Let me lay before you, to begin with, some of his most important and distinguished services.
He was a graduate of
West Point, a veteran of three wars, and he took part in the civil war in well-nigh fifty battles and skirmishes.
He was engaged therein at
Bull Run,
Manassas,
Yorktown,
Williamsburg,
Malvern Hill,
Cedar Mountain,
Groveton, Fauquier Springs,
Bristoe,
Second Manassas,
Ox Hill, (or
Chantilly),
Harper's Ferry,
Sharpsburg,
Fredericksburg,
Chancellorsville (or Second
Fredericksburg), Salem Church,
Winchester,
Gettysburg, Second
Bristoe,
Rappahannock,
Mine Run, the
Wilderness,
Spotsylvania, the
Po,
Bethesda,
Lynchburg,
Monocacy,
Washington, Parker's Ford, Shepperdstown,
Kernstown,
Winchester again (or Oppequan),
Fisher's Hill,
Cedar Creek and
Waynesboro,
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and in many less affairs, such as
Auburn,
Summerville Ford,
Fairfield and
Port Republic.
Some of these names stand for several days of battle.
I doubt if there was an officer or soldier in the Army of Northern Virginia who, in the open field, was oftener under fire.
He was the right-hand man of
Jackson, in his corps, and the right-hand man of
Lee, after
Jackson had fallen, and he enjoyed the abiding confidence of both.
He was successively a colonel, a brigadier-general, a major-general and a lieutenant-general, each promotion coming to him unsolicited and unsought, and he commanded with equal ability a regiment, a brigade, a division, a corps, and an army.
It was his brigade which, after a swift march from right to left, at the
first battle of Manassas, broke the last front of resistance offered by the enemy; and
General Joseph E. Johnston says of
Colonel Early, in his narrative of the war: ‘He reached the position intended just when the
Federal army was apparently about to assume the offensive, and assailed its exposed front.
The attack was conducted with too much skill and courage to be for a moment doubtful.
The Federal right was at once thrown into confusion.
A general advance of the Confedrate line, directed by
General Beauregard, completed our success, and won the battle.’
This gave
Early promotion to the rank of brigadier-general.