The fighting 213cannon. Regular troops on either side of
them had played an important role, but the
VM1 cadets had behaved like veterans. Their
youthful assault fostered a legend. Fifty-seven
of them (21 percent) fell as casualties, 10 of
those mortal. Among the dead lads was a
grandson of Thomas Jefferson.
Breckinridge and his men chased Sigel
north for miles, but the victory proved to be
temporary. Breckinridge hurried across the
Blue Ridge Mountains to help General Lee
around Richmond. Sigel's military debits had
finally outweighed his political assets and
President Lincoln shelved him. General David
Hunter reorganized Sigel's command and led
it south again. On 5 June he destroyed a
small, hurriedly assembled force led by
Confederate General William E. 'Grumble'
Jones (the nickname being well earned on the
basis of Jones's personality) in the Battle of
Piedmont. Ill-disciplined Confederate cavalry
failed to perform at the crisis. When Jones fell
dead his rag-tag army dissolved, and for the
first time during the war, a Northern force
gained control of the invaluable railroad
junction and warehouses of Staunton. Hunter
then moved south to Lexington, burning
homes as he went - some of them belonging
to his own kin, who seemed to receive
especially harsh treatment. Soldiers torched
the home in Lexington of Virginia's former
governor, John Letcher, denying the family's
women and children the chance to remove
even clothing from the house before it
became engulfed by the flames.
When Hunter crossed the mountains and
closed in on Lynchburg, another vital
railhead and supply depot, General Lee
determined that he must be checked. To that
end, he ordered Early to lead the Second
Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia
westward. The corps made an obvious
choice: it had been in the famed 1862 Valley
Campaign under Stonewall Jackson, and
many of the men lived in or near the valley.
Early was an equally good choice because of
his energy and determination. The fiery
Virginian stood up in his stirrups while
scouting the lines around Lynchburg, shook
a fist at the Yankees, and bellowed his scorn
General Thomas L. Rosser commanded Confederate
cavalry in the valley. Early called him 'a consummate ass'
and compared him - unfavorably - to Judas Iscariot
(Public domain)for both his enemy and the irregular
Southern troops he was replacing: 'No
buttermilk rangers after you now, you
God-damned Blue Butts!' Early used the
derisive term 'buttermilk rangers' to refer to
stragglers, especially cavalry, ranging to the
rear for refreshments instead of doing their
duty. His difficulties with poor cavalry would
bedevil operations for the next five months.
Early's seasoned troops chased the
Federals away from Lynchburg on
17-19 June 1864. Hunter's men straggled
through the trackless mountains in West
Virginia on a weary march that took them
out of operations for weeks. Early promptly
turned north and moved steadily down the
entire length of the valley and into the very
outskirts of Washington, DC. En route he
fought an engagement on 9 July near
Frederick, Maryland, on the banks of the
Monocacy river. A blocking force under
Federal General Lew Wallace (who would
write the classic novel Ben Hur after the war)
fought all day to retard Early's advance