William E. Jones (general)

Jones was born in Washington County, Virginia. After graduating from Emory and Henry College in Virginia in 1844, he graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1848, ranking twelfth out of 48 cadets, and was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the U.S. Mounted Rifles. He served with the cavalry fighting Indians in the west and was promoted to first lieutenant in 1854. His nickname, "Grumble", reflects his irritable disposition. His wife was washed from his arms and drowned in a shipwreck shortly after their marriage in 1852 while en route to Texas. He resigned his commission in 1857, and became a farmer near Glade Spring, Virginia.

At the start of the Civil War, Jones joined the 1st Virginia Cavalry Regiment as a captain, commanding a company he had raised. On May 9 he was promoted to major in Virginia's Provisional Army, and later that month both Jones and the regiment were transferred into the Confederate Army. Jones served under Col. J.E.B. Stuart in the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861. The following month he was promoted to the rank of colonel and was given command of the 1st Virginia Cavalry.[2] Regular officer Jones put his new volunteers through meticulous training and personally upbraided anyone who was slow to learn how to perform standard drills to their commander's exacting standards.[3]

In the fall of 1861 the Confederate forces underwent a massive reorganization, during which the enlisted men could elect their officers. As a result, Jones was not re-elected to his post as commander of the 1st Virginia Cavalry. That September he was appointed to command the 7th Virginia Cavalry. He led the regiment into Western Virginia, along the Potomac River. In March 1862 Jones was given command of all cavalry in the Valley District.[4]

Confederate Cavalry General William E. Jones photographed while still a colonel with the 7th Virginia Cavalry in 1862.

Returning to eastern Virginia, Jones's cavalry was distinguished in the Second Bull Run Campaign; he was wounded in a skirmish at Orange Court House on August 2. He was part of Stuart's ostentatious raid around Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's army preceding the Seven Days battles. Jones had established himself a reputation as a "superb outpost officer" but had already alienated Stuart who tried to send Robertson off to North Carolina only for him to return, Stuart expressed the opinion that Jones was the most difficult man in the army.[5] Despite Stuart's protest, Lee promoted Jones to brigadier general, and assigned to him to command the 4th Brigade of Stuart's Cavalry Division in the Army of Northern Virginia. This brigade was known as Robertson's, or the "Laurel brigade," consisted entirely of Virginians; it had performed well while commanded by Turner Ashby though sometimes without tight discipline. Now leading an elite veteran unit, Jones was requested by Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson for the Valley District, and he took up the post on December 29, 1862.

In the spring of 1863, Jones and Brig. Gen. John D. Imboden raided the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad west of Cumberland, Maryland, destroying much of the railroad and public property in the area, including the Burning Springs Complex on May 9, 1863.[6] Rejoining Stuart, he fought in the largest cavalry engagement of the war, the Battle of Brandy Station, June 9, 1863, at the start of the Gettysburg Campaign. He was surprised, as was all of Stuart's command, to be hit out of blue by Union cavalry under Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton. Jones's brigade was outnumbered by the division of his West Point classmate, Brig. Gen. John Buford, but it held its own and ended the fight with more horses and more and better small-arms than at the beginning, capturing two regimental colors, an artillery battery, and about 250 prisoners.

In one of the huge cavalry parades ordered by Stuart that had attracted the attention of Union forces and led to the Battle of Brandy Station, Jones put an affront on Stuart by disrupting a passing review ceremony for guest of honour Robert E. Lee. Accustomed to good press, Stuart found himself criticised for ordering outrageous pageantry and then failing to maintain Confederate cavalry supremacy in a real battle.[7] To make it worse, Stuart's bête noire Jones had been in the thick of the fighting and performed impressively at Brandy Station.[7] By the beginning of the Gettysburg campaign, the function of cavalry was increasingly to be the eyes and ears of an army.[8] John S. Mosby, once a protege of Jones, but now leading his own partisan ranger detachment, had given Stuart optimistic intelligence, which he seized on to propose a showy raid around the Union army.[9] Lee had twice found similar cavalry probes by Stuart lasting a few days useful, and gave him discretionary orders for a new operation as part of the major offensive into the North.[8]

