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| Major-General James Ewell brown Stuart, C. S.A. In the hat on General Stuart's knee appears the plume which grew to symbolize the dash and gallantry of the man himself. Plume and hat were captured, and Stuart himself narrowly escaped, at Verdiersville, August 17, 1862. “I intend,” he wrote, “to make the Yankees pay for that hat.” Less than a week later he captured Pope's personal baggage and horses, and for many days thereafter the Federal general's uniform was on exhibition in a Richmond store window — a picturesque and characteristic reprisal. Born in Virginia in 1833, Stuart graduated at the United States Military Academy in 1854. He saw service on the Texas frontier, in Kansas, and against the Cheyenne Indians before the outbreak of the war. On April, 1861, he resigned from the United States Army and joined the Confederacy in his native State. He won distinction at Bull Run, and also the rank of brigadier-general. Stuart rode twice around the Army of the Potomac when McClellan was in command, and played a conspicuous part in the Seven Days before Richmond. At the second Bull Run, at Antietam, by a destructive raid into Pennsylvania, at Fredericksburg, and at Chancellorsville Stuart added to his laurels. He was too late for anything except the last day of Gettysburg, where the strengthened Union cavalry proved his match. He was mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern May 11, 1864, in a pitched battle with Sheridan's cavalry. |
