THE END OF J.E.B. STUART

5/12/1864 - Shot by a retreating, dismounted Michigan horseman during the Union victory at the Battle of Yellow Tavern, Confederate cavalry commander James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart (he is also known by the nicknames "Beauty" and "Knight of the Golden Spurs"), dies at the Richmond, Virginia home of his brother-in-law, Dr. Charles Brewer.  The southern beloved cavalier is only 31 years old at his passing (he will be replaced by one of his subordinates, Brigadier General Wade Hampton III). 

Stuart

Of Scottish descent, Stuart is born at the Laurel Hill Farm plantation in Patrick County, Virginia (near the state's border with North Carolina) on February 6, 1833.  The eighth of eleven children, he is the son of Archibald Stuart, a War of 1812 veteran, attorney, slaveholder, and Democratic politician (he will represent Patrick County in both houses of the Virginia Assembly and also serve as a state representative in the United States House of Representatives) and Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart, a strict religious mother who runs the family farm.  His great-grandfather, Alexander Stuart, commands a regiment during the American Revolution Battle of Guilford House, the 1781 clash that pushes Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis out of North Carolina and starts the British on the road to eventual defeat at the Battle of Yorktown in October of the same year.

Laurel Hill Farm - 2017

Archibald

Until the age of twelve, Stuart is educated at his home by his mother and a selection of tutors.  The next stage of his schooling takes place in Wytheville, Virginia, and in the town of Danville, at the home of his aunt Anne (his father's sister) and her husband (Stuart's namesake), Judge James Ewell Brown.  At the age of fifteen he enters Emory and Henry College, and attends the institution from 1848 to 1850 (in 1848, he attempts to enlist in the United States Army, but is rejected for being woefully underage).  In 1850 Stuart obtains an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, from his father's political rival, Representative Thomas Hamlet Averett, becoming a member of the fabled class of 1854 that will include eleven future colonels and ten generals that will fight against each other during the Civil War (of the 46 men that graduate from West Point in 1854, 37 will serve in either the Union or Confederate Army, where 12 will die ... first in the class is future major general George Washington Custiss Lee, the eldest son of the academy's 1852-1854 Superintendent, Robert E. Lee).  Sarcastically nicknamed "Beauty" because he is thought to not be handsome during his teenage years, Stuart is well liked by the members of his class and graduates 13th in his year, ranking 29th in engineering (his poor drawing skills prevent him from achieving a higher standing) and 10th in cavalry tactics, also gaining the rank of second captain of the corps, while also being one of eight cadets designated honorary "cavalry officers" for showing exceptional horsemanship skills.  Equally important to Stuart gaining a military education will be the horseman's introduction to Lee and his family as he becomes a friend of the Lees (Fitzhugh Lee, Robert's nephew becomes a West Point cadet in 1852) and frequently joins the family at social occasions.

West Point Pals & Future Confederate Generals

Custiss Lee (L), Stuart (C), Stephen Lee (R)

The Class Of 1854

Stuart's Class Ring

Graduating from West Point, Stuart begins his military career as a brevet second lieutenant assigned to the U.S. Regiment of Mounted Riflemen stationed in Texas.  Assigned to Fort Davis, for three months in 1855, he leads scouting missions over the road leading from San Antonio to El Paso.  Later in 1855, he is transferred to the newly formed 1st Cavalry Regiment stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Territory.  There, under the command of Colonel Edwin V. Sumner (a future United States Major General during the Civil War), he becomes the regimental quartermaster and commissary officer.  And capping off his busy year (back in Virginia, his father dies on 9/20/1855 at the age of 59), in a less than two month whirlwind, he meets, falls in love with, and marries Flora Cooke (a 34-inch by 34-inch Confederate flag sewn by Flora for Stuart to use while in the field is sold by auction for $956,000 in 2006, a world record price for any Confederate flag), the daughter of the commander of the 2nd U.S. Dragoon Regiment, Virginian Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke (the couple will have three children, the first, a daughter that dies on the day she is born in 1856, another daughter, Flora, named after her mother in 1857, and a boy, first named Philip St. George for Stuart's father-in-law, that is renamed James Ewell Brown Stuart, Jr. when senior becomes disgusted when Flora's father decides to remain in the Union Army at the beginning of the Civil War ... discussing the matter with his brother-in-law, future Confederate Brigadier General John Rogers Cooke, Stuart will say of his father-in-law's decision, "He will regret it but once, and that will be continuously.").

Father-In-Law

Flora

One of the most volatile regions in the United States before the Civil War finally begins (with cause known as "Bleeding Kansas"), Stuart's assignment to Kansas finds the horseman trying to keep the peace between battling anti-slavery and pro-slavery (the Stuart's will own two slaves, one inherited from Jeb's father's estate and one purchased) elements trying to gain control of the state, and with Plains Indians trying to prevent the government's westward expansion into their territory.  Demonstrating his leadership abilities and taking the first battle wound of his career, on July 29, 1857 at the Solomon River in Kansas, Stuart will lead a charge against a small band of Cheyenne that scatters the warriors, but results in a bullet wound to the first lieutenant's chest (luckily for Stuart, he is shot with an old-fashioned pistol and the hit barely penetrates his skin).  During this period, in October of 1859, Stuart also receives American patent #25,684 for his invention of an improved method of attaching sabers to belts with a hook (the government will pay Stuart $5,000, a sum worth $181,828.92 in 2023, for the rights to use his creation).  Back on the east coast in 1859 to oversee the manufacture of his saber hook by Knorr, Nece and Company of Philadelphia, discuss government contracts, and apply for a position to the quartermaster department, Stuart has his plans disrupted when he hears of John Brown's raid on the U.S. Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, and volunteers to be the aide-de-camp of the man given the responsibility of ending the insurrection against the government, Colonel Robert E. Lee.  Duty accepted, Lee will have Stuart, carrying a white flag, deliver to Brown his demands for the latter's surrender, and when those terms are refused, it will be Stuart who waves his hat, signaling Lt. Israel Greene's small command of Marines (11 sergeants, 13 corporals, 81 privates, 1 bugler, armed with 7 howitzers) to begin the attack on the abolitionist and his men that ends the clash (found guilty of murder, inciting a slave insurrection, and treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, Brown will be hung before a crowd of over 2,000 witnesses that includes, Robert E. Lee, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, future Lincoln assassin, John Wilkes Booth, and the poet, Walt Whitman).  Though promoted to captain, with the shelling of Fort Sumter and Virginia's secession from the Union, Stuart resigns from the U.S. Army and joins the Confederate Army as a lieutenant colonel of Virginia infantry in May of 1861.  

The Marines Attack

The Shelling Of Fort Sumter

Stuart

In the three years he has left to live, Stuart becomes one of the most beloved and controversial Southern military figures of the Civil War.  Ordered to report to Colonel Thomas Jackson (not yet a "Stonewall") by the new commander of the armed forces of Virginia, Major General Robert E. Lee, Stuart reports for duty on July 4, 1861, and is quite happy when Jackson immediately switches him from the infantry to the cavalry, putting him the rider in charge of the newly organized 1st Virginia Regiment.  On July 16th, he is promoted to full colonel, and as such, he participates in chasing the broken Federal troops as they flee back into Washington D.C. after losing the First Battle of Bull Run.  In charge of the Confederate's outposts along the upper Potomac River, he is given command of a cavalry brigade in the Army of the Potomac (the command that will soon be known as the Army of Northern Virginia) and promoted to brigadier general on September 24, 1861.  In the Peninsula Campaign of 1862 in which Major George B. McClellan and his command of 41,000, trying to reach the Confederate capital of Richmond, fight a series of battles against General Joseph Johnston's 32,000 Confederates, Stuart and his horsemen first help the southern army to successful withdraw to better defensive positions at the Battle of Williamsburg, before becoming a southern celebrity when Robert E. Lee takes over command of the army from a wounded Johnston following the Battle of Fair Oaks.  New to the field command and needing information on his foe, Lee orders Stuart to perform a reconnaissance to determine if McClellan's right flank is vulnerable.  Setting out on the morning of June 12, 1862 with 1,200 troopers to get Lee his requested information, Stuart and his command determine that the flank is indeed vulnerable, and get the information back to the general by riding completely around the Union army, a journey of 150 miles in which the southern cavalry loses only one man while capturing 165 Federals, 260 horses and mules, and a healthy variety of quartermaster and ordinance supplies, completing humiliating the Union cavalry of his father-in-law, Colonel Cooke.

