Major General J.E.B. Stuart
Sheridan's column took a roundabout route toward Richmond, moving parallel to the railroad for some miles after leaving Ashland before angling off in the direction of an old, abandoned watering hole known as Yellow Tavern, six miles north of Richmond. Divining Sheridan's objective, Stuart beat him to that dilapidated landmark, where the Mountain and Telegraph roads came down from the northwest and northeast, respectively, to form the Brook Turnpike, a major avenue to Richmond. Sizing up the area for its defensive potential in the midmorning of May 11, Stuart determined to make a stand. He deployed Lomax's brigade astride and east of the Telegraph Road and Wickham's men farther to the north and west. The troopers, most of them dismounted, took a position behind farm fences and atop tree-covered ridges. Artillery units trundled into position at various points along both lines. All weapons -- cannon, carbines, pistols -- pointed west toward the Mountain Road, on which the Federals could be seen advancing.
Sheridan's point riders came into view at about 11:00. Satisfied that the showdown he awaited had arrived, Sheridan moved immediately to the attack. Even as he did so, however, he had to turn about and confront Gordon's men, who thudded into the Union rear, again covered by Gregg. As had happened two days earlier, the attack created a panic in the Union ranks before order could be restored. A fierce saber and pistol battle between mostly mounted opponents followed and lasted well over an hour. The men of the 10th New York of Colonel J. Irvin Gregg's brigade found themselves in the thick of the action. One New Yorker had his skull crushed by a heavy blade in the hands of a hulking Confederate. A second killed an opponent literally at point-blank range, pressing his carbine against the man's back, pulling the trigger, and shattering his vertebrae. A third fell from his saddle in the midst of the melee and escaped being trampled only by grabbing the tail of a passing horse, which pulled him to safety. The strange battle slackened only when reinforcements from Davies's brigade rushed up to beat back the attackers and hold them at arm's length.
While Gregg battled Gordon, Sheridan advanced his main force in the opposite direction. Ordering large portions of each division to dismount, he sent Wilson's men to occupy Wickham and, farther south, Merritt's troopers to oppose Lomax and gain access to the turnpike to Richmond. Both commands made headway -- at first slowly, against fierce resistance, especially from Stuart's horse artillery. Then, as Sheridan's greater numbers began to tell, his men made steadier progress toward the Telegraph Road and the Brook Turnpike. By perhaps 3:00 p.m., the Confederates had been forced back at all points, although a counterattack on the right by Wickham's Virginians had regained most of the ground lost in that sector. More importantly, Brigadier General Thomas C. Devin's brigade of Merritt's division had fought its way afoot around Stuart's lower flank and held the upper reaches of the turnpike.
At this point, the Confederates appeared to be holding on for dear life. Sheridan, whose most memorable characteristic was his killer instinct, determined to press his advantage as far as it would go. He saw an opening when a battery along the Confederate left flank -- Captain Wiley H. Griffin's Baltimore Light Artillery -- began to infiltrate the Union right-center, held by the Michigan Brigade. At Sheridan's urging, Custer -- who shared his superior's predilection to go for the jugular -- advanced the dismounted troopers of his 5th and 6th Michigan to clear a path for a mounted charge by the rest of his brigade. The carabineers were successful enough that, at about 4:00 p.m., Custer sent forward the mounted 1st Michigan -- a regiment he had led in a similar attack on the third day at Gettysburg -- followed by elements of the 7th Michigan Cavalry.
With a fierce yell, the charging troopers covered the distance to their target -- approximately 400 yards -- with remarkable speed, especially considering the obstacles in their path, which included several fences and a meandering watercourse. Despite the resistance they met on all sides, the Wolverines reached Griffin's battery before its guns could be trained on them. Slicing downward with their sabers, they knocked hapless gunners off their feet. Other Michiganders chased off the battery's mounted supports. Still others swarmed over the guns, capturing two of them and carrying them off in triumph along with a pair of ammunition-laden limbers and dozens of prisoners.
Noting Custer's success, Sheridan gave the order to advance on all fronts. With renewed momentum, Wilson's men began to drive in Wickham's, while the bulk of Merritt's command pushed back the troops on either side of the captured battery. Taking part in the push were many of the dismounted men who had paved the way for the 1st Michigan, including Private John A. Huff of Armada, Michigan. Formerly a member of one of Colonel Hiram Berdan's celebrated sharpshooter regiments, Huff had reenlisted in the spring of 1864 and opted to ride to war with the 5th Michigan. Ironically, he now found himself charging a Rebel battle line afoot, lugging a Colt Army revolver instead of a rifle with a telescopic sight. Still imbued with the sharpshooter instinct, Huff singled out an officer in a plumed hat, sitting on his horse along the Telegraph Road just north of where the battery had gone under. The rider was firing his own pistol at a group of Huff's comrades. Taking careful aim at a distance of more than 400 yards, the private drilled his victim in the right side of his abdomen with a 44-caliber bullet and then raced for his own lines to avoid retaliation.
