J.E.B. Stuart: Gettysburg Scapegoat?

By Daniel Zimmerman

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Following the Confederate debacle at Gettysburg, many blamed Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart for leaving General Robert E. Lee in the dark. But was Stuart really to blame for the defeat? And if so, was he the only one at fault?

The guns had scarcely fallen silent at Gettysburg before the questions and recriminations began. Disappointed Southerners refused to believe that the infallible Robert E. Lee could lose a battle, particularly one as vital as Gettysburg. Someone else must be to blame. Even after Lee himself had said (with much reason), “It is all my fault,” supporters inside and outside the Army began looking about for a convenient scapegoat. They quickly found one in the outsized personality of Major General J.E.B. Stuart, Lee’s flamboyant cavalry chief.

Criticism of Stuart, which began as a murmur among Lee’s personal staff, soon exploded onto the front pages of prominent Southern newspapers, which were read by both private citizens and high-ranking members of the Confederate government. At issue was Stuart’s supposed failure to provide Lee with crucial information about the enemy’s troop movements in the days leading up to Gettysburg. This lack of accurate intelligence, it was said, had caused Lee to blunder into a battle he did not seek, on ground he did not choose. It was all Stuart’s fault, for going off on an ill-advised raid around the Union army when Lee needed him close at hand. Contrary to popular belief, however, Stuart had followed Lee’s orders strictly, if not perhaps totally, and he was innocent of the harshest accusations made against him. In no way did Stuart’s raid deprive Lee of the cavalry needed to monitor his opponent’s movements, only of the officers skilled enough to do so successfully.

How, then, did Stuart become the scapegoat of Gettysburg? Simply put, he was at the end of a long chain of mistakes and misjudgments stretching from the commanding general to a lone scout on horseback. Indeed, there is a certain inevitability to the miscarried raid and its aftermath, an inevitability rooted in the personalities of Lee, Stuart and the many others who contributed, either actively or passively, to the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg. And if Stuart himself was not completely blameless, he had a great deal of company.

Planning for the raid began on the morning of June 22, 1863, three days after the vanguard of Lee’s army had crossed into Pennsylvania on its second massive invasion of the North, when Stuart asked Lee for guidance in the next phase of the campaign. Specifically, he wondered which route he should take while following the infantry into enemy territory. If he moved down the Shenandoah Valley west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, he might alert Union cavalry to Lee’s hitherto carefully screened advance. If, on the other hand, he moved east from his camp at Rector’s Cross Roads (near Salem), he could cross the Potomac between Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s Union army and Washington, D.C. Such a move might throw the Federals into confusion and give Lee an extra advantage on his move north.

Stuart sent his request for guidance to Lee through I Corps commander Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, who responded with his own recommendation: “I think your passage of the Potomac by our rear at the present will, in a measure, disclose our plans. You had better not leave us, therefore, unless you can take the route in rear of the enemy.” It was the first of several mixed messages Stuart received from his immediate superiors. Later that same day, Lee responded with a letter of his own, stating: “If you find that he [Hooker] is moving northward, and that two brigades can guard the Blue Ridge and take care of your rear, you can move with the other three into Maryland, and take position on General [Richard] Ewell’s right, place yourself in communication with him, guard his flank, keep him informed of the enemy’s movements, and collect all the supplies you can for the use of the army.”

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