Don Troiani Painting - Stuart (Center With Sword Raised)

Charging At First Bull Run

On The Circle Ride

Cultivating his role as a cavalier of the South by wearing a red-lined cape, wrapping the yellow waist sash of a regular in the cavalry about his midsection, sporting a hat cocked to the side set off by an ostrich plume, with a red rose in his lapel, golden spurs upon his boots, and often smelling of cologne, "The Ride" establishes Stuart as one of Lee's favorite officers, the eyes and ears of his army, and makes the horseman a sudden Confederate celebrity that upon his return to Richmond is greeted by cheering crowds throwing flower petals into his path (among the quirks of Stuart that the Southern command puts up with are the horseman attaching to his staff a banjo player, that provides music for the general with the assistance of two fiddlers and a servant that rattles bones for percussion, having his own reverend on his staff, Major Dabney Ball, employing a giant Prussian cavalryman, 6'3", 250 pound, Johann August Heinrich Heros von Borcke as a bodyguard, and having a mean racoon pet serve as a watchdog).  Honored for his role in circling the Federals, and an integral part of Lee's Northern Virginia Campaign to defeat the Union Army of the Potomac, now commanded by Major General John Pope, Stuart is promoted to Major General on July 25, 1862 and his command is upgraded to Army of Northern Virginia's Cavalry Division.  Burnishing his growing reputation for derring-do, he is almost captured and loses his plumed hat and cape leading a raid against his northern opponents in August of 1862 (he escapes by jumping his horse, Virginia, over a large ditch that the Federals pursuing him are forced to go around ... two other favorite mounts are named Skylark and Lady Margaret), which he turns around the next day by launching a retaliatory strike into Pope's rear at Catlett's Station, the general's headquarters, a success in which Stuart comes away with Pope's full uniform (which the horseman is willing to trade for his lost hat, but instead gives to Virginia's governor, John Lechter, who puts it on display for the public in Richmond when the offered swap is ignored) and important dispatches concerning the Union commander's movements and available reinforcements ... information which Lee will use to set off the Second Battle of Bull Run.

von Borcke

Pope
     

At the Confederate victory at Second Bull Run (8/28/1862 to 8/30/1862), Stuart's cavalry supports the flank of Major General James Longstreet's command when it launches a five division attack (25,000 men) on Pope's left flank that sends the defeated Union army back across the waters of Bull Run.  Though unable to cut off the Union retreat at Lewis's Ford due to the superior numbers of his foe, Stuart's men are able to capture over 300 Northern horsemen of Brigadier General John Buford.  Nipping at various Federal commands through the Battle of Chantilly (9/1/1862), the southern cavalry helps push Pope's army back into Washington D.C., helping open up Maryland for Lee's invasion of the state and Pope's removal from command.  During the Confederates' September Maryland campaign, when Lee splits his army into four parts, Stuart's thinly spread horsemen, along with a division of infantry, guard the rear of the Army of Northern Virginia at South Mountain, the continuation of the Blue Ridge Mountains after they enter Maryland, and a natural obstacle separating the Cumberland and Shenandoah Valleys.  He receives his first criticism for not providing information to Lee about the Union army drawing near his fragmented command (the Army of the Potomac now commanded by General George B. McClellan, who has found out Lee's plans when Corporal Barton Mitchell of the 27th Indiana Infantry discovers the southern commander's Special Order 191 by the side of a Maryland road, wrapped around three cigars) while busy resting his men for five days and putting on a gala ball for his command and the local citizenry of the town of Urbana.  Back in action at the still bloodiest single day in American history at the Battle of Antietam (the two sides combined suffer a total of 22,727, of which 3,675 soldiers are killed in action on 9/17/1862), Stuart's horse artillery bombards the Union's flank as McClellan opens the day with a bloody attack across a region that will become known in American military history as simply, "The Cornfield."  Ordered by Stonewall Jackson to circle his cavalry around the Union's right flank and rear, the movement is called off in the late afternoon when probing for a weak spot with his mobile artillery, "murderous" counterfire from Northern guns ends the cavalry's attack before it even begins.  A horrible draw that forces Lee to retreat back into Virginia, three weeks later, for 60 hours stretched over October 10th, 11th, and 12th, Stuart leads his men (1,800 men and four light cannons) on another circumnavigation of the Union command, this time a 126 mile ride and raid that sweeps west to Darkesville, West Virginia, north to the Pennsylvania communities of Mercersburg and Chambersburg, east to Emmitsburg, Maryland, and then south through Hyattstown, Maryland, across the Potomac at the village of White's Ford and back into Virginia at Leesburg.  The North embarrassed again by Stuart's horsemen, the general is widely praised again in the South for a ride that secures fresh mounts for Lee's men, along with mules, arms and supplies, destroys railroad track, buildings, and equipment near Chambersburg, results in the capture and parole (for release of an equal number of Confederate prisoners) of 30 civilian officials and 280 convalescing Federal soldiers, gathers important information on the position of Northern troops, and contributes to President Lincoln replacing McClellan with Major General Ambrose Burnside.  Sadly, while providing a screen for the movements of Major General James Longstreet's Corps and skirmishing with Union cavalry and infantry in early November at Mountville, Aldie, and Upperville, Stuart receives a telegram from his wife stating their four-year-old daughter has died of typhoid fever just a few days short of her fifth birthday.

Union Soldiers Attacking Through The Cornfield

Around The Union Army Again

Daughter Flora

No time for extended mourning with the Civil War raging in northern Virginia, Stuart is back in action in December, just in time for his command to protect Stonewall Jackson's flank at Hamilton's Crossing during the Southern Battle of Fredericksburg victory (12/11/1862 to 12/15/1862).  After Christmas, Stuart is in the saddle again, ordered by Lee to launch a raid north of the Rappahannock River to ascertain the positions and movements of the Army of the Potomac, and inflict as much damage as possible to the enemy.  Though not a circle ride, the raid (once more 1,800 men and a battery of horse artillery) extends north to four miles short of Fairfax Court Horse, Virginia, gains the information Lee is seeking, along with more mounts, mules, supplies, and ammunition for the South, and again causes humiliation for the armed forces of the Union (tapping into telegraph lines being used by the North, Stuart will intercept messages sent between Union commanders, and Stuart will himself send off a signal to the Union's Quartermaster General, Montgomery C. Meigs, requesting the general "... will in the future please furnish better mules, those you have furnished recently are very inferior."  At the Battle of Kelly's Ford (3/17/ 1863), Stuart's command blunts a Northern cavalry raid across the Rappahannock by 2,200 troopers of Brigadier General William W. Averell, but for the first time retreat before an advance of Union cavalry, and lose the leader of their horse artillery, 24-year-old Major John Pelham (a recent resignee from West Point, Lee will call him "Gallant" Pelham and Stuart will sorrow over the death of his gunner and friend, eventually naming the daughter that is born to him on October 9, 1863, Virginia Pelham Stuart) when leading troops forward, the officer has a shell go off over his head that sends a lethal splinter of shrapnel into his brain.

