On May 8, 1864, James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart fought his last battle with Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Laurel Hill in Spotsylvania County. Infantrymen wrote of seeing Stuart in the road directing traffic. “All remember the person of that cavalry officer, Stuart, as he sat his charger on that morning at the edge of the open field and encouraged us. General Stuart stood and witnessed the encounter from his position on the hill, and after the battle was over, he came up and congratulated our colonel on the conduct of his men. This was our last view of him.” “Sitting on his horse amidst a storm of bullets, laughing and joking with the men and commending them highly for their courage and for the rapidity and accuracy of their fire. He was as cool as a piece of ice, though all the time laughing.”
The next day, one resident reported that “the roads are full of Yankees.” Phil Sheridan, commanding the cavalry of the U. S. Army of the Potomac, took his men south from Fredericksburg towards Richmond. The column was 13 miles long, with 12,000 men, and took 4 hours to pass. James H. Kidd called it “the most superb force of mounted men that had been assembled under one leader on this continent.”
On May 9, 1864, Stuart was at Spotsylvania Courthouse. Edward Porter Alexander saw Stuart sitting under an apple tree near Spotsylvania Court House, “He was in his usual high spirits and cheerful mood, and of course we laughed…In him, we lost a soldier whose qualities were as rare and high as his personal character was admirable and attractive. Of all our officers who did not rise to command independent armies, I have always believed that Stuart and Hampton were the fittest.”
Stuart was outnumbered 2 to 1 took three brigades, leaving cavalry with Lee to watch and fight Grant. Stuart took the brigades of James B. Gordon, Fitzhugh Lee, Williams Carter Wickham, and Lunsford Lindsay Lomax. Born in 1835, Lomax was a graduate of West Point in 1856. Stuart saved him in 1857 from a Cheyenne Indian. After the war, he went on to be President of Virginia Tech. He worked on the Official Records and became a Commissioner of Gettysburg National Military Park.
On May 10, Stuart faced a grim situation. Personal concerns were involved as his wife, Flora, and children were staying nearby at the home of Colonel Edmund Fontaine, President of the Virginia Central Railroad. Major Reid Venable rode with Stuart to the house. Stuart did not dismount but spent several private moments with Flora. She and the two surviving children were safe. Stuart kissed her and rode off. They would not see each other again.
Stuart was quiet after the meeting, expressing to Venable that he never expected to outlive the war and did not want to if the South were defeated. H. B. McClellan noted Stuart was not excited. “He was more quiet than usual, softer and more communicative.” “It seems now that the shadow of the near future was already upon him.” One of the buglers in his command said, “General, I believe you are happy in a fight.” Jeb replied, “I don’t love bullets any better than you do. It is my duty to go where they are sometimes, but I don’t expect to survive this war.”
One Confederate said that May 11, 1864, was “the darkest day I have seen since I have been in the service.” Venable spoke up to Stuart saying that he was exposing himself on horseback while men behind fences and stumps were being killed. “I don’t reckon there is any danger!” The Battle of Yellow Tavern began.
Theodore Garnett said Stuart was everywhere, “directing their fire and making his dispositions for the coming battle.” One man with Stuart that day was James T. W. Clements of the 6th Virginia Cavalry, who had seen Turner Ashby in 1862 say, “Now is our time boys. Follow me, we’ll drive them back or die.” and then saw Ashby killed on the road to the Port Republic. Now he wound stand and be captured with the 6th Virginia and be within sight of J.E.B. Stuart when he was mortally wounded. Clements rests today in Hunter’s Chapel Church in Ararat, Virginia.
Lomax attacked “like an arrow from a crossbow.” Stuart cheered them, waving his sword. “Charge Virginians and save those Marylanders. Bully for old K, Give it to them, boys.” Stuart fired his revolver “as coolly as I could fire at a squirrel.” Stuart and Dorsey were firing into the flank of the enemy. “General Stuart, as usual, was in the hottest of the fight, cheering the men–and emptied his revolver into the enemy at close range.”
James Ewell Brown Stuart was alone. The man with the most staff officers in the history of the Army of Northern Virginia was with men from a company of the First Virginia Cavalry, the first regiment he commanded for the South at a battle named for a yellow tavern, yellow for the cavalry. One Confederate wrote of the Yankees. “As they retired, one man who had been dismounted in the charge and was running out on foot turned as he passed the general, and discharging his pistol inflicted the mortal wound.”
Stuart held onto the pummel of his saddle as his plumed hat fell to the ground. James D. Oliver of 1st Virginia wrote, “The bullet struck Stuart in the side. I saw him press his hand to his side and said to him: ‘General, are you hit?’ ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘Are you wounded badly?’ ‘I am afraid I am, but don’t worry boys Fitz will do as well for you as I have done.’” “General Stuart was suffering such pain that he insisted upon getting off the horse and lying on the ground. We kept him on the horse until we got him to the ambulance.”
Stuart sees men retreating and yells, “Go back, go back, and do your duty, as I have done mine, and our country will be safe. Go back, Go back! I had rather die than be whipped.” Stuart was taken to the home of his brother-in-law, Dr. Charles Brewer, on Grace Street in Richmond, where he died the next day, May 12, 1864.
W. Blackford wrote in his book War Years With JEB Stuart that a white cross was erected at the site. “I had a large cross sixteen feet high made of cedar with the inscription cut on it in neat large letters,’ Here fell Gen J. E. B. Stuart, May 11, 1864.’” The present day marker at Yellow Tavern was placed in 1888 by the men who served under Stuart.
