General "Stonewall" Jackson and the 1862 Valley Campaign

Jackson's Valley Campaign [March-June 1862]: A History

"Stonewall" Jackson's Valley Campaign in 1862

Overview: Jackson's Valley Campaign was Confederate Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's famous spring 1862 campaign through the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia during the American Civil War. Employing audacity and rapid, unpredictable movements on interior lines, Jackson's 17,000 men marched 646 miles (1,040 km) in 48 days and won several minor battles as they successfully engaged three Union armies (52,000 men), preventing them from reinforcing the Union offensive against Richmond. The Jackson Valley Campaign estimated total losses: Union Casualties 5,735; Confederate Casualties 2,441.

Since only one principal battle (First Kernstown in March 1862) occurred prior to May 1862, many historians refer to the campaign as "Jackson's Valley Campaign of May-June 1862."

Campaign: “Stonewall” Jackson suffered a defeat (his sole defeat of the war) at the First Battle of Kernstown (March 23, 1862) against Col. Nathan Kimball (part of Union Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks's army), but it proved to be a strategic Confederate victory because President Abraham Lincoln reinforced his Valley forces with troops that had originally been designated for the Peninsula Campaign against Richmond.

On May 8, after more than a month of skirmishing with Banks, Jackson moved deceptively to the west of the Valley and defeated elements of Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont's army in the Battle of McDowell, preventing a potential combination of the two Union armies against him. Jackson then proceeded down the Valley, again, to confront Banks. Concealing his movement in the Luray Valley, Jackson joined forces with Maj. Gen. Richard S. Ewell and captured the Federal garrison at Front Royal on May 23, causing Banks to retreat to the north. On May 25, in the First Battle of Winchester, Jackson defeated Banks and pursued him until the Union Army crossed the Potomac River into Maryland.

(Right) Statue of General "Stonewall" Jackson near the State Capitol in Richmond, Virginia.

Bringing in Union reinforcements from eastern Virginia, Brig. Gen. James Shields recaptured Front Royal and planned to link up with Frémont in Strasburg. Jackson was now threatened by three small Union armies. Withdrawing up the Valley from Winchester, Jackson was pursued by Frémont and Shields.

On June 8, Ewell defeated Frémont in the minor Battle of Cross Keys and on the following day, crossed the North River to join forces with Jackson to defeat Shields in the Battle of Port Republic. Jackson immediately followed up his successful campaign by forced marches to join Gen. Robert E. Lee for the Seven Days Battles outside Richmond. His audacious campaign elevated him to the position of the most famous general in the Confederacy (until this reputation was later supplanted by Lee) and has been studied ever since by military organizations around the world.

Narrative: After the bombardment of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and President Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers, Virginia seceded on April 17, 1861. At once, Virginia State militia moved to secure the railroad assets, musket factories, and the Federal armory and arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Although Union forces attempted to burn the facilities, most of the rifle-musket manufacturing equipment was salvaged and shipped south to bolster the Confederate ordnance effort. Former VMI professor Thomas J. Jackson assumed command of a newly formed brigade at Harpers Ferry in the spring and moved to consolidate Confederate strength in the area. In July 1861, Confederate reinforcements traveled from the Shenandoah Valley to Manassas Junction on the Manassas Gap Railroad to reach the fighting at Bull Run, marking the first time in modern warfare that troops were moved by train to a battlefield. On the battlefield of Manassas, Jackson earned the sobriquet "Stonewall.''

March-June 1862: Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Jackson's Valley Campaign of 1862 is one of the most studied campaigns of military history. This campaign demonstrates how a numerically inferior force can defeat larger forces by fast movement, surprise attack, and intelligent use of the terrain. In March 1862, as a Federal force under Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks began to advance cautiously up the Valley, General Jackson retreated to Mount Jackson where he could defend the Valley Turnpike. His task was two-fold--to prevent deep penetration into the Valley and to tie down as many opposing forces as possible. When he learned that Banks was ready to detach part of his force to assist the Army of the Potomac then being concentrated on the Peninsula to threaten Richmond, Jackson marched down the Turnpike and fought a battle at Kernstown on March 23.

Although defeated, Jackson's aggressive move convinced Washington that Confederate forces in the Valley posed a real threat to Washington, and Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, with his army preparing to move on Richmond, was denied reinforcements at a critical moment in the Peninsular Campaign.

In late April, Jackson left part of his enlarged command under Maj. Gen. Richard S. Ewell to confront Banks and marched with about 9,000 men through Staunton to meet a second Union army under Maj. Gen. John C. Fremont, whose vanguard approached on the Parkersburg Road from western Virginia. Banks was convinced that Jackson was leaving the Valley to join the Confederate army at Richmond.

But on May 8, Jackson turned up to defeat two brigades of Fremont's force, under Brig. Gens. Robert Milroy and Robert Schenck, at McDowell. He then marched swiftly back to unite with Ewell against Banks.

(Right) Last Campaign. Many historical markers remind the nation of what occurred during the campaign, but the location of this marker once reminded the many who had served and fought under "Stonewall" Jackson, that they had survived it.

