ASHBY'S LAST DAYS

ASHBY'S LAST DAYS

“To the heroic Ashby was now entrusted the responsibility of protecting the Confederate rear,” and he was, as usual, indefatigable in the discharge of his allotted duty. Indeed, his proverbial daring was never more conspicuously displayed than in this campaign, which was destined to be the last of his brief and brilliant career, for poor fellow, he was killed in battle on the following Friday, June 6, and Virginia never lost a purer citizen, a braver soldier or more devoted son. He was a very dear friend of mine, I got him his first gun and last commission, the little English Blakely with which the gallant Chew did such signal service under him, and the brigadiership he received ten days only before his death. Some idea may be formed of his arduous duties from an incidental remark made to me in one of his last letters that in twenty-eight successive days he had had no less than thirty fights. As the incidents of the retreat became each day more numerous and exciting they cannot, of course, be specified in the limited space allowed for this article. Suffice it, therefore, to say that they culminated in those two crowning events by which Jackson effectually disposed of his antagonists in both the valleys - the battles of Cross Keys and Port Republic, in the former of which, fought June 8, Fremont was defeated, and in the battle fought on the following day, June 9, Shields shared the same fate.

EFFECTS OF THE CAMPAIGN

This closed Jackson's Valley campaign of '62, in which according to Major Dabney, his biographer and chief of staff, “within forty days he had marched 400 miles, fought four pitched battles, defeating four separate armies, with numerous combats and skirmishes, sent to the rear 3,500 prisoners, killed and wounded a still larger number of the enemy and defeated or neutralized forces three times as numerous as his own upon his proper theater of war, besides the corps of McDowell, which was rendered inactive at Fredericksburg by fear of his prowess ;” in addition to which he had at the same time thwarted the plans of McClellan at Richmond and made those of Lee there practicable; all of which was done at a loss of not more than 1,500 men and with an army of only as many thousand. So it was no wonder that I found him in fine spirits when, on my return from Richmond, just after the battle of Port Republic, I rejoined him at his bivouac in Brown's Gap, on the Blue Ridge, from which, on the 12th of June, we descended before dawn to the plains of Mount Meridian on the Middle Fork of the Shenandoah, having our headquarters near Wier's Cave.

The source: Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. VII. Richmond, Virginia, January, 1879. No. 1.