.
.
"Of course I go with Virginia":
.
Letter to William Alexander Stuart, January 18, 1861
.
A
letter to Stuart's favorite brother, William Alexander Stuart.
Here Stuart declares his loyalty to his home, no matter what
happens, and he is expecting Virginia to secede sooner or later. He is
annoyed that Secretary of War Floyd has resigned without promoting him or
reassigning him closer to the seat of action.
.
.
"In times like these, when Patriots stand aghast":
.
Temperance Speech, Washington's Birthday 1861
.
The
Christmas speech must have been well-received,
because he gave another one two months later while still at Fort Wise.
Here he speaks about secession, and about what would happen to
the army if it were to become "an Army without a country."
.
The
poem he quotes at the end is titled "Women," and is an anonymous poem
that appeared in the Ladies' Cabinet Album in 1832. The word
"meed" is defined by Webster's as "That which is bestowed or rendered
in consideration of merit; reward; recompense."
.
.
"I will be the first to join Va's standard when she calls":
.
Letter to William Alexander Stuart, March 4 & 14, 1861
.
Stuart
is furiously planning what to do without knowing for sure what Virginia
will do. He is also assuming that his father-in-law, Col. Cooke,
will resign, and "become a Missourian." And he comments on the
actions of General David Twiggs, who quickly surrendered to
secessionists in Texas and fled home to Georgia; Stuart disapproves of this, and thinks that
President Buchanan ought to have simply withdrawn the army from Texas
once that state seceded, because the only reason the army was there was
for the purpose of protection, and once Texas seceded, they should be
"deprived" of that protection -- which is an interesting way to look at
it.
.
Also,
Stuart refers to his son as "St. George." The boy was, of course,
originally named after Flora's father, Philip St. George Cooke, but I
never imagined that they actually called him... St. George.
Ponderous name for a child. Why not Philip? In any
case, he would soon be renamed James Ewell Brown Stuart Jr.
.
.
"I am quietly waiting Va's action":
.
Letter to John O. Steger, March 23 1861
.
John
Steger was married to the former Mary P. Cooke, a relative of Flora's.
Steger also was one of three representatives elected from
Richmond to attend Virginia's secession convention. In this
letter, Stuart makes it clear that he fully expects Virginia to secede,
and that he hopes the secession takes place before war breaks out.
Stuart's reasoning is simple: Those who take up arms against the
federal government are traitors and will be treated as
such, unless, of course, they are citizens of another country -- the
Confederacy. In that case, any Confederates who were captured
would be treated as prisoners of war, not as traitorous
insurrectionists.
.
He also reveals that he is still
mad at Gen. Sumner, and Stuart's fellow Virginian Gen. Winfield Scott
has joined Sumner on Stuart's blacklist. Throughout the war,
Stuart viewed Virginians who stayed in the Union with extreme disfavor
-- including, at least up to a point, his father-in-law. Some
time later, when it became obvious that Col. Cooke was staying in the
Union Army, Stuart wrote bitterly that he would like to capture Cooke
and present him to Flora as a prisoner of war. This is the same
thing he now wants to do to Sumner, albeit without involving Flora, and
this is interesting because he never says he wants to kill these
people, just capture and embarrass them. Very chivalrous, very
Sir Walter Scott.
.
Stuart's
current plan is to visit St. Louis in early April, await the result of
the secession convention, then go back to Fort Riley if Virginia
does not secede prior to April 15. As it turned out, Virginia
would secede on April 17, two days after Fort Sumter surrendered to
Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard. Stuart would resign on May 14, and find
out later that he had been promoted to captain on April 22.
.
Stuart
refers to Gen. Scott as "Lictor General." A lictor was a Roman
officer who attended the magistrates when they appeared in public; the
lictor carried an axe and rods as symbols of the magistrates' authority
to punish. The axe represented beheading; the rods,
whipping.
.
.
"I do not think that ever in my life, I expressed myself more confidently, awkwardly and badly":
.
Letter from John Esten Cooke, April 1861
.
A
communique calculated to put ants in anybody's pants, this is chock
full of dire warnings about what Stuart will be missing out on if he
doesn't resign and get to Virginia post haste. He advises that
the resignation should take place before Virginia secedes, thereby
creating a "political coup d'etat." Stuart, however, will wait
and follow Virginia out of the Union, not the other way around.
.
.
"I have not yet appointed any aid de camp ... it is a choice like a wife, for better or for worse":
.
Letter to William Alexander Stuart, October 4, 1861
.
A
brief little letter in which Stuart describes his command, his
selection of staff, his encounter with Jefferson Davis, and the "total
absence of intoxicating drink" around his headquarters.
.
.
"I hope you will pardon me for addressing you frankly":
.
Letter to Jefferson Davis, November 6, 1861
.
Partial
letter, found online. Stuart writes to President Davis to ask
about policy regarding what rank new Confederate officers were to
receive if they were resigning U.S. commissions. He datelines his
letter "A. of P." for Army of the Potomac, which was the name by which
Joe Johnston's army in northern Virginia was then known. (It
would eventually join with Thomas Jackson's Army of the Valley to be
re-styled the Army of Northern Virginia.) Of course the Federal
army operating in the same area was known by exactly the same name.
.
Anyway,
Stuart points out that the rank he resigned in the U.S. Army was that
of captain. In fact, he received notice that he had been promoted
to captain at some point on his way from Kansas to Virginia, possibly
before or possibly after he had mailed his letter of resignation dated
May 14. In any case, he had been appointed captain before he
resigned, and by
golly, he's going to make it known that he was a captain, not just a
first lieutenant. He thinks that he has not been promoted because
he is
related to Alexander H.H. Stuart, his father's cousin, a former
Secretary of the Interior and a Whig who had opposed secession prior to
the war. He says he was "taught from childhood to abhor" his
relative's politics. Other letters show that he was fond of
A.H.H. Stuart, even though he certainly did not agree with him
politically.
..
.
