The Battle of Brandy Station: On 9 June 1863, Major General Alfred Pleasanton’s Union force attacked Major General J.E.B. Stuart’s Confederate force at Brandy Station, Virginia in the largest predominantly cavalry battle of the war. Neither leader shines particularly well: Pleasanton failed to coordinate, follow up or actually lead during the battle. Stuart showed his usual brilliance at tactical leadership, but despite all his protestations to the contrary, he was clearly caught flat-footed, a particular humiliation for any cavalry force. The troopers on both sides, however, were absolutely inspired, relentless and reckless to a fault: all the finest qualities of cavalry. Unlike most cavalry operations in the American Civil War where cavalry often operated as mounted infantry, this battle was an epic mounted cavalry clash in the tradition of the massive Napoleonic battles.
The battle was technically a tactical Confederate success, but for the first time the Union Cavalry had met and fought the Confederate Cavalry on an equal basis — a fact commented on by nearly every Confederate we have written records from, except for Stuart, who seems to have been more than a touch peevish about it. Depending on which historians you believe, this battle may have been partially responsible for Lee’s failure at the Battle of Gettysburg.
The Comte de Lasalle’s quote: “Tout hussard qui n’est pas mort à 30 ans est un Jean-Foutre” is usually translated as “Any hussar who isn’t dead by the age of thirty is a blackguard” but that really tones down the actual meaning in French at the time, where the meaning was less genteel. “Jean-Foutre” was a far harsher term than “blackguard,” derived from “Je m’en fous” which has roughly the same meaning as “I don’t give a fuck” though it will usually translate as “I don’t care.” I’ve chosen to use “lazy bastard” here because it feels close enough, particularly in the rather less free-wheeling setting of the Civil War. In modern terms, I believe it would probably be connotatively closer to “useless fuck.”
Mary Jane Green did not spring from whole cloth: She is a fictionalization of a real person noted in Union reporting during the United States Civil War. I stumbled across her in reports while doing research. When I showed the reports to The Missus, she pointed out that given my weakness for “uppity and difficult women” I should keep the reports and use her as the basis of a story. She would, in all likelihood, have hated the outcome in my tale. Herewith, from the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, is one of the reports concerning Miss Mary Jane Green.
OFFICE PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL,
Wheeling, January 5, 1863.
Colonel W. HOFFMAN, Commissary-General of Prisoners.
SIR: I have the honor to reply to yours of the 3rd instant asking for the
charges, &c., against Mary Jane Green. In the month of August 1861, when on
the staff of General Rosecrans and acting as provost-marshal in the field I
had this girl in custody in the jail of the town of Sutton, Va., charged as