J.E.B. Stuart: A Renamed Son, a $5,000 Saber Hook and Yellow Tavern

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James Ewell Brown Stuart, born in Virginia in 1833, was nicknamed Beauty at West Point for his short chin and grew a full beard as soon as regulations allowed. He graduated 13th, his rank hurt by poor drawing, and served in Texas and Bleeding Kansas, where in 1857 a Cheyenne warrior's pepperbox pistol fired point-blank into his chest barely broke the skin. In 1859 he sold rights to his patented saber hook to the government for $5,000, and while in Washington he joined Robert E. Lee at Harpers Ferry, delivering surrender terms and recognizing John Brown. When his father-in-law, Philip St. George Cooke, stayed with the Union in 1861, Stuart renamed his infant son to remove Cooke's name.

Stuart rode into battle in a red-lined cape, yellow sash and ostrich plume, wearing cologne and followed by a banjo player, yet avoided alcohol and tobacco. He formed an unlikely partnership with Stonewall Jackson, rode 150 miles around the Union army in 1862 with 1,200 men while Cooke tried to catch him, seized John Pope's dress uniform at Catlett Station and led Jackson's corps at Chancellorsville. In June 1863 his grand reviews were followed by a surprise attack at Brandy Station, and on the road to Gettysburg he took 140 wagons and lost touch with Lee, who greeted him with "Well, General, you are here at last." In May 1864, against Philip Sheridan at Yellow Tavern, he was shot by dismounted Private John A. Huff and died the next day at 31.

• Stuart described his whirlwind engagement to Flora Cooke by adapting Caesar: I came, I saw, I was conquered.
• He publicly wished that George H. Thomas, a Virginian loyal to the Union, would be hanged as a traitor.
• The episode weighs Lee's vague orders against Stuart's choices in the debate over Gettysburg.
• His last battlefield order told his men to go back and do their duty, saying he would rather die than be whipped.
• Flora wore black for six decades, and his Richmond statue was removed in 2020.