By Tom Perry
The Post Returns reported on January 1859 that James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart was sick at Fort Riley in Kansas Territory. His Company G left Fort Riley on 3-Jan-1859 for Fort Scott, two hundred miles away on the Missouri border. After traveling 120 miles, they were recalled to Fort Riley on 16-Jan-1859.
The next two months saw 1st Lt Stuart in the 1st U.S. Cav Co G at Fort Riley, including a stint as Assistant Adjutant General. Stuart was granted a furlough on April 7, 1859, with permission to apply for two extensions, totaling a Leave of Absence of six months.
It was July 1859 before Stuart left. The month before leaving Kansas, Stuart wrote a letter to his West Point Bible Study partner, Oliver Otis Howard, which is in his collection at Bowdoin College in Maine. “I was gratified to learn that you were accomplishing so much good in a Christian sphere at West Point. I wish you from my heart God’s Speed. I devotedly trust that we both may in our day and generation be instruments of good.”
Stuart left on 15-July-1859. He would first headed to Saint Louis, where he was confirmed in the Episcopal Church of his mother, Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart, by Bishop Hawkes. He had joined the Methodist Church while a student at Emory and Henry College in southwest Virginia. He attended an Episcopal Convention in Richmond. Stuart assisted in the founding of a church in Junction City, near Fort Riley, which today bears a plaque at the entrance commemorating Stuart’s involvement.
Stuart visited Emory and Henry and spoke to the Hermesians, a debating society at the small Methodist college. He told the story that the last time he had been there, he had fallen off the stage trying to impress a young lady.
I believe this was the last time Stuart visited his birthplace, Laurel Hill, in Patrick County, Virginia, as his mother sold the property that year to her doctor, Joseph Hollingsworth, and to businessman Robert Galloway, who built the opera house that still sits on Main Street in Mount Airy, North Carolina.
In October 1859, Stuart would encounter an old nemesis, John Brown, at Harper’s Ferry, which will be covered by another story in this series. By Christmas, Stuart and his family were back at Fort Riley, where Flora Stuart was pregnant, and they returned on November 25.
On December 17, 1859, Stuart was commanding a detachment of 20 recruits for the 1st Cavalry. Stuart wrote to George W Cullum, who was working on a Register of Officers and Graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point in December 1859. Here are some of his own words about his military career up to that time.
“At the age of 15, I volunteered for the Mexican War, but was not accepted on account of my youth. In 1850, I entered West Point. In 1854, I graduated, and in the fall of the same year, being attached as a Brevet 2nd Lieutenant to the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen, I was ordered to join my company in Western Texas. Before I reached my company (October 31) I was promoted to a 2nd Lieutenancy in Company “G” same regiment and joined it in the winter February 3 of 1855, on an expedition against the Muscalero Apaches, commanded by Major Simonson, F. M. R. about 100 miles north of Fort Davis, having marched on horseback from Corpus Christi, Texas to that point between the December 28 ’54, and February 3, ’55. I remained on that cold winter’s campaign in the field and almost constantly in the saddle until May 8 of that year, when I received my transfer as 2nd Lieutenant to one of the new regiments (1st Cavalry), for which I started immediately traversing on horseback the distance from Fort Davis to Indianola, Texas. I joined my Company “H” at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, in June and was immediately assigned to the command of it and to the duty of Acting Adjutant. A few days after I was assigned to the command of “C” Company, I continued performing this threefold duty till June 17, when the regiment was ordered to Fort Leavenworth, to which point I conducted the two companies I commanded by steamer, arriving there June 23, ’55. July 5, I was appointed Reg[imental] Q[uarter]m[aster] in addition to the command of two companies, and was also assigned to the duties of Assistant Adjutant of Commissary of Subsistance. In August (7) and September (10), I was relieved by the proper officers of the command of the companies. I accompanied seven companies of Cavalry under Colonel Sumner on the Sioux Expedition (September 19) as Ch. Quartermaster of the command, returning to Leavenworth with that command November 4, 1855—promoted to 1st Lieutenant 1st Cavalry December 20, 1855. The foregoing is, I know, very egotistical, and I may have dwelt on unimportant heads, but it is true, and you may extract such as answers the purposes of my history.”
Today, the U.S. Cavalry Museum is located at Fort Riley, and Fort Scott is a National Park.