Meigs

Pelham

The Battle of Chancellorsville (4/30/1863 - 5/6/1863) affords Stuart an opportunity to have what many military historians consider his finest moments of the war, which in turn sets up what might be considered his worst.  When Lee defies military logic and splits his command in the face of a superior numbered army so that a surprise flank attack by Lt. General Stonewall Jackson can fall on the Army of the Potomac and it's newest commander, Major General Joseph Hooker, Stuart's command is part of the South's famous 12-mile flanking march that lands a devastating blow on the Union's XI Corps.  His cavalry in the process of pursuing retreating Federals, when Jackson and his second-in-command Major General A. P. Hill, are both wounded (shot by mistake by his own men, Jackson's wounds will prove to be mortal when he develops pneumonia as a result and dies on 5/10/1863 at the age of 39), Stuart shifts fairly flawlessly from being a cavalry commander to taking over the infantry leadership of Jackson's Corps, and it is Stuart who will continue the assaults that eventually send Hooker back across the Rappahannock River.  Flush with victory and back with his horsemen as Lee readies his command for an offensive into the North, Stuart gets permission to stage a June 5th grand review of his troopers (9,000 mounted men) and four batteries of field artillery.  The parade missed by Lee, Stuart puts on a second performance for the general and the Virginia citizens of the Culpepper region (sans the faux battle) three days later, then bivouacs his tired command at Brandy Station prior to it's launching a screening raid over the Rappahannock River.  Caught up in the strutting about though, the Southern horsemen, the author's of so many surprises on Federal forces since 1861, are themselves stunned when on June 9th, they are suddenly struck in the morning by the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac (roughly 11,000 men, including an infantry brigade of 3,000) commanded by Major General Alfred Pleasonton.  The largest clash of mounted troops in the war, the back-and-forth Battle of Brandy Station lasts ten hours and ends in a draw at sunset (the successful defense of Stuart's headquarters atop Fleetwood Hill is crucial in the battle) when the frustrated Federals cross back over the Rappahannock, but is also the end of Stuart's domination of the Union cavalry.  Criticism received for needlessly tiring out his troops, being surprised and almost losing the battle, ego ruffled, seeking to assuage the bitter of Brandy Station, Stuart uses Lee's orders to screen the Army of Northern Virginia's march into Pennsylvania as permission to launch yet another ride around the Northern Army, this time a three brigade jaunt that lasts from June 25th to July 2nd (boats of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal are captured and their cargo are plundered, miles of telegraph wires are torn down, Northern horsemen from Delaware are chased into Baltimore, 140 brand new, fully loaded wagons containing hay, bread, bacon, crackers, and ammunition, and their mule teams, become property of the Confederates at Rockville, Maryland, the Pennsylvania town of Carlisle is shelled, and almost 400 Union soldiers are taken and then paroled) and results in Lee, lacking his usual Stuart information on enemy troop movements, to stumble into the three day (7/1/1863 to 7/3/1863), turning point (the largest military clash to ever take place in North America, a tussle between over 175,000 men that will result in a butcher's bill of over 60,000 American casualties), Battle of Gettysburg.

Mort Kunstler Painting - Stuart's Grand Review

Brandy Station

Finally able to link up with the Second Corps of Lt. General Richard S. Ewell (Stonewall Jackson's command replacement) on July 2nd, Stuart reports to Lee and is rebuked by the commander for leaving the Army of Northern Virginia in the dark for over a week, but forgiven by his mentor and friend.  Given the assignment of guarding the Confederate's left while striking the right flank of the Federal army (now commanded by Major General George Meade), on the final day of Gettysburg, Stuart and three brigades of his cavalry attempt to fall on the rear of the Union army as Pickett's Charge hits the Federal front.  A potential Union disaster, Stuart's attack on the Federals (6,000 of his Southerners against Northern cavalry numbering about 3,000 troopers) at East Cavalry Field is blunted in a series of brutal frontal clashes with the Michigan horsemen (many armed with new repeating rifles) of 24-year-old Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer (who personally leads his men into battle yelling, "Come on, you Wolverines!) and troopers belonging to Colonel John Baillie McIntosh (men for the most part from New Jersey and Pennsylvania belonging to the command of Brigadier General David Gregg).  The Battle of Gettysburg finally lost with Lee's failure to break Meade's line of defense on the final day of the clash, Stuart's fatigued men (clashing with militia and Northern soldiers, they have been in the saddle for nine days) next receive the task of covering Lee's retreat and keeping Meade's army at bay, a job they accomplish (assisted by the inclement weather) skirmishing almost daily as they become the last of Lee's army to cross the swollen Potomac River and successfully reach the relative safety of Virginia on July 14, 1863.

Clash At The East Cavalry Field

Custer

Stuart

In September of 1863, still licking the wounds his army received at Gettysburg, Lee reorganizes his horsemen into a Cavalry Corps under Stuart consisting of two divisions of three brigades each, divisions commanded by Major General Wade Hampton and Major General Fitzhugh Lee (many see Lee's failure to promote Stuart to Lt. General as yet another rebuke of his cavalry commander for his performance at Gettysburg, but Lee never confirms that is the cause).  The autumn and winter of the year are spent in camp, launching raids against Meade's army, acquiring movement information on the Army of the Potomac, and covering Lee's maneuvers, with clashes with Union troops at the First Battle of Auburn (10/13/1863), the Second Battle of Auburn (10/14/1863), a success ambush on the Union cavalry of Brigadier General Judson Kilpatrick that will come to be known as "The Buckland Races" (10/19/1863), and the Battle of Mine Run (11/27/1863 to 12/2/1863), before going into winter quarters at the end of December.  A command structure finally suited to defeating the Confederate Army, the new Northern leadership team of Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant directing the movements of Major General George G. Meade's Army of the Potomac (and other Northern land forces), begins it's spring offensive of 1864, known as the Overland Campaign, providing its usual cavalry services to Lee at The Battle of the Wilderness (May 5, 1864 to May 7, 1864), an inconclusive bloody clash of positioning on the site of the previous year's Battle of Chancellorsville in the dense forests of northern Virginia that causes another 28,000 casualties to the armies of the North and South (Grant, 17,666 casualties, Lee, 11,033 casualties).  Afterwards, arguing about how the Union cavalry (now commanded by Major General Philip Henry Sheridan ... a military savant that has gone from captain to Major General in six months, brought east from the Army of the Cumberland) was mishandled during the battle by being kept in it's traditional role of providing screening and reconnaissance by Meade, Grant hears of Sheridan's claims that if turned loose he can best Stuart, and okays his subordinate's plans for a raid on Stuart's command.  Turning southeast to move behind Lee's army, hoping to draw Stuart's cavalry into battle (4,500 men), Sheridan launches a 12,000 trooper raiding party (three divisions of troopers under the command of Brigadier Generals Wesley Merritt, David M. Gregg, and James H. Wilson, supported by 32 artillery pieces, at the Army of Northern Virginia's Beaver Dam supply station on May 9, 1864, a horse sortie with Sheridan's command, riding four abreast towards Richmond, stretching out over 13-miles along Virginia's road system that will lead to the Battle of Yellow Tavern, and culminates in Stuart's mortal wounding.

Kilpatrick

Sheridan

Begun with a bang as the Union cavalry takes Beaver Dam Station, where Sheridan's horsemen set fire to over a hundred railway cars and two locomotives of the Virginia Central Railroad, while also finishing the destruction of close to a million rations of meat (the air for miles around the depot will smell of crisped bacon) and half a million portions of bread (a three-week supply of rations), do away with all of the medical supplies meant for Lee's army, liberate 378 Federal prisoners captured at the Wilderness, and tear up ten miles of railroad tracks and telegraph lines ... just the sort of pillage Sheridan is hoping Stuart will respond to.  Maneuvering to interpose his command in a way that will place it between the Northern raiders and the Confederate capital of Richmond and in such a manner that they won't be steamrolled by Sheridan's superior numbers, the Southern horse commander is hoping to stop the Federals with troopers from Virginia commanded by Brigadier Generals Lunsford Lomax and Williams C. Wickham, and North Carolina horsemen led by Brigadier General James Gordon (the information Stuart receives about Sheridan comes by way of future Wild West celebrity, John Baker "Texas Jack" Omohundro).  The site chosen is an abandoned stagecoach inn called Yellow Tavern (paint all worn away, the yellow tavern is no longer yellow) sitting amid thinly wooded, rolling fields of grain and grass on a macadamized thoroughfare roughly six miles north of Richmond.  Before the battle begins though, Stuart is afforded the pleasure of seeing his wife and two children, who happen to be visiting a nearby plantation close to Beaver Dam Station.  Not even dismounting, Stuart receives a single kiss from his wife that signifies both hello and goodbye before riding off to his command.  On May 11, 1864, the two bodies of horsemen come together around Yellow Tavern, beginning their clash at 2:00 in the afternoon.  For two hours the fighting is hot, and at certain critical areas of the line, hand-to-hand.  At about 4:00 though, Sheridan feels Stuart can be put out of business with an assault on Lomax that should then roll over Wickham too ... and once again the attack will be made by the bane of Stuart's horsemen, the Michigan troopers of Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer.  Making for Stuart's artillery, Custer's attack is successful at first but is then blunted by a counterattack by Wickham's troopers and the 1st Virginia, with Stuart providing assistance, firing on the Northern horsemen with his big nine-shot .44-caliber LeMatt revolver as they ride by in attack, and then again, as they retreat.

