DK - The American Civil War

Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley

The Confederates’ Shenandoah Valley Campaign was a diversionary operation that kept large bodies of

Union troops occupied and unable to support McClellan’s attack on Richmond. Taking enormous risks,

General Jackson won victories through rapid movement, surprise, and the incompetence of his opponents.

CLASH OF ARMIES 1862

U

nion forces made the first move

in the campaign in March 1862.

Their aim was to eliminate any

offensive threat from General Jackson’s

small army in the Valley, thereby

allowing Union troops to be switched

from the defense of Washington to the

attack on Richmond. Major General

Nathaniel Banks led an army across the

Potomac River,

forcing Jackson,

who was heavily

outnumbered, to

withdraw south

from his base at

Winchester.

Pursuing the

Confederates for some 50 miles (80km),

a Union division under Brigadier General

James Shields lost contact and assumed

Jackson had withdrawn. But as Shields

returned toward Winchester, Jackson

pursued him and counterattacked.

Wounded, Shields ceded command to

Colonel Nathan Kimball, who defeated

the Confederates at Kernstown on

March 23. Jackson retreated, having

lost around a third of his force, yet the

strategic effect of the battle was

everything the Confederates could

have desired. Startled by Jackson’s

aggression, Union commanders

BEFORE

By spring 1862, Confederate survival was
threatened by a series of military setbacks.
Jackson’s campaign in the Shenandoah
Valley looked set to be another.

POOR RELATIONS
General Stonewall Jackson was placed in
command of the Confederate Department
of Northern Virginia in October 1861, with
responsibility for the defense of the 150-mile
(240-km) long Shenandoah Valley. The following
winter his insistence on campaigning in harsh
weather brought his troops close to mutiny.
Some of his officers complained to politicians
and it was with some difficulty that he was
dissuaded from resigning.

UNION VICTORIES
The Confederacy’s setbacks in the Western
Theater in the first months of 1862 included
the losses of New Orleans ❮❮ 96–97 and
of forts Henry and Donelson ❮❮ 104–05.
In Virginia, by May, Union General George B.
McClellan’s Army of the Potomac had landed on
the Virginia Peninsula and had advanced to
within a few miles of Richmond 116 –17 ❯❯.

redoubled their efforts to crush him.

As long as Jackson kept campaigning,

Union troops would not be transferred

from Washington to Richmond.

Jackson’s success in the subsequent

campaign would depend on two factors:

speed of movement, achieved by

driving his marching men so hard they

became known as the “foot cavalry;”

and superior

intelligence. The

latter derived both

from cooperation

on the part of the

local population,

who gave Jackson

information about

enemy movements, and from the work

of staff cartographer Jedediah Hotchkiss,

who made accurate maps of the Valley.

Confederate numbers bolstered

Backed by Robert E. Lee, then President

Davis’s military adviser, Jackson was

reinforced by the dispatch of a division

under Major General Richard S. Ewell.

Jackson and Ewell proved effective

partners, both thoroughly eccentric

men but fierce fighting generals.

By mid-April, Jackson was on the

move again. He utterly confused his

enemy by crossing the Blue Ridge

Mountains toward Richmond, only

to return by train to Staunton at the

southern end of the Valley. He then

struck westward, where a Union army

under Major General John C. Frémont

was trying to push through the

mountains of western Virginia into east

Tennessee. Jackson’s men defeated

Frémont’s advanced guard at the hamlet

of McDowell on May 8, which alerted

Union General Nathaniel

Banks to expect trouble.

He took up a position

Infantryman’s boots

Hobnail boots were standard issue footwear for

infantrymen. Known as brogans (from the Irish brogue)

or Jefferson bootees, the nails gave the leather soles a

better grip in the field.

On May 25, 1862, Jackson’s 16,000

Confederates advanced on Winchester

in hot pursuit of Banks’s 7,000 retreating

Union soldiers. Although exhausted by

marches and firefights, the Confederate

troops maintained their momentum,

preventing Banks from consolidating a

defensive line. Jackson’s forces attacked

the Union right, while Ewell’s small force

put pressure on their left. After serious

fighting, in which General Richard Taylor’s

Louisiana Brigade played a key role, the

Union troops withdrew through the town

and on to the Potomac River. Jackson’s

weary men failed to mount a vigorous

pursuit, but they had taken Winchester.

KEY MOMENT

THE BATTLE OF WINCHESTER

Iron

nails

Iron

heel plate

The Shenandoah Valley

The Valley was important to Confederate armies as

it offered a strategic route to attack Washington,

Maryland, and Pennsylvania. It also became an

important source of food for the Confederacy.

The number of Union

troops in the Valley in

March 1862

The number of

Confederate troops in

the Valley in March 1862

35,000

5,000