On Wednesday, June 26, 1861, Richard Ashby, captain of the Fauquier Mountain Rangers, found himself in a desperate hand-to-hand fight with mounted scouts from the 11th Indiana Infantry Regiment near where Dan’s Run empties into the Potomac River in northern Hampshire County, Virginia. Richard was the younger brother of Turner Ashby, who would later win fame as Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s cavalry commander during the 1862 Valley Campaign. By the time Turner arrived, Richard had been severely wounded and left for dead.
Following a sharp fight of his own on Kelly’s Island, Turner brought him to Ridgedale, George W. Washington’s stately three-story Greek Revival home. At first, Richard appeared likely to recover, but after clinging to life for a week, he died on July 3. Turner then wrote the following letter to their sister, Dorothea Farrar Moncure, who lived with her husband in Stafford County. It has since been reproduced, in whole or in part, in several books.
CAMP WASHINGTON, July 7th, 1861.
DEAR DORA:
I received your letter a few days ago, and take this evening to write you a few lines, urging and entreating, that you may all look upon our affliction as patriots, not selfishly mourning over our untimely loss, but regarding it as a sacrifice made upon the altar of our country, which we ought to congratulate ourselves that we could furnish. Poor Dick went into the war like myself, not to regard himself or our friends, but to serve our country in this the time of peril. I know your Ma and Mary will all be too good soldiers to grudge giving to your country the dearest sacrifice that you could provide. Yours is the good fortune to be called upon to provide so great an offering.—His country has lost the services of a brave man with a strong arm, which he proved upon her enemies in losing his life. As he has ever won praises from them for the greatest bravery they ever saw, you all (and I mean this for you all) do not know what a weight it would take from me to know you bore our loss like soldiers. I had rather it had been myself. He was younger and had one more tie to break than I. But seeing him through the time of his prostration from his wounds, I know that he felt that he was but losing his life in the cause of duty, and seemed entirely resigned, not desponding at the doubts which he knew there existed of his life. We all believed a part of the time that he would recover; at one time he thought so too. But the exposure without attention for several hours upon the battle-field so prostrated him as to make it hard for reaction to take place, which kept him from having any appetite. He lived until the eighth day, suffering very little for one so cut to pieces.
He was buried with all the honors of war, and never was greater respect paid to the memory of one man; it was indeed a triumph of his bravery. I had him buried in a beautiful cemetery in Romney; and should I live through the war, I will have him moved to Fauquier. Mine has been the heaviest loss. I lose the strength of his arm in the fight as well as the companion of my social hours. I mean to bear it as a soldier, and not as one who in this time for sacrifices regards only his own loss. You must all try to bear it in the same way. Let it be your boast that you have given a brother for the safety of your country and the preservation of your homes, and Ma that she has given a son for such a cause as ours. When men die as he has died, (and as he prepared to die), for liberty, it shows our enemies that we cannot be conquered. It saves the lives of many.
George is well and sends his love to his wife. Our movements from here are not yet determined. I may not write often, but should there be anything the matter will do so at once.
Yours truly,
TURNER ASHBY.
George Jackson, mentioned in the closing paragraph, was one of Turner Ashby’s slaves (sometimes called a body servant). Having grown up together, the two shared a close, longstanding relationship. Little is known about Jackson, but he was likely married to a woman named Betsy and lived until 1905.
In his letter, Ashby emphasized that Richard understood he was dying in the performance of his duty, accepted death without despair, and suffered relatively little. This was an attempt to reassure their family that he died bravely and with a clear sense of purpose.
It is notable that only a few months after Virginia voted to secede, Ashby spoke of “our country,” clearly referring not to the United States but to the Confederacy. That does not necessarily mean his former American identity had vanished overnight. Rather, his allegiance to Virginia had superseded it, allowing him to transfer the familiar language of American patriotism like country, liberty, sacrifice, and resistance to conquest to the Confederate cause.
The most compelling feature of the letter is the tension between its public language and private emotion. Ashby is trying to persuade his family, and perhaps himself, that Richard’s death served a noble purpose. Yet his repeated insistence on courage and sacrifice cannot conceal the depth of his grief. The letter is therefore both a statement of Confederate patriotism and an intimate record of a brother struggling to make an unbearable loss meaningful.
Sources
Ashby, Thomas A. Life of Turner Ashby. The Neale Publishing, Co., 1914.
Avirett, James B. The Memoirs of General Turner Ashby and His Compeers. Selby & Dulany, 1867.
Bushong, Millard K. General Turner Ashby and Stonewall’s Valley Campaign. McClure Printing Company, Inc., 1980.
Cunningham, Frank. Knight of the Confederacy: Gen. Turner Ashby. The Naylor Company, 1960.
Spirit of '61 