Sheridan And Staff - 1864 - L to R - Henry E. Davies,

David M. Gregg, Sheridan, Wesley Merritt, Alfred Torbert,

And James H. Wilson

Stuart - 5/11/1864

Yellow Tavern

Moving forward to a fence overlooking the Northern attack and retreat, Stuart is between two other Confederate horsemen sending harassing fire at Custer's men.  "Steady, men, steady!" he shouts as Sheridan's men move past the fence, "Give it to them!"  Instead, Stuart is the one that gets it, compliments of a 44-year-old former sharpshooter and regimental champion gunman, Private John A. Huff of the 5th Michigan (after a two-year stint in a sharpshooter unit, Huff reenlists in the cavalry out of boredom ... he will be killed at the Battle of Haw's Shop which takes place in Hanover County, Virginia on May 28, 1864) who fires his pistol at a red-haired Confederate officer from thirty feet away.  The large caliber slug blasts through Stuart's stomach and exits the general's body an inch to the right of his spine.  Reacting to the wound, Stuart falls from his horse into the arms of the commander of the 1st Virginia Cavalry's Company K, Lt. Colonel Gustavus Warfield Dorsey.  Seeing who has caught him, Stuart tells Dorsey, "... save your men," but Dorsey refuses to leave his commander, and instead escorts him to the rear, where the wounded cavalryman is placed in a Confederate ambulance drawn by mules, and in intense pain, is driven six hours to the Richmond home of his brother-in-law, Dr. Charles Brewer (passing through retreating members of his command, Stuart will yell at his men, "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.").

Dorsey

Dr. Brewer

Arriving at Dr. Brewer's abode on Grace Street in Richmond at 11:00 in the evening (the ambulance has had to take a roundabout route into the city because of Northern cavalry raiding the turnpike), Stuart, is placed in a bed and put under the care of four of the city's finest physicians (Brewer, Garnett, Gibson, and Fontaine), but nothing can save the horseman from death taking him twenty agonizing hours later.  Surviving as long as he is able fruitlessly awaiting the arrival of his wife (receiving an erroneous telegram that her husband has been "slightly wounded," Flora will be four hours late getting to the Brewer home ... she will wear mourning black for the rest of her life as a teacher and educator in Virginia and die in Norfolk on May 10, 1923 at the age of 87), Stuart will spend the time passing in and out of consciousness, and reality, visiting in his mind former battlefields and giving out combat commands to various subordinates.  And there is a changing band of visitors that will include the President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson F. Davis (answering Davis' inquiry into how he is doing, Stuart will tell his commander he is "Easy; but willing to die if God and country think I have fulfilled my destiny and done my duty."), who spends fifteen minutes with the general on noon of that Thursday.  Taking no pain medicines other than ice so as to remain lucid to the end, Stuart's condition grows worse as the day lengthens.  Asking Brewer again if his wife has arrived and how much longer he has, when the doctor tells him that Flora is not yet there and that Stuart doesn't have long, he nods his head and tells his brother-in-law, "I am resigned if it be God's will; but I would like to see my wife.  But God's will be done."  End nearing, at about 7:00 in the evening of May 12, 1864, Stuart makes a disposition of some of his personal effects, willing his golden spurs to Robert E. Lee's wife as a show of his esteem for the general and how the family has treated him over the years, he gives his horses to a group of his officers (remembering that the largest should go to the heaviest member of his team), and saving his sword for his son.  Worldly matters concluded, Stuart then has Reverend Peterkin of the local Episcopal Church lead the handful of people in the room, and Stuart himself, in the singinging of one of the general's favorite hymns, "Rock of Ages."  Song completed, the horseman closes his eyes and drifts off, his last words being, "I am going fast now, I am resigned; God's will be done."  Dead as a result heavy internal bleeding leading to peritonitis, one of the seven Confederate division commanders to be killed during the war, Stuart is gone before 8:00 in the evening arrives.

The Golden Spurs

Stuart

With his wife and children in attendance, Stuart's funeral services in Richmond takes place the following day, 5/13, at St.James Church, before the general is then buried at Hollywood Cemetery.  While the services are without military escorts and is lacking several of Stuart's highly placed friends and peers that are still involved in fighting against the Army of the Potomac, dignitaries include Jefferson Davis, Confederate commander Braxton Bragg, various government officials, members of his staff, and a pall bearing crew made up of eight Southern generals.  A menace to the North for three years, Union General John Sedgwick, a May 1864 victim of the war himself, will call Stuart, "the greatest cavalry officer ever foaled in America, while his friend, mentor, and boss, General Robert E. Lee will state that his cavalry commander "never brought him false information" and that he "... can hardly think of him without weeping."

Stuart's Grave

Stuart

 

BATTLE OF THE CORAL SEA - 5/4/1942 to 5/8/1942

5/4/1942 to 5/8/1942 - After taking a massive bloody nose from the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the surprise attack on the American naval base of Pearl Harbor (12/7/1941), and along with Great Britain, being on the wrong side of a series of military disasters that follow in which Japanese forces attack and take possession of Malaya, the Philippines, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, Wake Island, New Britain, Guam, and the Gilbert Islands, the United States Navy and it's airmen, start to turn the tide of the conflict in the Pacific at the Battle of the Coral Sea.  A five day clash that provides a window on to how the ocean war will be fought for the next four years, the battle will be the first time opposing fleets will neither sight, nor fire upon each other (all the damage to both sides in the encounter comes from carrier planes operating from somewhere "over the horizon"), and the fight will mark the first time during WWII in which a major Japanese offensive is turned back.  

The USS Lexington Blows Up

One of the world's most beautiful bodies of water, the Coral Sea (so named for the coral reefs guarding the northeast coast of Australia) consists of the vast wetness to be found bounded in the west by the east coast of Queensland (the portion that includes the world's largest reef system, Australia's Great Barrier Reef), by the New Hebrides islands (now the Republic of Vanuatu) and New Caledonia, northeast by the southern extremity of the Solomon Islands, and by the southern coast of eastern New Guinea.  Sporting 1,850,000 square miles of surface area, the Coral Sea's waters merge with the Tasman Sea in south, the Solomon Sea to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the east, and to the northwest, to Arafura Sea through Torres Strait (the Sea's average depth is 7,854 feet ... it's maximum being 29,990 feet).  A warm climate area of over 1,000 islands, the region is known for the richness of it's avian (200 species of birds) and aquatic wildlife (30 species of whales, dolphins, and porpoises, 6 species of sea turtles, 17 species of sea snakes, 1,500 species of fish, including 125 species of shark, stingray, and skate), it's many fishing cultures and customs, and it's frequent rains and occasional tropical cyclones.  In the spring of 1942, the region will also be known for the battle that takes place there between the pilots, sailors, and soldiers of the United States and Imperial Japan.    

The Locale

Natural Park Of The Coral Sea 

1942

Already part of the IJN's plan to use conquered regions about the Pacific to establish perimeter defensive rings to defeat or bloodily exhaust Allied counterattacks, in the weeks following the blooding of the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese finalize their plans to invade Port Moresby in New Guinea and take the anchorage of Tulagi in the nearby Solomons as a prelude for next invading northern Australia in an operation simply dubbed "MO."  Assigning assets to the operation, the IJN will have 2 fleet carriers (sister ships, the new aircraft carriers Shokaku "Soaring Crane" and Zuikaku "Happy Crane ... Shokaku is commissioned on 8/8/1941 and is 844 feet and 10 inches long, takes to sea 84 aircraft, and is manned by a crew of 1,660, while Zuikaku is commissioned on 9/25/1941 and is also 844 feet and 10 inches in length, and takes the same amount of men and planes to sea as Shokaku), a light carrier (Shoho "Auspicious Phoenix" is 674 feet and 2 inches in length, is crewed by 785 Japanese, carries to sea 30 planes and is commissioned on 11/30/1941), 9 cruisers, 15 destroyers, 5 minesweepers, 2 minelayers, 2 submarine chasers, 3 gunboats, an oiler, a seaplane tender, 12 transports, and 139 carrier aircraft with which to accomplish its goals (at the same time, in the northern Pacific a even more formidable fleet is being gathered for the Japanese invasion of Midway Island).  Designated CarDiv 5, in command of the Japanese fleet is a submarine man, 50-year-old Vice Admiral Takagi Takeo (a veteran of the invasion of the Philippine Islands, the Japanese landings in the Dutch East Indies, and the winning commander at the Battle of the Java Sea) who unexperienced with air operations, chooses a heavy cruiser for his flagship and delegates control of carrier operations to his close friend, 53-year-old Rear Admiral Hara "King Kong" Chuichi.  And in overall command of the operation, based out of his Rabaul headquarters on the island New Britain is Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's friend and protege, 52-year-old Vice-Admiral Shigeyoshi Inoue.  On May 1, 1942, CarDiv 5 begins moving south from the huge Japanese naval base at Truk Lagoon to put Operation MO into effect ... unaware that there are already American ships steaming the Coral Sea looking for a fight. 