As Huff retreated, members of Stuart's staff turned to see their general, an expert horseman, reel in his saddle. When a crimson stain spread along the waist of his gray jacket, they realized to their horror that Stuart had been wounded. One of Stuart's closest subordinates, Captain Gustavus W. Dorsey of the 1st Virginia, was close enough to reach up and steady him in the saddle. When Dorsey asked Stuart about his condition, Stuart replied in a quiet voice, "I'm afraid they've killed me, Dorsey." By this point, both Wickham's and Lomax's men were falling back to positions beyond the Telegraph Road, giving Sheridan complete access to the Brook Turnpike and Richmond. Afraid that his entire line was collapsing, Stuart at first refused to be taken to the rear. He shouted to Dorsey and all near him, "Go back to your men and drive the enemy!"
But it was too late. The sun was going down and the battle was ending as a strategic victory for the Federals. All the Confederates could do was escort Stuart from the field. The noise and carnage on every side had rendered Stuart's horse unmanageable, so Dorsey helped the general to the ground, placed him against the base of a tree, rounded up another horse, and, with the assistance of comrades, helped him remount. Holding the suffering Stuart in the saddle, Dorsey and the others helped him to the rear. En route, an increasing number of riders passed them at breakneck speed. The sight so overwhelmed Stuart that he called out in an anguished voice, "Go back! go back! and do your duty as I have done mine, and our country will be safe. Go back! go back! I had rather die than be whipped."
About half a mile behind the front, Confederates placed Stuart in an ambulance, which he shared with Reid Venable and a second aide, Lieutenant Walter Hullihen. Soon afterward, Fitz Lee and Stuart's medical director, Major John B. Fontaine, arrived. Stuart formally passed his command to an ashen-faced Fitz Lee, and then Doctor Fontaine turned Stuart onto his side and gently probed the wound. During or immediately after the procedure, Stuart, fearing he had taken on the death-pallor he had observed on the countenance of so many badly wounded subordinates, asked Venable and Hullihen how he looked "in the face." Hesitating only slightly, both aides pronounced him free of the pallor. Stuart was silent for a moment and then remarked, "Well, I don't know how this will turn out; but if it is God's will that I shall die I am ready." At one point Fontaine suggested that Stuart would benefit from an alcoholic stimulant. At first Stuart, a lifetime teetotaler, refused, but at Venable's strong urging, he relented.
It was indeed God's will that Stuart should die, and soon. Fontaine's original diagnosis -- that Huff's bullet had severed blood vessels and perforated Stuart's intestines, a fatal condition -- was later confirmed via more thorough examination by other surgeons. Detouring around Sheridan's roadblock on the Brook Turnpike, the ambulance lurched along, slowly and painfully carrying Stuart to Richmond, the sounds of battle growing ever fainter. Early on May 12, Stuart was finally placed in bed at the Grace Street home of his brother-in-law Dr. Charles Brewer. There he lay, often in great pain, as doctors tried unsuccessfully to stop the internal hemorrhaging. In the distance he could hear the sounds of renewed combat as Sheridan's raiders struggled to cross the James River northeast of the city against spirited opposition from Stuart's appointed successor, Fitz Lee. Considering his primary mission fulfilled at Yellow Tavern, Sheridan had decided against a direct attack on Richmond. Then he was content to head south to refit in preparation for a triumphal return to the Army of the Potomac.
Death from peritonitis overtook Stuart at 7:40 p.m., four hours before his hastily summoned wife could reach his side. By then Stuart had disposed of his official papers and personal effects, had led his attendants in the singing of hymns, and had informed a stream of sorrowing visitors, including President Jefferson Davis, that he was willing to die "if God and my country think I have fulfilled my destiny and done my duty." All he addressed in this way assured him that he had done so, nobly and well.
Grave of Gen. J. E. B. Stuart in Hollywood Cemetery, with Temporary Marker - Richmond, VA, 1865
Generations of historians have echoed the sentiment of those at the deathbed, ensuring Stuart a place among the world's most successful leaders of mobile strike forces. Yet his greatest contribution to military science was not in the realm of battlefield tactics but in his unerring ability to send his commanders accurate, specific, up-to-date reports of enemy movements and intentions -- real-time strategic intelligence, as it is called today. It was this gift that Robert E. Lee emphasized in his famous lament that Stuart "never brought me a piece of false information."
Additional Sources:
www.batteryb.com
www.markscollection.com
www.andyamato.com
www.richmondthenandnow.com
www.allposters.com
www.civilwarphotos.net
cavalry.km.ru
www.mycivilwar.com
www.us-civilwar.com
www.mortkunstler.com
www.generalsandbrevets.com
firstnccav.home.mindspring.com
