Review - "Stonewall Jackson’s Winter Operations: The Raids Against the C&O Canal and the Bath-Romney Campaign, December 1861 to February 1862" by Timothy Snyder

[Stonewall Jackson’s Winter Operations: The Raids Against the C&O Canal and the Bath-Romney Campaign, December 1861 to February 1862 by Timothy R. Snyder (Savas Beatie, 2026). Hardcover, 6 maps, photos, illustrations, footnotes, appendix section, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:xxii,253/315. ISBN:978-1-61121-771-1. $32.95]

While he had justly earned his immortalizing nickname months earlier for his stalwart actions on Henry House Hill during the First Manassas battle, the Thomas J. Jackson of the winter of 1861-62 was not yet the "Stonewall" Jackson of legend. Though his lackluster performance during the Seven Days, a far more significant episode wedged between his Shenandoah Valley Campaign masterpiece and his daring drive into the Union rear that set up the smashing Confederate victory at Second Manassas, has inspired heaps of modern criticism, Jackson's operations along the Virginia-Maryland border from December 1861 to February 1862 clearly represent another Civil War career low point. Analysis of Jackson's flaws in personality, judgment, and command style that were exposed during that early phase of his Civil War career is central to the narrative presented in Timothy Snyder's Stonewall Jackson’s Winter Operations: The Raids Against the C&O Canal and the Bath-Romney Campaign, December 1861 to February 1862.

The reader will not progress very far into the book's introduction before realizing that the author does not rank among Jackson's modern devotees. While it is true that previous generations of writers too often downplayed the worst moments of Stonewall Jackson's Civil War career (of which this campaign was one), with some arguably blind to Jackson's faults, the more recent literature probably deserves more credit from the author for being reasonably well balanced in nature, with admirers, detractors, and those in between together presenting a suitably nuanced overall assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of Jackson's Civil War generalship.

Detailed in the book are Jackson's December raids along the Upper Potomac and his follow-on military operations against the Union-occupied towns of Bath and Romney. The goal was to inflict lasting damage to two strategically significant regional transportation networks, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal linking Washington, D.C. and Cumberland, Maryland. In addition to supporting the movement of troops and supplies, much of the region's coal was transported along those routes for military and civilian purposes. By sweeping Union forces from those parts of Virginia that effectively shielded the railroad and canal (hopefully destroying them in the process), Jackson intended to establish long-term disruption to both routes. For Union forces, in addition to protecting those vital logistical arteries, occupation of Romney and Bath threatened Confederate-held Winchester and the rest of the Lower Shenandoah Valley, the defense of which were key parts of Jackson's Valley District command responsibilities.

The author of the 2011 study Trembling in the Balance: The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal during the Civil War, Snyder's established expertise on that subject serves him well in this volume. In addition to explaining why the C&O was such an important means of bulk transportation (especially for coal), the book details a series of Confederate winter raids—one against Dam Number 4 and three against Dam Number 5—none of which were able to inflict any lasting damage. As the author explains, the Confederate raids, which involved both infantry and cavalry forces, were ineffectual for a number of reasons. The Confederate raiders lacked blasting powder for breaching the dams and artillery fire was not used after it was determined that ammunition stockpiles were insufficient for that purpose. Instead, the dismantling process was to be achieved through hand-wielded tools, an iffy proposition under the best conditions let alone in icy winter waters against armed opposition. If that weren't bad enough, the well-positioned Union defenders across the water were both hypervigilant and highly mobile, able to quickly concentrate against as well as outrange their Confederate opponents with disruptive field artillery and rifle fire. Without the unrestricted freedom necessary to complete the laborious process of destroying the dams by hand, the Confederates were rather easily rebuffed at every turn. Description and analysis of these events, along with a properly framed appreciation of the canal's economic and military significance to the Union war effort, form one of the book's most important contributions.

Frustrated by the lack of success against the C&O but substantially reinforced by General W.W. Loring's small Army of the Northwest, Jackson was determined to clear Union forces from his district's western flank (hopefully eliminating the Union garrisons at Bath and Romney in the process) and destroy vital B&O infrastructure in the area. The problem was that achieving this would involve an arduous winter campaign in the Allegheny Mountains. As Snyder describes in the book, Jackson advanced on Bath from multiple directions, but the alert Union defenders were able to break contact and outrace his advance forces to the Potomac crossings. Finding further progress blocked at and around Hancock, Jackson bombarded the town, but the defenders there on the other side of river under fiery and aggressive Union commander Frederick Lander refused to surrender. Jackson next turned to Romney, but the defenders there retreated before his combined forces arrived, again denying the Confederates the possibility of capturing or destroying significant Union forces in the area. As was the case with the C&O, no long-term damage was inflicted upon B&O bridges and tracks during the brief Confederate occupation, and the campaign basically ended with Loring's men left behind to garrison Romney while Jackson's men returned to Winchester. The Confederates then fell into demoralizing internal squabbling that almost resulted in Jackson leaving the army altogether. In the end, Loring's isolated command was ordered to Winchester and Union forces rushed back into the ensuing void, reasserting control that would effectively last throughout the rest of the war.