Inoue

Takeo & Hara

Shokaku

Zuikaku

Japanese plans deciphered by code breakers working in Hawaii for 39-year-old Lt. Commander Edwin Thomas Layton and 41-year-old Captain Joseph John Rochefort, 57-year-old Admiral Chester William Nimitz, commander-in-chief of the United States Pacific Fleet, combines two small task forces into a single unit that can oppose the INJ presence in the Coral Sea for Operation MO with 2 fleet carriers (honoring the American Revolution's start and finish, the aircraft carriers are the USS Lexington, "Lady Lex," an 888 foot long carrier commissioned in December of 1927, crewed by 2,791 men and carrying a complement of 78 planes, and the USS Yorktown, a 824 foot and 9 inch long carrier commissioned in September of 1937, crewed by 2,217 men and carrying 90 planes), 8 cruisers, 14 destroyers, 2 oilers, and 128 aircraft.  Responsible for commanding the Allied fighting ships is 57-year-old Medal-of-Honor winner (for the 1914 rescue of refugees from the transport Esperanza at the Mexican port of Vera Cruz), Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher (U.S. Naval Academy Class of 1906).  Without a command when Task Force 11 is combined with Task Force 17 into Task Force 17.5, Fletcher appoints his friend and Annapolis classmate, Rear Admiral Aubrey Wray Fitch, to be the tactical air officer for both the Lexington and the Yorktown (having participated in the Doolittle bombing raid on Tokyo that takes place on April 18, 1942, the aircraft carriers USS Hornet and USS Enterprise will not be available for the upcoming Coral Sea operations).  Left to decide the specifics of how he will accomplish the mission he is given, Nimitz orders to Fletcher are that the task force he is commanding is to "... assist in checking further advance by enemy ... by seizing favorable opportunities to destroy ships, shipping, and aircraft."  Orders given, received, and acted upon, to maintain the surprise he believes he can give the Japanese, Fletcher calls for radio silence among his force while awaiting the code breakers at Pearl Harbor providing him with the most accurate location of the advancing Operation MO warriors.  Instead, the information Fletcher has been waiting for comes from a patrol of Australian planes that report on May 3rd of sighting six big Japanese warships in the Solomon Islands, gathering for the Tulagi portion of Operation Mo.  Leaving Lexington to continue it's refueling at sea from the American oiler Tippecanoe (the nearest base oil is over 600 miles away), Fletcher steams all night at full speed to the north so his force can launch an early morning attack on the Japanese ships gathering off Tulagi.  With the launch of 28 dive bombers and 12 torpedo planes from the deck of the Yorktown, the Battle of the Coral Sea begins on May 4, 1942. 

Nimitz Formally Taking Command At Pearl Harbor - 12/31/1941

Fletcher & Fitch

Lexington

Yorktown

Eager for shipping to attack, when Fletcher's raiders reach the Tulagi anchorage at dawn of the 4th, they mistake an armed minelayer (Okimoshima) and two destroyers for being three cruisers ... eager but not accurate, American fliers unleash thirteen 1,000 pound bombs and eleven torpedoes at the minelayer, but fail to sink the Japanese ship.  In three separate attacks that Monday on Japanese shipping at Tulagi, Yorktown pilots will drop seventy-six 1,000 pound bombs on IJN targets, but score only eleven hits, sinking a destroyer, three minesweepers, and four seaplanes, at a cost of two American fighters (the pilots are recovered by the destroyer, USS Hammann) and a dive bomber and it's two-man crew (the destroyer, USS Perkins searches the area in vain for the two men).  Post battle analysis will find the inaccuracy of the American bombs to have resulted from a mix of causes that include the inexperience of the pilots involved, the attacks being made piecemeal and uncoordinated without the air group commander, Lt. Commander Oscar "Pete" Pederson flying with his team (he has been kept on the Yorktown by the carrier's captain, Elliott Buckmaster, who wants the flier to remain on board to serve as the carrier's fighter director), and the windscreens of the group's Douglas SBD ("Scout Bomber Douglas') Dauntless dive bombers fogging up on their attack dives.  The element of surprise now lost to the Americans, Fletcher regroups with the Lexington and takes his task force southwest towards New Guinea to intercept the MO Operation invasion force (out of fuel, Tippecanoe will be sent back to Pearl Harbor, while the Neosho is sent south, escorted by the destroyer, USS Sims), unaware that the Japanese plan is two days behind schedule because of a delay caused by delivering eight Mitsubishi Zero fighters to Rabaul during a storm and that Takagi's carrier force is to the northwest of Fletcher's command, and still out of range (neither side making contact, the two forces come within seventy miles of each other).  For two days the two sides fruitlessly search for each other before each discovers the other on Thursday, May 7, 1942.

American Dive Bombers Returning To Yorktown

After Their Tulagi Raid

Wreckage Of The Japanese Destroyer, Kikuzuki -

Sunk Off Tulagi On 5/4/1942 

In the darkness just before dawn, both task forces once more send scout planes aloft, each seeking to land the first blows of the battle.  Flying a Dauntless dive-bomber off the Yorktown, 29-year-old Lieutenant John Ludvig Neilsen of St. Paul, Minnesota is searching for the Japanese amid the islands off the eastern tip of New Guinea when he spots an opposing INJ scout in the form of a Aichi E-13A "Jake" float plane, and wishing to prevent the observer from alerting higher ups of the presence of American carrier planes, shoots the scout down twenty feet above the waves of the South Pacific (on the flight, Neilsen's back-seat gunner is recent Annapolis graduate Lt. Walter Straub).  Regaining altitude and continuing their patrol, 15 minutes later near the Louisiade archipelago's Misima Island, Straub spots the wakes of INJ surface ships which Nielsen confirms to be two cruisers and four destroyers.  Trying to alert the fleet though proves to be problematic; the message can't be sent by the plane's long-range radio because the Dauntless' antenna has been shot away dogfighting with the float plane it shot down and with only short-range radio available, it is not until 8:15 in the morning that news of the sighting is received aboard the Yorktown.  Just the information he has been waiting for, Fletcher turns his task force north to get within range of the Japanese and at 9:26 a.m., the first plane of a ninety-three aircraft raid is in the air, as Fletcher stands on the bridge wing of the Yorktown screaming at his pilots through a bullhorn, "Get that goddamn carrier!"  A few minutes later Neilson is over the Yorktown and has Straub drop another sighting report to the carrier via a bean-bag and the discovery is made and then verified when Nielsen lands that two cruisers and four destroyers reported sighted has been relayed as a sighting of two CARRIERS and four CRUISERS (the code table Straub has used for his message is misaligned).  Deciding not to recall the raiders when a report comes in from that land based Allied bombers have also made a fleet sighting in the same region and that his men should attack whatever shipping is actually in the Misima Island area, the admiral's decision will result in an attack on the small fleet screening the main invasion force (reporting to Fletcher upon landing on the Yorktown, Neilsen is chagrinned to be berated by the man for misidentifying the ships spotted, "Young man, do you know what you have done?  You have just cost the United States two carriers!" ... not so of course in hindsight and when the days events are fully analysed, the pilot will be awarded a Navy Cross for his actions).