Jones had so estranged Stuart that he chose to sideline the proven cavalry brigade commanded by Jones (and the similar one led by Beverly Robertson who had once been engaged to Stuart's wife) well away from the opportunity to distinguish themselves, either with Stuart or with Lee and the bulk of the army as it maneuvered in enemy territory. This left Lee with a couple of brigades of mounted partisan rangers, and he distrusted these irregulars for the vital work of probing enemy dispositions while screening their own army from the enemy. Lee chose not to use the irregular brigades, and waited for the return of Stuart, but his sweep around the Union army took far longer than anticipated. Confederate blindness to the disposition and movements of Union forces during Stuart's eight day absence was a harbinger of insouciant reconnaissance that was widely thought to have been a major factor in Lee's tactics at the Battle of Gettysburg.[8]

Before moving into Pennsylvania, General Robert E. Lee ordered Ewell to capture Harrisburg if practicable. On July 3, Jones's brigade fought a sharp battle with the 6th U.S. Cavalry at Fairfield, Pennsylvania, then again at Funkstown, Maryland, a few days later. The Battle of Culpeper Court House was Jones#s last action under Stuart's command.

Stuart, who since Gettysburg had seen his reputation in the South and the Confederate army decline precipitously, court-martialed Jones for insulting him. Robert E. Lee had by this time become aware of the personality clash and intervened to have Jones exonerated and transferred to the Trans-Allegheny Department in West Virginia. He recruited a brigade of cavalry there and campaigned in eastern Tennessee with Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's forces during the winter and spring of 1864.

In May, Jones assumed command of the Confederate forces in the Shenandoah Valley who were defending against the halting advance of Maj. Gen. David Hunter towards Lynchburg, Virginia, in the Valley Campaigns of 1864. In the Battle of Piedmont on June 5, 1864, Jones was shot in the head and killed while leading a charge against a superior attacking force.

Grumble Jones is buried in the Old Glade Spring Presbyterian Church graveyard, Glade Spring, Virginia. His fellow cavalry general, Brig. Gen. Imboden, wrote that Jones

... was an old army officer, brave as a lion and had seen much service, and was known as a hard fighter. He was a man, however, of high temper, morose and fretful. He held the fighting qualities of the enemy in great contempt, and never would admit the possibility of defeat where the odds against him were not much over two to one.[10]

The bluegrass band The Dixie Bee-Liners have a biographical ballad about Jones on their 2008 album Ripe (Pinecastle Records) entitled "Grumble Jones". The song was co-written by band members Buddy Woodward, Brandi Hart, and Blue Highway guitarist Tim Stafford.

A street in Centreville, Virginia is named Grumble Jones Court.[11]

• List of American Civil War Generals (Confederate)

• Eicher, John H., and David J. Eicher, Civil War High Commands. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. ISBN 978-0-8047-3641-1.
• Lambert, Dobbie Edward. Grumble: The W. E. Jones Brigade of 1863–64. Wahiawa, HI: Lambert Enterprises, 1992.
• McClure, Alexander K., ed. The Annals of the Civil War Written by Leading Participants North and South. Philadelphia, PA: Times Publishing Company, 1879. ISBN 0963364103. ISBN 978-0963364104.
• Sifakis, Stewart. Who Was Who in the Civil War. New York: Facts On File, 1988. ISBN 978-0-8160-1055-4.
• Tagg, Larry. The Generals of Gettysburg. Campbell, CA: Savas Publishing, 1998. ISBN 1-882810-30-9.
• Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959. ISBN 978-0-8071-0823-9.
• "The Dixie Bee-Liners"
• 'maps.google.com Grumble Jones Ct. Centreville, VA 20121' Retrieved February 2, 2012.

• Patchan, Scott C. The Battle of Piedmont and Hunter's Campaign for Staunton: The 1864 Shenandoah Campaign. Charleston: The History Press, 2011. ISBN 978-1-60949-197-0.
• Wert, Jeffry D. Cavalryman of the Lost Cause: A Biography of J.E.B. Stuart. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008. ISBN 978-0-7432-7819-5.

• Online biography
• "William E. Jones". Find a Grave. Retrieved 2008-07-07.