The Valley Campaign was an American Civil War campaign led by the Confederate general Stonewall Jackson in March-June 1862 with the goal of clearing the Shenandoah Valley of Union forces. Despite having inferior numbers, he defeated the Union over twelve times in battle and threatened Washington DC.
Background[]
By spring 1862, Confederate survival was threatened by a series of military setbacks. Stonewall Jackson's campaign in the Shenandoah Valley looked set to be another. General Stonewall Jackson was placed in command of the Confederate Department of Northern Virginia in October 1861, with responsibility for the defense of the 150-mile long Shenandoah Valley. The following winter his insistence on campaigning in harsh weather brought his troops close to mutiny. Some of his officers complained to politicians and it was with some difficulty that he was dissuaded from resigning.
The Confederacy's setbacks in the Western theater in the first months of 1862 included the losses of New Orleans and Forts Henry and Donelson. In Virginia, by May, Union general George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac had landed on the Virginia Peninsula and advanced to within a few miles of Richmond.
Campaign[]
Union forces made the first move in the campaign in March 1862. Their aim was to eliminate any offensive threat from General Jackson's small army in the Valley, thereby allowing Union troops to be switched from the defense of Washington to the attack on Richmond. Major General Nathaniel P. Banks led an army across the Potomac River, forcing Jackson, who was heavily outnumbered, to withdraw south from his base at Winchester.
Pursuing the Confederates for some 50 miles, a Union division under Brigadier General James Shields lost contact and assumed Jackson had withdrawn. But as Shields returned toward Winchester, Jackson pursued him and counterattacked. Wounded, Shields ceded command to Colonel Nathan Kimball, who defeated the Confederates at Kernstown on 23 March. Jackson retreated, having lost around a third of his force, yet the strategic effect of the battle was everything the Confederates could have desired. Startled by Jackson's aggression, Union commanders redoubled their efforts to crush him. As long as Jackson kept campaigning, Union troops would not be transferred from Washington to Richmond.
Jackson's success in the subsequent campaign would depend on two factors: speed of movement, achieved by driving his marching men so hard they became known as the "foot cavalry;" and superior intelligence. The latter derived both from cooperation on the part of the local population, who gave Jackson information about enemy movements, and from the work of staff cartographer Jedediah Hotchkiss, who made accurate maps of the Valley.
Confederate numbers bolstered[]
Backed by Robert E. Lee, then President Jefferson Davis' military advisor, Jackson was reinforced by the dispatch of a division under Major General Richard S. Ewell. Jackson and Ewell proved effective partners, both thoroughly eccentric men but fierce fighting generals. By mid-April, Jackson was on the move again. He utterly confused his enemy by crossing the Blue Ridge Mountains toward Richmond, only to return by train to Staunton at the southern end of the Valley. He then struck westward, where a Union army under Major General John C. Fremont was trying to push through the mountains of western Virginia into east Tennessee. Jackson's men defeated FRemont's advance guard at the hamlet of McDowell on 8 May, which alerted UNion General Nathaniel Banks to expect trouble. He took up a position across the main road at Strasburg, but Jackson and Ewell marched hard and fast around his flank. They defeated a small Union force at Front Royal on 22 May and threatened to cut Banks' line of communication. As his column raced to withdraw from Strasburg to Winchester, the Confederates attacked. With an extraordinary effort, Jackson's and Ewell's exhausted troops continued the fight until Winchester was taken.
Union forces diverted[]
President Lincoln was pushed into the aggressive response that Confederate strategy had desired. He diverted a corps under Brigadier General Irvin McDowell, previously bound for Richmond, into the Valley to join with Fremont and Banks in an operation to trap and destroy Jackson's army. Together they would have 60,000 men to Jackson's 17,000. Alert to the danger, Jackson drove his men by a series of forced marches from the environs of Harpers Ferry back through Strasburg - just before a Union pincer movement would have cut the road - to the only surviving bridge across the South Fork of the Shenandoah River at Port Republic. The Confederates had marched 140 miles in a week, losing hundreds of stragglers along the way. Now Jackson and Ewell turned their forces to face their pursuers.
Two Union columns, led respectively by Fremont and Shields, advanced on Port Republic. They were separated by the river, the Confederates controlling the only bridge. Ewell's division met Fremont's troops at Cross Keys on 8 June and repelled them, despite a Union numerical advantage of two to one. The following day two brigades of Shields' division reached Port Royal and narrowly failed to seize the bridge - almost capturing Jackson as well. Jackson's troops fought back, forcing the Union forces to quit the field after heavy losses on both sides. As neither Fremont nor Shields chose to renew the fighting, the Shenandoah Valley Campaign came to an end.
Aftermath[]
Occurring against a backdrop of Confederate defeats elsewhere, Jackson's victories in the Shenandoah Valley were a major morale-booster for the Confederacy. In June 1862, under the command of Robert E. Lee, Jackson moved out of the Valley to lead a surprise attack on the right flank of the Union army in front of Richmond, in what would become the Seven Days Battles. The Shenandoah Valley was the scene of heavy fighting in two further campaigns in 1864. In the second, Union general Philip Sheridan used scorched earth tactics to render the Valley useless to the Confederates.