Floatplane

Lt. Nielsen & Lt. Straub

And while those events are taking place for the Americans, still searching for Fletcher's fleet, the Japanese prove they are equally susceptible to miscommunications and mistakes.  Receiving a report that his scouts have spotted a carrier and a cruiser, Takagi and Hara have launched a raid of seventy-eight aircraft (36 dive bombers, 24 torpedo planes, and 18 Zero fighters all under the command of veteran Shokaku dive bomb pilot, 35-year-old Lt. Commander Kakuichi Takahasi) from their carriers at the American shipping to their south, but a major error has been made ... the carrier is actually the almost empty oiler Neosho, captained by 47-year-old Commander John Spinner Phillips (Phillips will survive the battle and live to be 80-years-old, dying in 1975 at the Bethesda Naval Hospital ... floating in an open boat for four days after the attacks on the Neosho, when a Canadian rescue plane finally spots him and asks whether he needs assistance, the commander responds with a sarcastic question of his own, "What do you think?") and the cruiser is the destroyer Sims, captained by 41-year-old Lt. Commander Wilford Milton "Buster" Hyman (for his leadership as his ship goes down while still firing its guns, Hyman will win a Navy Cross, but perishes in the 5/7 attacks on his ship).  Arriving at the contact location, the Japanese realize their mistake, search for better targets for ninety minutes, and when they find none, unleash their wrath on the two American ships present, sending the Sims to the bottom from three bomb strikes that break the ship in half (only 15 men from her crew of 252 will survive the pasting, none of them officers) and hitting Neosho seven times (and once in the stern by a wounded dive bomber crash diving into the oiler), damaging her so badly that she is barely able to stay afloat, saved mostly by the reserve buoyancy in her partially empty oil tanks (she finally gives up the ghost and is scuttled four days later by torpedoes and gunfire from the destroyer USS Henley <123 sailors are also rescued>, but not before she shoots three of her Japanese aerial tormentors out of the sky). 

USS Sims

Takahasi

Phillips & Hyman

Neosho Aflame

Though the move to relocate the Neosho to a safer locale has backfired horribly, Fletcher's gamble to not recall his attack force after he finds out that they are not heading for Takagi's carrier fleet (other than criticism from his peers and historians, the admiral also suffers no repercussions for breaking his own orders for radio silence, or placing the small surface force of three cruisers and three destroyers of Royal Australian Navy Rear Admiral John Gregory Crace guarding the Jomard Passage giving access to Port Moresby without any air cover) pays off when the raiders from the Lexington and Yorktown spot the cover fleet for the MO invasion of New Guinea (commanded by Rear Admiral Arimoto Goto), featuring the light carrier Shoho, at 11:00 in the morning.  Birds of prey gathering overhead, the raiders are delighted to discover that the Japanese ships are protected by only six fighter planes.  Lexington pilots going in first as planned, roughly fifteen minutes later the Shoho is assaulted by the dive bombers and torpedo planes of 43-year-old Group Air Commander William Bowen Ault and 36-year-old Lt. Commander Weldon Lee "Hammy" Hamilton.  Wild maneuvering by Captain Ishinosuke Izawa that has the Japanese carrier complete a full circle turn to port allows the Shoho to survive its first encounter with the carrier pilots of the United States Navy, but it is only a matter of time before torpedoes dropped from fifty feet above the water and thousand pound bombs dropped at about 2,500 feet from 70-degree angle dives begin striking the carrier; a situation that becomes even more dire for Shoho when the Yorktown pilots, led by 38-year-old Lt. Commander William Oscar Burch Jr. take their turn at hitting the Japanese ship.  Quickly turned into a blazing hulk doomed to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, Lexington aviators will claim five bomb hits and nine torpedo strikes on the carrier, while Yorktown fliers will claim fourteen bomb hits and ten torpedo strikes (whatever the actual count was, it is a massive overkill, and a major mistake that only 21-year-old Ensign Thomas W. Brown of the Yorktown shifts to a more suitable target, the Japanese cruiser Sazanami, before Shoho sinks), and 29-year-old Lt. JG Walter Albert Haas will be the first American pilot to be credited for shooting down a Japanese Zero with a Grumman F4F Wildcat fighter plane (for the war, American carrier pilots will claim 1,327 enemy aircraft destroyed by Wildcats against the loss of 178 F4Fs in 14,027 combat sorties).

Shoho

Trying To Escape

Shoho On Fire

Over in a matter of minutes (Burch will claim that the Shoho only lasts seven minutes after being hit for the first time), running full speed as she belches plumes of black smoke from her many wounds, at a cost of only three dive bombers (two from Lexington and one from the Yorktown), Fletcher's and Fitch's pilots sink the first Japanese carrier of WWII, costing the Japanese the carrier, her compliment of 21 combat aircraft, and 638 sailors and airmen (later in the day,.the Japanese destroyer Sazanami will pluck 203 men from the water, with one being Shoho's captain, Ishinosuke Izawa)  The submarine tender turned light aircraft carrier, commissioned 11/30/1941, sinks Thursday, at 11:35 in the morning of May 7, 1942.  High above the Shoho's watery grave, the last American flier to leave the area is 38-year-old future rear admiral Lt. Commander Robert Ellington Dixon of the Lexington, who sends a prearranged success message back to fleet.  Joining a handful of previous famous moments for the United States Navy like Captain John Paul Jones pronouncing "I have not yet begun to fight," a mortally wounded Captain James Lawrence proclaiming "Don't give up the ship," Oliver Hazard Perry sending the dispatch "We have met the enemy and they are ours" from the Battle of Lake Erie, Admiral David Glasgow Farragut's attack order at the Mobile Bay "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead," Commodore George Dewey's Manila Bay order "You may fire when ready, Gridley," and Lt. Howell Maurice Forgy encouragement to the crew of the heavy cruiser USS New Orleans at Pearl Harbor to "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition," the fleet electrifying signal from Dixon reads, "Scratch one flattop!  Dixon to carrier, Scratch one flattop!"  Message received and verified (before the war is over, thirteen more Japanese carriers will go the the bottom of the Pacific Ocean) when Lt. Commander Joe Taylor, leading the Yorktown's torpedo squadron lands and has the pictures developed of the Shoho sinking and takes them to Fletcher and the carrier's captain and future vice admiral, 52-year-old Elliott Buckmaster are elated.  Briefly, the two men hug each other and jump up and down in the flag bridge, celebrating as if a last second touchdown pass had just won a football game for the Navy.  And to some extent it has though the two men are not aware of it at the time; monitoring the situation from his headquarters at Rabaul, worried that the Americans will next pounce upon the invasion transports Shoho was screening, Admiral Inoue orders the invasion force to withdraw to the north until the Japanese can regain the initiative, which they never do.     

Before She Was A Carrier

Headed To The Bottom As Shoho

Dixon

The celebration doesn't last long however as the Americans realize that the battle has not yet been won and that there are two Japanese carriers and their consorts that are still unaccounted for and the American task force could itself be attacked at any time.  Deciding against sending another attack at the Japanese that might be in the area where Shoho sunk or sending his surface ships forward in a night attack, Fletcher, after recovering his raiders, moves his task force to the south to await further developments.  At 5:47 p.m., the Yorktown's radar picks up a number of bogeys approaching the task force, as expected, the Japanese have arrived, but are unaware of the presence of the American carriers (the attack force of 27 planes has been personally selected and sent off by Hara to attack Crace's cruisers, thought to be battleships, in the Jomard Passage).  Upping their combat air patrol to thirty planes, the Americans vector their protection towards the Japanese aerial force.  Not expecting carrier-based fighters to be a problem, the Japanese force is horribly surprised when Wildcats drop down on them from 5,000 feet.  Chaos and carnage result with eight Japanese planes shot down (seven torpedo planes and a dive bomber, along with damaging a second dive bomber that it crashes while fleeing to the north) and the rest scattering for safety ... but there is none to be had (three Wildcats will be lost in the dogfighting).  As darkness falls, running lights on, a group of Japanese raiders begin signaling they are ready to land on their carriers, but there is a huge problem with that proposition ... in the oncoming darkness and low-hanging clouds the Japanese have become lost and try to land on the Lexington and Yorktown.  The Night sky suddenly lit up by anti-aircraft fire from the carriers, their consorts, and American pilots landing, the Japanese scatter again, with eighteen damaged planes managing to make the 120 miles northeast, back to Takagi's warships (immeasurably helped by Takagi turning the searchlights on for recovery of his raiders in the darkness).