On May 23, Jackson overran a detached Union force at Front Royal and advanced toward Winchester, threatening to cut off the Union army that was concentrated around Strasburg. After a running battle on the 24th along the Valley Turnpike from Middletown to Newtown (Stephens City), Banks made a stand on the heights south of Winchester.

On May 25, Jackson attacked and overwhelmed the Union defenders, who broke and fled in a panic to the Potomac River. Banks was reinforced and again started up the Valley Turnpike, intending to link up with Brig. Gen. James Shields's Union division near Strasburg. Shields's division spearheaded the march of Irwin McDowell's corps recalled from Fredericksburg, while Fremont's army converged on Strasburg from the west. Jackson withdrew, narrowly avoiding being cut off from his line of retreat by these converging columns.

The Union armies now began a two-prong offensive against Jackson. Fremont's troops advanced up the Valley Turnpike while Shields's column marched up the Luray Road along the South Fork. At this point nearly 25,000 men were being brought to bear on Jackson's 17,000. Jackson's cavalry commander, Brig. Gen. Turner Ashby was killed while fighting a rear guard action near Harrisonburg on June 6.

Jackson concentrated his forces near the bridge at Port Republic, situating himself between the two Union columns that were separated by the mountain and the rain-swollen Shenandoah South Fork. On June 8, Fremont attacked Ewell's division at Cross Keys but was driven back. The next morning (June 9), Jackson with his remaining force attacked Shields east and north of Port Republic, while Ewell withdrew from Fremont's front burning the bridge behind him. Ewell joined with Jackson to defeat Shields. Both Union forces retreated, freeing Jackson's army to reinforce the Confederate army at Richmond.

In five weeks, Jackson's army had marched more than 650 miles and inflicted more than 7,000 casualties, at a cost of only 2,500. More importantly, Jackson's campaign had tied up Union forces three times his strength. Jackson's victories infused new hope and enthusiasm for the Confederate cause, and materially contributed to the defeat of McClellan's campaign against Richmond.

After Jackson's victories at Cross Keys and Port Republic, the Union forces withdrew. Frémont marched back to Harrisonburg, where he was frustrated to find orders from Lincoln he had not received in time, telling him not to advance beyond that town against Jackson. As the weather became clear, Jackson's cavalry under Col. Thomas T. Munford harassed Frémont's withdrawal, which reached Mount Jackson on June 11, and then unencumbered to Middletown on June 14 where he joined with Banks and Brig. Gen. Franz Sigel. Shields, who complained bitterly about the exhaustion of his division, marched slowly to Front Royal and on June 21 marched across the Blue Ridge to join Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell. 

Jackson sent messages to Richmond requesting that his force be augmented to 40,000 men so that he could assume the offensive down the Valley and across the Potomac, but Robert E. Lee, now commanding the Army of Northern Virginia, had other plans—to counterattack McClellan's Army of the Potomac and drive it away from Richmond. He needed all of the combat power he could muster and he wanted Jackson to attack the relatively unprotected right flank of McClellan's army, north of the Chickahominy River. Shortly after midnight on June 18, Jackson's men began to march toward the Virginia Peninsula. They fought with Lee in the Seven Days Battles, from June 25 to July 1. Jackson delivered an uncharacteristically lethargic performance in many of those battles, perhaps because of the physical strains of the Valley Campaign and the exhausting march to Richmond.

With the success of his Valley Campaign, "Stonewall" Jackson became the most celebrated soldier in the Confederacy (until his reputation was eventually eclipsed by Lee's), and his victories lifted the morale of the public. In a classic military campaign of surprise and maneuver, he pressed his army to travel 646 miles (1,040 km) in 48 days of marching and won five significant victories with a force of about 17,000 against a combined force of over 50,000. Jackson had accomplished his difficult mission, causing Washington to withhold over 40,000 troops from McClellan's offensive. Military historians Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones summarized a successful campaign: 

“Always outnumbered seven to three, every time Jackson engaged he fought with the odds of about four to three in his favor—because, moving rapidly on interior lines, he hit fractions of his enemy with the bulk of his own command. ... Jackson enjoyed the great advantage that the northerners remained widely scattered on a perimeter within which his troops could maneuver to concentrate against first one and then another of the Union forces. Lincoln managed very well, personally maneuvering the scattered Union armies. Since neither Lincoln nor his advisers felt that Jackson's small force could truly threaten Washington, they chose an offensive response as they sought to exploit their overwhelming forces and exterior position to overwhelm his army. But Jackson's great ability, celerity of movement, and successful series of small fights determined the outcome.” Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones, How the North Won 

On the Union side, a command shakeup resulted from the embarrassing defeat by a smaller force. McDowell's corps remained in the defense of Washington, with only one division (under Brig. Gen. George A. McCall) able to join McClellan on the Peninsula. Lincoln was disillusioned by the command difficulties of controlling multiple forces in this campaign and created a single new army, the Army of Virginia, under Maj. Gen. John Pope, incorporating the units of Banks, Frémont, McDowell, and several smaller ones from around Washington and western Virginia. This army was soundly defeated by Lee and Jackson in the Northern Virginia Campaign and the Second Battle of Bull Run in August.