At best, the benefits reaped from occupying Bath and Romney and in sweeping Union forces across the Potomac were minimal and temporary. Though it is difficult to fault Jackson too much for not being able to capture or destroy Union forces in the area given that they ran away at the Confederate approach, management of the campaign still left much to be desired. As the author explains, some of Jackson's missteps could be attributed to his high command inexperience, both in mountain operations during wintertime and in leading far more troops (approximately 8,500 officers and men, though fewer effectives) than he ever had before. Snyder also gives Jackson, who was without the services of his chief quartermaster John Harman, poor marks in logistical management of the campaign as evidenced by the extreme non-combat losses incurred during the campaign. By some estimates, these reductions in force numbered anywhere from one-quarter to one-third of the army's total strength, filling the military hospitals with sick and otherwise temporarily incapacitated soldiers. In analyzing those claims, Snyder justifiably contends that Jackson pushed too many of the men under his command beyond their physical limits, though one might also argue that other Confederate leaders during this time, notably those in charge of the concurrent Fort Donelson campaign over in Tennessee, contributed to military disaster by not being willing enough to test the limits of their men's endurance. At this stage of the war, Jackson also tended to overestimate the offensive capabilities of militia forces under his command. In relation to his militia and regular officers alike, he then compounded the situation by equating a lack of success (regardless of the cause or causes) with willful failure to perform their military duties. He also demanded blind obedience to the letter of his orders, rarely condoning independent initiative in reaction to changing circumstances. What couldn't be chalked up to inexperience were Jackson's extreme level of operational planning secrecy and his willingness to bypass the chain of command, both of which frustrated and infuriated principal subordinates such as Loring. These would be common complaints from those who served under Jackson (even the general's own staff members) throughout his remaining Civil War career.

Arguably Jackson's biggest mistake after securing Romney was in widely dividing his forces while in such close proximity to the enemy, who could easily rush in forces by rail to position superior forces against Confederate communications. By leaving Loring's command isolated in Romney and marching the rest to Winchester, Jackson was seemingly repeating Confederate president Jefferson Davis's disastrous national cordon defense strategy at the district level. Though the administration held on to that strategy for too long, leading to major military disasters in the West, the danger was immediately recognized on the Virginia frontier, with Jackson being directed through War Secretary Benjamin to withdraw Loring. Jackson considered (very wrongly, in Snyder's view) those orders to be improper "interference" in his own sphere of responsibility, that clash with his superiors prompting the general to submit his resignation. Snyder provides a detailed account of General Lander's ensuing offensive operation, one that would take advantage of the enemy dispersal and attempt to trap the Romney garrison. The fortunes of war would intervene, however, as Loring was already on the move. That and another of Lander's bouts with chronic illness (on top of the festering leg wound that would eventually kill him with sepsis) together allowed Loring to escape unmolested. Nevertheless, Union forces could take pride in how they performed during the winter operations covered in the book. Success or lack of success in any military campaign results from a combination of controllable and uncontrollable factors. One might argue that Snyder's narrative, by focusing so closely on the former, primarily in the context of Jackson's alleged failures and missteps, deflects reader attention from a full appreciation of the remarkably well-managed Union response to the Confederate canal raids and the Bath-Romney Campaign that followed them.

Inadequate map coverage was a clear drawback of the winter campaign's only other book-length account, Thomas Rankin's Stonewall Jackson's Romney Campaign, January 1-February 20, 1862 (1994). There is improvement on that score with Snyder's commissioned set, with its finely detailed maps of the Upper Potomac region and mountainous area of operations west of the Shenandoah, but, save for the skirmishing at Bath and the Confederate pursuit toward Hancock, troop movements associated with the canal raids and Bath-Romney campaign are not superimposed on any of the pictured road networks. It is also the case that map coverage ends completely just beyond the volume's midpoint, before the Confederate expedition to Romney begins.

Overall, this volume is a very fine raid and campaign history that measures up strongly as the most comprehensive account of Jackson's winter operations of 1861-62. At the same time, while the author provides a noteworthy service in shining a spotlight on the earliest manifestations of the generalship flaws that would most significantly color the remainder of Jackson's Civil War career, there does come a point when the volume and tone of the criticisms pass the threshold into becoming immoderate. In interpreting matters great and small in relation to Jackson's personality, command style, and decision-making during this period of the war, Jackson's behavior and actions are at nearly every turn presented in the least favorable light. But, as they say, opinions vary, and other readers and reviewers might see it differently. It is really only near the end of the book, with the final chapter having the tonally fitting title of "Stonewall Jackson Rebuked," that the author references the likelihood of positive benefits from Jackson's highly demanding leadership and command style. Most notable is the possibility, as suggested by veteran accounts, that Jackson's insistence that subordinates strictly follow his orders to the letter (regardless of intervening circumstances) and his pushing his men to the limits of endurance had the combined effect of steeling discipline in both the officer and enlisted ranks in ways that strongly prepared those volunteers, many of whom were still relatively green citizen-soldiers, for the rigors of hard marching and hard fighting necessary to achieving victory in the upcoming Valley Campaign and beyond. In the end, though, regardless of one's feelings about where the author's analysis of Jackson himself registers on the balance meter, it is undeniable that the book is a major contribution to the history of early-war military operations along the hotly contested Virginia-Maryland border.