Dauntless

Wildcats On Patrol

May7th just a warm-up to what is coming, before dawn of the next day, hunting for each other, both carrier forces send search planes out to the north, south, east and west, with Lt. Junior Grade Joseph       Smith in a Dauntless from the Yorktown being the first to sight Takagi's carriers.  With confirmation of the sighting 200 miles to the northwest (once more Lt. Commander Dixon is in the thick of things with his verification that the Japanese carriers have been found), Fitch puts an attack force in the air of seventy-five fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo planes (the Yorktown complement consists of six fighters, 24 dive bombers, and nine torpedo planes, while the Lexington contribution to the attack is nine fighters, 15 dive bombers, and 12 torpedo planes).  At roughly the same time (it is about 9:15 in the morning), a Japanese patrol plane sights the American task force and Hara sends a sixty-nine plane force southeast to attack (on their way to their respective targets, the two forces will pass each other in the sky).  The storm clouds and overcast of the previous day now protecting the Japanese fleet, when the Yorktown pilots arrive at the scene and launch their attack (at roughly 11:00 a.m., due to the late arrival of the carrier's torpedo planes), only the Shokaku is out in the open and available to attack.  Pilot inexperience, windscreen fog, launching their torpedoes from too great a distance and Japanese seamanship make the American's aim questionable, and Shokaku is only hit by three 1,000 pound bombs (American fliers will claim six bomb hits and four torpedo strikes ... all eleven of the torpedoes sent Shokaku's way by Lexington fliers miss); not enough to sink the carrier, but enough to maul her so badly (she is hit on her port bow, at the starboard side of the end of her forward flight deck, and just abaft her command island) that 51-year old Rear Admiral (he has been promoted from captain to admiral just days before on 5/1/1942) Takatsugu Jojima requests to withdraw from the area as his carrier can not launch or land planes (and it's crew has been lessened by 223 men).  Request granted by Takagi and Hara, at 12:10 in the afternoon, the crippled Shokaku begins it's long journey back to Japan, a voyage during which the carrier almost sinks returning to the Japanese naval base at Kure.  Fixing her ills, the ship will be out of commission until July 14, 1942.

Shokaku Under Attack

Shokaku Under Attack

Cloud cover of the previous day now gone, 150 miles to the south, the Lexington's radar picks up Hara's attack force approaching from 68 miles out and the carrier unit reacts by putting all of their available fighters into the sky (the other fighters are with the Americans bombing the Shokaku), seventeen in all, supplemented by twenty-three bombless Dauntless bombers (8 from Yorktown and 15 from Lexington).  On the Lexington and Yorktown, watertight doors are secured, gasoline is purged from the ships' fuel lines, and first-aid kits and fire hoses are readied for use.  Arriving overhead with less than a full attack force due to the loss of fliers on the previous day, commanding the Japanese torpedo planes, Lt. Commander Shigekazu Shimazaki sends fourteen planes after the Lexington and four after the Yorktown.  Battle on, as the Japanese get into position for their run-in on the carriers (the Japanese assault force is composed of 18 fighters, 33 dive bombers, and 18 torpedo planes), a Wildcat fighter shoots one torpedo plane down and a group of SBDs added to the CAP send three more Nakajima B5N "Kate" torpedo planes into the sea, while four American planes will be shot down by Zeros.  At 11:13 p.m., the Japanese begin their attacks on the two American carriers.

USS Lexington Under Attack

Though not a nimble ship, the Lexington twists and turns through her initial encounter with the Japanese (she is captained by future rear admiral and three-time recipient of the Navy Cross, 54-year-old Captain Frederick Carl Sherman) and for several minutes the carrier is unhit.  During that time, the Lexington will run between torpedoes that simultaneously streak by on the carrier's port and starboard beams, and have two more torpedoes run directly underneath her without exploding, before her luck runs out at 11:20, when she is struck by two Type 91 torpedoes (diabolic little devices that have a range of 2,200 yards, can travel at a speed of 42 knots, and carry a warhead of several hundred pounds of high explosives).  The first torpedo to hit the Lexington buckles the carrier's port aviation tanks, while the second ruptures the port water main, forcing the ship to shut down several boilers, reducing her speed to 24 knots.  A few minutes later the Lexington gets a dose of Japanese dive bombers falling on her from an elevation of 14,000 feet, and the carrier is hit twice more, causing fires that are contained by 12:33 p.m.  Though wounded (she has a seven degree list to port that is corrected with counter flooding), the Lexington is able to recover her aerial strike force by 2:30 in the afternoon when she begins to withdraw from the area.  She is stricken though when sparks from unattended electric motors set off gasoline fumes near the carrier's central control station at 12:47 p.m., an explosion that kills 25 members of the ship's crew and takes out the ship's main damage control station.  On fire again, another explosion takes place at 2:42 p.m. that causes even more fires to break out in the hanger and sends the carrier's heavy forward elevator a full foot above the flight deck while also destroying the ship's ventilation system.  Shortly afterwards the Lexington loses power in the forward half of the ship.  Still struggling to save the ship (with the help of three destroyers which have come alongside the carrier to assist), at 3:25 p.m. a third eruption knocks out the water pressure of the fire fighting hoses in the hanger and forces the evacuation of the forward machinery areas.  Fires out of control, at 4:00 p.m. the unpowered carrier drifts to a halt and the crew begins to evacuate their wounded companions ... the death of the "Lady Lex" becomes official when Captain Sherman gives the order to "abandon ship" at 5:07 in the early evening (in all, 2,735 officers and men will be rescued by the task force).  In her death throes, at 6:00 p.m. yet another series of heavy explosions takes place aboard the ship that blows the aft flight elevator apart and sends landed aircraft into the sea.  Carrying on a tradition thousands of years old, thirty minutes later Sherman becomes the last man off the stricken, but still floating, ship.  Ordered to put the carrier out of it's many miseries, between 7:15 p.m. and 7:52 p.m., the destroyer USS Phelps, captained by 39-year-old Lt. Commander Edward Louis Beck of Buffalo, New York, puts five torpedoes into the side of the carrier; a few moments after the last strike, the USS Lexington slips below the waves of the Coral Sea, 500 miles to the east of the coast of Queensland (she goes to the bottom having lost 216 men, along with 42 planes, 17 dive bombers, 13 Wildcats, 12 torpedo planes).  Dropping to her rest, the carrier explodes one final time, breaking into pieces that finally come to rest at a depth of 9,000 feet (the carrier will be located on the bottom of the Coral Sea by the research vessel Petrel on March 4, 2018).           

Explosion Aboard The Lexington

Abandon Ship

Sherman

One Of The Lexington's Lost Planes

At The Wreck

While the Yorktown does not suffer the same fate as the Lexington, she too endures agonies on May 8th.  Good fortune at first, all of the torpedo planes sent the carrier's way, miss hitting the ship.  Captain Buckmaster's maneuvering is also masterful when fourteen Zuikaku dive bombers, led by Lieutenant Tamostsu Ema, arrive overhead.  With the help of two Wildcats which disrupt Ema's attack, thirteen bombs are dodged (several of the near misses however cause damage to the Yorktown's hull below her waterline, and one is so close that it raises the stern of the carrier out of the water so much that her four brass propellers can briefly be seen churning air instead of sea), but the fourteenth bomber is able to place a single 550 pound piece of ordinance on the carrier at 11:27 in the morning, a bomb which hits the ship in the center of her flight deck, then penetrates four decks of the carrier before exploding, causing grievous structural damage to an aviation storage room, knocking out two superheater boilers, and killing or seriously wounding 66 members of the Yorktown's crew.  Wounds analyzed and band-aided for the moment, repair experts aboard the carrier estimate it will take three months to make her ship shape again, and so she is withdrawn from the battle and ordered back to Pearl Harbor for repairs (withdrawing, she moves out of the area trailing a fifty-mile long oil slick).  Arriving back at the Hawaiian naval base on the 27th of the month, the repair experts there ask for a minimum of two weeks to make the carrier right again.  Having none of it though, Admiral Nimitz orders that the Yorktown be made ready for battle again as quickly as is humanly possible (with a window of only 72 hours for the job to get done), and with full repair crews working around the clock, in 42 hours the carrier is made battle ready once more (to get her attack capacity back up, the surviving Yorktown pilots are put ashore for R&R and replaced by USS Saratoga fliers, in Hawaii while the carrier returns to the west coast of the United States for repairs after she is torpedoed by a Japanese submarine on January 11, 1942), and when the turning-point battle of Midway begins on June 4, 1942, the Yorktown, at the cost of her own life, contributes mightily (the pilots flying off the Yorktown at the Battle of Midway will sink the carrier Soryu, locate the Carrier Hiryu, and along with Enterprise fliers, help sink the Hiryu) to the incredible victory that costs the Japanese four fleet carriers (along with a heavy cruiser) that participated in the 12/7/1941 sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

