of bacteria being the cause, physicians of the time classified septicemia as a condition resulting solely from an infected wound site. Much like pneumonia, septicemia following amputation had a specific presentation that was familiar to military surgeons.
Pyemia at the time was almost uniformly fatal and typically presented with the onset of severe chills and sweats, followed by a jaundiced, or yellowed, appearance of the skin. A period of “tranquility,” in which the patient seemed improved, often occurred after the onset of the illness, followed by a recurrence of fever and chills. Since septicemia during the Civil War was attributed to an infected wound, the disease was often described as being associated with changes at the surgical site. Initially an abundance of pus would flow from the wound, but as the disease progressed the discharge would become thin, watery, and foul smelling, followed by sloughing and separation of the closed incision.22
As he first mentioned in his 1866 article for the Richmond Medical Journal, McGuire wrote descriptions of Jackson’s well-healing operative site religiously to document that Jackson showed none of the typical signs of pyemia as recognized at the time.23
Today, modern medical science understands that septicemia is the systemic response to the presence of pathologic microorganisms in the bloodstream, and that the condition can result from a multitude of sources other than simply an infected wound. Pathologically speaking, Stonewall Jackson did have septicemia. But in medical and legal terms, “cause of death” is defined as “the disease or injury that initiated the train of events leading to death.” In other words, without that underlying cause, death would not have resulted. For Jackson, the disease that initiated his death was either pneumonia or a wound infection.24
When the available evidence from primary sources is analyzed, Jackson’s illness, or underlying cause of death, is most consistent with the diagnosis of pneumonia. It is this disease that likely initiated the train of events leading to sepsis and eventual death.
Jackson’s Arm
Following the amputation of Stonewall Jackson’s left arm on May 3, 1863, Rev. Beverly Tucker Lacy found the extremity “wrapped up outside (the) tent.” According to Lacy’s account of the incident given to Robert Dabney for his book Life and Campaigns of Lieut-Gen. Thomas J. Jackson, the pastor buried it “in a private graveyard of J. H. Lacy.” The Ellwood estate owned by Tucker Lacy’s brother, J. Horace Lacy, was located one mile from the Second Corps Field Hospital. A family cemetery is situated 300 yards from the Ellwood house, and Tucker Lacy buried Jackson’s arm somewhere within that graveyard. He does not specify in his account the exact location of the burial nor whether he marked the spot in some fashion. Jedediah Hotchkiss wrote in his journal on May 3, 1863, that he buried his friend James Keith Boswell in the same cemetery “by the side of General Jackson’s arm which had been amputated and buried there.”25
The battle of the Wilderness was fought in same area one year later, with Ellwood serving as a headquarters for the Union army. Colonel Charles E. Phelps of the 7th Maryland made an interesting entry in his diary on May 6, 1864: “left in front behind Arty. 200 yds from here where S. Jackson died. His arm dug up by some pioneers + re-buried.” How the soldiers knew the location of the arm is unknown; also unspecified is whether or not they placed the arm back in its original site.26
Union engineer Wesley Brainerd records in his memoirs that the following day he also visited the location, but that it was “unmarked by stone or board.” Although he describes “the little mound of earth before me,” he mistakenly believed Jackson’s entire body was buried there, as the dirt “hid from view all that was mortal of the man whose great deeds had filled the world with wonder and amazement.”27
Following the Civil War, James Power Smith, Jackson’s former aide-de-camp, married the daughter of J. Horace Lacy and worked as pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Fredericksburg. In 1903—40 years after the arm was buried—Smith placed a stone marker in the family cemetery inscribed with the words: “Arm of Stonewall Jackson, May 3, 1863.” Based on his closeness to the situation, friendship with Tucker Lacy, and status as the son-in-law of the estate’s owner, Smith likely had direct knowledge of the arm’s location, but he may not have placed the marker directly over the spot. He may have deliberately placed the stone away from the location in an effort to prevent further desecration, as committed by Union soldiers after the battle of the Wilderness. Equally plausible, he may have placed the stone merely as a tribute to the event and not as a grave marker, an action that would be consistent with the other nine markers he placed around the battlefield, all of which are in approximate locations.
Present-day photograph of marker for Jackson’s arm placed by James P. Smith in 1903.
Author’s photo
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The other well-known event surrounding Jackson’s arm concerns Brig. Gen. Smedley Butler and the U.S. Marine Corps. From September 26 – October 5, 1921, the Marine East Coast Expeditionary Force from Quantico, Virginia, completed maneuvers on the Wilderness battlefield. According to family tradition recounted by the grandson of the owner of
Ellwood at the time, Butler expressed disbelief when told that Jackson’s arm was buried on site. To verify the claim, the general allegedly had a squad of soldiers dig at the spot of the Smith marker. After finding the arm bone in a box a few feet below the surface, Butler reportedly had the relic placed in a metal box and reburied in the same spot. The Marines then had a commemorative plaque made and affixed to the stone.
The Marine Corps maneuvers were well publicized at the time and several major newspapers covered the event in a series of articles. Neither the newspaper articles nor official reports of the event document Butler having the arm exhumed and reburied. The New York Times of October 3, 1921, does detail a visit by then-President Warren G. Harding to the cemetery following a review of the troops at Ellwood. The article goes on to describe the graveyard as being “overgrown with weeds” when the Marines first arrived and that they “asked permission of the owner of the farm on which the cemetery is situated to put it in condition in honor of Jackson.” By the time of Harding’s visit, the soldiers had erected a “neat fence of white posts and wire around the five big cedar trees that rise above the unmarked graves and the stone marking where Jackson’s arm lies.”28
If Butler’s men had actually exhumed Jackson’s arm and reburied it in a metal box, it is doubtful that such a momentous event would have escaped mention in the newspapers. Instead, the Expeditionary Force likely placed the plaque on the stone simply as their own tribute to Jackson and not to commemorate a reburial of the arm bone.