J. E. B. Stuart
Major General
February 6, 1833 – May 12, 1864
Major General J. E. B. Stuart (Library of Congress)
James Ewell Brown Stuart, known to friends and fellow servicemen as Jeb, came from an acclaimed military lineage. His great grandfather, Major Alexander Stuart, commanded a regiment in the Revolutionary War, and his father Archibald Stuart fought in the War of 1812 before serving as a Commonwealth and U.S. Representative. He attended Emory and Henry College and then West Point, where he graduated 13th of 46 in 1854. West Point was also where he first met and befriended Robert E. Lee.
In his U.S. service, Stuart was involved in several Indian conflicts, the “Bleeding Kansas” incident at the Kansas-Missouri border, and was sent by Lee to crush John Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry.
Stuart resigned from the United States army in May of 1861 to join the Confederacy following Virginia’s secession, despite his father in law choosing to remain in the US Army for the engagement. He was assigned to report to Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, who promoted him to Colonel early on and assigned him to command cavalry units of the Army of the Shenandoah. He led his regiment in the First Battle of Bull Run, where the Union Army’s early success was undone in part because of Stuart’s routing, forcing their retreat back to Washington DC. Soon thereafter, he began commanding all the cavalry brigades for the Army of Northern Virginia in March of 1862.
Stuart was a master of reconnaissance missions, and twice made daring exploits, first in the Peninsula Campaign and again at Antietam. In the Northern Virginia Campaign, he was promoted to major general after he executed successful raids at Catlett’s Station and Rappahonnock River, and then performed great defensive strategy at the Battle of Fredericksburg. Stuart also temporarily commanded the Stonewall Brigade after Jackson was wounded at the Battle of Chancellorsville, and successfully defended against Union forces.
The low points in the war for Stuart were the Brandy Station and Gettysburg battles. At Brandy Station, despite holding the field for the South, Stuart failed to detect the movements of the Union cavalry that would eventually instigate the attack. Just a month later, Stuart’s cavalry fell out of touch with headquarters in the days leading up to Gettysburg, and left Lee and his fellow commanding officers with little to no intelligence in unfamiliar enemy territory. Stuart finally arrived late on the second day and the following day was repulsed by Union cavalry gaining no ground there.
Stuart’s final battle in the war would be Yellow Tavern on the outskirts of Richmond, the Confederate Capital, and his command there was credited with saving Richmond from the Union Major General Philip Sheridan and his cavalry. Stuart was shot by a dismounted Union cavalryman with a pistol, and the wound proved to be fatal. He died the day after the battle, May 12, 1864 and was buried at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.
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