Some Of The Yorktown's Damage

Yorktown In Drydock

The Yorktown Goes Under

Air attacks by both sides over by noon, the two strike forces return to their ships and once again cross paths, this time with several dogfights between the groups breaking out ... in one, 35-year-old dive bomber leader, Lt. Commander Kakuichi Takahashi, is shot down and killed, in another, Petty Officer First Class Kenzo Kanno, the flier that located the American task force, is taken out by a Wildcat.  Forty-six of 69 planes in the Japanese strike force make it back to the Zuikaku, but upon landing, three Zeros, four dive bombers, and five torpedo planes are deemed so damaged that they are pushed off the carrier and into the sea (meanwhile, Fletcher's team loses 5 SBDs, 2 TBDs, and a Wildcat recovering his raiders); when a count is made of their aerial strength at 2:30 in the afternoon, Takagi is told by Hara that the task force now can only put 24 Zeros, 8 dive bombers, and 4 torpedo planes in the air, most piloted by inexperienced fliers.  Processing the information and adding it to a belief that his team has sunk two American carriers and the lowering fuel status of his cruisers and destroyers, withdrawal from the area is requested from Vice Admiral Inoue at Rabaul, who in turn sends the request to Yamamoto.  Withdrawal eventually approved, the Japanese ships head back to various bases with the MO Operation postponed until July 3rd, when another task force can be put together after an operation to take the Midway Islands from the Americans is completed ... an operation that never takes place.  By the 10th of the month, both combatants have vacated the region and briefly, the Coral Sea is quiet again.

Takahashi

The Japanese Base At Rabaul

A decisive victory for neither side, the Japanese can claim a tactical victory by sending to the bottom more shipping tonnage than the Americans (41,286 long tons to 19,000 long tons) and by reducing by a quarter taking out the Lexington, American carrier strength in the Pacific, along with the Fletcher withdrawing from the field first.  The Americans however can claim an important tactical victory ... in stopping a Japanese forward thrust for the first time in war, Fletcher has blunted the Japanese attempt to invade Port Moresby as ordered (it is also a moral victory in that the Americans prove they can go toe-to-toe with the Japanese).  More importantly, the battle in which the Japanese lose ninety aircrews to thirty-five for the Americans) takes two carriers away from Yamamoto's coming Midway operation (Shokaku for damage repairs and Zuikaku for a lack of experienced fliers, exposing for the first time in the war what a problem this will soon become), making the aerial strength of both sides almost equal (233 fliers on three American carriers to 248 fliers on four Japanese carriers).  Deficits becoming positives, the American Navy also uses the battle to improve its carrier tactics and equipment ... radar technology and its employment are more effectively employed, changes are made to improve communications between American ships, fliers, and land-based Allied planes, combat experience is gained that will prove invaluable in coming clashes with the IJN, fighter tactics, strike coordination between dive bombers and torpedo planes are evaluated and improved, anti-aircraft weaponry is increased and made more lethal, and damage control procedures are tweaked to improve the methods of keeping aviation fuel and its fumes from exploding during an attack.              

Launch

A New Kind Of Warfare - The Yorktown From Above

As with other "great" clashes in its history, the battle is fought by men that exemplify the United States Navy's tradition of honor and bravery.  Created in 1919 (and made retroactive to April 6, 1917), designed by American sculptor James Earle Fraser, the Navy Cross medal is awarded to members of the United States armed forces that while serving with the Navy, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard, distinguish themselves in combat with extraordinary heroism.  It is the second highest military honor a sailor or a Marine can be awarded (following the Congressional Medal of Honor) and is the equivalent of the Army's Distinguished Service Cross, the Air and Space Force's Air Force Cross, and the Coast Guard Cross.  To date, the award has been made over 6,300 times to men and now women (the first goes to Superintendent of the the United States Nurse Corps, Lenah H. Sutcliffe Higbee) in the service, with it being won the most during their careers by Marine Corps Lt. General Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller and Navy Rear Admiral Roy Milton Davenport, recipients of the medal five different times each (to date, five individuals have won the award four times ... WWII submarine commander Captain Slade Deville Cutter, WWII submariner Commander Samuel David Dealey, Vice Admiral Glynn Robert Donaho, Rear Admiral Eugene Bennett Fluckey, WWII submariner Commander Dudley Walker "Mush" Morton).  At the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Navy Cross will be awarded 134 times, with Cross citations going to fighter, dive bomber, torpedo plane, and scout pilots, gunnery officers, commanding, executives, damage control and engineering officers, rescue boat officers-in-charge, a boat coxswain, an engineering messenger, a fuse setter, an aerial gunner observer, a medical corpsman, a senior medical officer,  And there will be four Congressional Medal of Honors awarded for the battle:   

*29-year-old Lieutenant William E. Hall of Utah - Flying a SBD Dauntless off the Lexington, on 5/7 Hall participates in the destruction of the Shoho. On 5/8 the pilot serves as a member of the carrier's combat air patrol, risking life and limb in a dive bomber against Zero fighters in dogfighting that sees three Japanese fighters shot into the sea and Hall being wounded.

*42-year-old USS Neosho Chief Watertender Oscar Verner Peterson, posthumously for his extraordinary courage in trying to save the furiously burning Neosho on 5/7 - Though horribly wounded himself, Peterson ignores his injuries to close four bulkhead stop valves, receiving additional third-degree burns to his face, shoulders, arms, and hands that keep scalding steam from escaping the ship's damaged engine room and enable the ship to remain operational, but also cost the chief petty officer his life a few days later.

*29-year-old Lieutenant John James Powers of New York City, flying a SBD Dauntless off the Yorktown, posthumously for three days of fighting during the battle - On the 4th at Tulagi, despite having no air cover, Powers is able to destroy a large enemy gunboat, score two near-misses that damage a large aircraft tender and a Japanese transport ship, then out of bombs, he expends the bullets in his bomber to shoot-up a second gunboat that has to beach itself on a nearby island.  On the 7th, Powers leads an attack on the Shoho, finding the carrier from his Dauntless with a hit that sets off a tremendous explosion that soon sends the light carrier to the bottom.  Back on the Yorktown that evening, as the ship's Squadron Gunnery Officer, the lieutenant gives a lecture to the carrier's pilots on point-of-aim anf diving techniques, emphasizing low release point bombing for better accuracy while stressing the dangers not only of enemy fire, but also the deadliness of being so low that the successful pilot might fall to his own bomb blast.  On the 8th, enemy task force sited, Powers tells his squadron as they leave the Yorktown's ready room for their planes, "Remember the folks back home are counting on us.  I am going to get a hit if I have to lay it on their flight deck."  Making his words come to life, leading a section of dive bombers, Powers put his SBD into a dive from an elevation of 18,000 feet that takes his through bursting anti-aircraft shells and Zero fighter slugs.  Lower and lower, closer and closer, far past the elevation for a safe ordinance release, at 500 feet above his target, Powers finally releases his bomb from a height where he knows it will score a hit ... and it does, striking the starboard side aft of the carrier's island where it causes fires to break out on both sides of the flight deck.  Pulling up from his release point, the pilot is roughly 200 feet above Shokaku when his bomb explodes on the deck of the carrier, engulfing Powers' SBD in a cloud of flame, smoke, and debris that kills the lieutenant and his SBD.  

  

*28-year-old Lieutenant Milton Ernest Ricketts of the Yorktown, posthumously - In charge of a damage control team, Ricketts is at his battle station when a Japanese bomb explodes in the compartment in which the sailor is standing.  Mortally wounded by the blast, Powers nonetheless musters the last of his strength into opening the valve on a nearby fireplug, letting out the position's hose, and directing a heavy stream of water on the growing conflagration within the ship ... actions which help to retard the fires and save the Yorktown.

The push between powers over for the moment in the Coral Sea, the next carrier battle between Japan and America will take place in the waters and air around Midway Atoll (a 2.4 square mile spit of land roughly 1,310 miles northwest of Honolulu, Hawaii) from June 4, 1942 to June 7, 1942, and this time there will be no doubt as to the country that is victorious.

Hiryu - One Of The Four Japanese Carriers Sunk

During The Battle Of Midway