Other Confederate officers freely expressed their scorn at the artillery chief’s plight. “Pendleton was dreadfully stampeded and almost in tears,” one of Jackson’s staff wrote. A Virginia cavalry colonel described Pendleton as “all day” being “in the rear in a well sheltered place, and entirely out of danger.” A bright Virginia artillery captain wrote tartly that his chief had “managed…to lose four pieces.”

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One witness to Pendleton’s fumbling battlefield efforts drew wide attention when he disgustedly described the affair in a Richmond newspaper a few weeks later. The artillery chief, he wrote: “withdrew in confusion, losing four guns. Gen. P. thought he had lost almost all his guns, but such was not the case….Gen. P., it seems, retreated without sufficient cause.” A rejoinder in the same paper under the pen name “Justice”—apparently Pendleton himself—offered a complicated and wordy defense, complaining of “ten hours’ stern endurance, without food, water or respite.” The controversy subsequently degenerated into mutterings throughout the army, but also in at least one official Court of Inquiry.

No difficulty equivalent to the Shepherdstown affair befell Pendleton through the rest of the war, mostly because he was thereafter relegated almost exclusively to bureaucratic roles. It is tempting to assign Pendleton part of the blame for the Confederate artillery’s failure to bring converging fire on the Federals’ fishhook line at Gettysburg. Such fire—an artillerist’s ideal—might have offset to some degree the tremendous Northern advantage of compact interior lines; it surely ought to have been attempted vigorously, at a minimum. An energetic chief of artillery responsibly discharging his tactical duties would have undertaken such an attempt. But Pendleton simply did not function in any such capacity on the battlefield.

In the winter of 1863-64, rumors spread that Lee had decided to replace Pendleton as chief of artillery, and had even picked out a suitable candidate. Colonel Thomas H. Carter, one of the smartest gunners in the army and among the highest ranking, told his wife: “It would be an advantage to the Artillery of this Army should he do so.” The brilliant Maj. Gen. Robert E. Rodes wrote of a “premium on imbecility” in the army’s artillery. Although Carter did not specify Pendleton, he obviously could not have been referring to the bright young cadre of Confederate gunners.

Early in 1864, Lee decided to send Pendleton west on detached duty to inspect the artillery of the Army of Tennessee. It is hard to avoid speculation that Lee embraced the idea as a means to be rid of his inept artillery chief. The “send them elsewhere” solution to personnel problems always appealed to Lee, and he had a stable of superb gunners at hand in Virginia. Confederate Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper issued the orders on March 6, but Pendleton apparently did not wish to go. After the artillery chief had dragged his feet for a full month, Cooper reissued the edict, adding a stern “without delay.”

Back in Virginia, Pendleton (perhaps still irked by the spring orders) engaged in a snarling match with Cooper. When he visited the War Department in Richmond, Pendleton had not met with the cordial acceptance befitting his rank, he complained in a letter to Cooper. The “exclusive & extremely invidious obstruction placed at the door of your Dept.” subjected the general to “the indignity of seeking admittance through permission circuitously obtained.” Cooper wrote on the back of that missive, “I cannot permit myself to reply to so intemperate & insubordinate a letter as this.”

Widespread recognition of the general’s military shortcomings probably affected the soldiers’ response to his preaching. Some enlisted men who heard Pendleton late in the war remained impressed—“noble” and “dignified” one auditor observed—but others scorned even his performance in the pulpit. A First Corps staffer described him as “a stupid old useless fool.” Robert E. Lee’s chief of staff reportedly felt sorry when he heard officers make Pendleton the butt of jokes.

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