Stonewall's Man: Sandie Pendleton

Rating:
Summary: Another forgotten hero
Review: It's not often that staff officers receive the kind of attention combat commanders do, but even in the War Between the States, when staff officers frequently had as much front-lines time as private soldiers, Sandie Pendleton was something exceptional. W.G. Bean does an excellent job showing us why.

I first encountered Alexander Swift 'Sandie' Pendleton in Douglas Southall Freeman's essential 'Lee's Lieutenants,' in which he cites the need for a comprehensive biography of this important officer. A few years later (Freeman wrote in the 1940s, and 'Stonewall's Man' was first published in 1959), W.G. Bean -- appropriately, the Douglas Southall Freeman Professor of History at Pendleton's alma mater, Washington and Lee University -- took up the challenge. This is a sympathetic, but still thorough, look at the man 'Stonewall' Jackson 'loved like a son,' and Dick Ewell called 'the most promising young man' in the Army of Northern Virginia.

Pendleton was something of an intellectual, having graduated from Washington College (later W&L University) and entered the M.A. program at the University of Virginia when the War began. His quick and organized mind was ideally suited to the needs of a military staff, and he quickly made himself invaluable to Generals Jackson and Ewell. By the time of his death in 1864, shortly before his 24th birthday, he had risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and was assistant adjutant general (essentially, chief of staff) of the Second Corps.

Bean does a fine job of relating all this. He also doesn't skip on the equally important details of Sandie's personal life, particularly his romance with, and marriage to, Kate Corbin. This book is filled with excerpts from Sandie and Kate's personal letters, as well as those of their families and friends. By the time the book is complete, I felt I knew Sandie well, and, with his wife and family, genuinely mourned his untimely death.

Freeman said that part of his motivation in writing 'Lee's Lieutenants' was to rescue from obscurity some of the lesser-known commanders and officers of the Confederate armies. Today, when any acknowledgement (let alone defense) of the CSA is considered in some quarters a 'hate crime,' Freeman's mission is more important than ever. I'm very pleased, therefore, that 'Stonewall's Man' has been re-released, and urge its study by anyone interested in the Army of Northern Virginia. The staff corps, too, has its heroes, and Sandy Pendleton's is a life worthy of remembering and respecting.

Rating:
Summary: Stonewall Jackson's Right Hand Man
Review: Stonewall's Man, by W.G. Bean, is the biography of Alexander Swift "Sandie" Pendleton, 1841-64, who is best known as Chief of Staff to General T. J. "Stonewall" Jackson during the American Civil War. Bean, Professor of History at Washington and Lee University, focuses on Sandie's life and family, bringing the major events of the Civil War into the story only to the extent that Sandie played a role in them or they played a role in Sandie's life. This style gives the book two parallel themes: (1) The role of the military staff during the Civil War and (2) The life and everyday events of ordinary individuals in caught up in the midst of the Civil War.

At the time of the Civil War, the military staff had not grown the prominence it achieved only a few years later in the Prussian army, let alone the bloated status it "enjoys" today. Jackson's Second Corps, at its height, was composed of perhaps 30,000 men, and the staff typically numbered about four or five officers, including the Corps surgeon, Dr. Hunter McGuire. Its role was to facilitate Jackson's communication of with his subordinate commanders and with higher Headquarters, i.e., General Lee. In this era, "communications" meant hand written communications when time allowed and oral communications otherwise. During battles, "transmitting" orders typically meant getting on a horse and riding until Sandie found the intended recipient. Along the way, he was expected to render all appropriate support as dictated by the situation: Rallying retreating troops, bringing damaged artillery back into action, and, on his own initiative, improvising and acting for the commander. There was, and still is, a very delicate balancing act between acting on one's initiative and overstepping one's limited authority. Apparently, Sandie, at the ages of 21 to 23, had an extraordinary sense of this balance as he was held in the highest regard by both Jackson and his subordinate commanders. In addition, Sandie enjoyed an unusually close personal relationship with his notoriously tight lipped commander. After Jackson's death at Chancellorsville in May 1863, Sandie enjoyed similar professional relations with Jackson's successors, Generals Ewell and Early, although his personal relations with them were less close than with Jackson. Sandie was killed in late 1864 in the Battle of Fisher's Hill between Early and Union General Sheridan who had embarked on the burning of the Shenandoah Valley to starve the Confederacy into submission.

Sandie had been offered promotion from his staff position as a Lieutenant Colonel to command of a bigade as a Brigadier General. He declined the promotion as he thought the staff position carried greater responsibility. It did. Sandie greatly ehnanced the effectiveness of the Jackson's command. He was the war's most effective staff officer, highly adept at implementing the orders of its most brilliant general.

The personal life of Sandie Pendleton centers about his parents, his sisters, and his wife, Kate Corbin, to whom he was married less than a year prior to his death. All were prolific letter writers which provided Professor Bean with his primary source material. Sandie's relationship with his father, William Nelson Pendleton, is particularly interesting. W. N. Pendleton was, successively, a West Point graduate, Episcopal minister, headmaster of the Episcopal High School in Alexandria, VA, rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Lexington, VA, master of a boy's prep school in Lexington, and Brigadier General and commander of Jackson's artillery. He evidently had a profound influence on his son who taught in his father's prep school and hoped to follow his steps into the ministry. Serving on Jackson's staff while his father was an important subordinate commander must have further complicated Sandie's balancing act as chief of Jackson' staff. The personal events and letters of the family paint a clear and sad picture of lives caught up in the tragedy of the Civil War in Virginia. For example, in approximately one year, Kate Corbin lost three small nieces and nephews, her brother, her new husband, and their son who was born shortly after his father's death.

Professor Bean's narrative also indirectly highlights the prominent role of religion in every aspect of these people's lives. Many of us today tend to forget, if we ever knew, that the Civil War and American Revolution both had aspects of religious crusades, the Civil War on both sides, the Revolution primarily on the American side. For more on this theme, see Kevin Phillips, The Cousins Wars.