Augusta County: "GEN. IMBODEN'S TRIBUTE TO GEN. ASHBY," by J. D. Imboden, 1897
Summary: Gen. Imboden's laudatory account of Gen. Turner Ashby's military prowess and character.
The late Gen. J. D. Imboden, in reply to an invitation by Prof. Garnett to be present at the dedication of the monument, wrote his regret in being unable to attend, and added:
I regret it because it would have enabled me to drop a tear of more than ordinary fraternal affection upon the grave of one of the nearest and dearest friends I ever had, the immortal Ashby. We were friends before the war began. We were together in Richmond on the night of April 16, 1861, and, with others, planned the attack upon and capture of Harper's Ferry; and on the morning of April 17, the day Virginia seceded, we set out for our respective homes; he to lead his cavalry company, I to take the Staunton Artillery, and meet at Harper's Ferry before daybreak on April 19 with some other volunteers-one company from Charlottesville, one from Culpeper, and others from adjacent counties. Then our former friendship ripened into the most devoted attachment, which was to end on his part by his glorious soldier's death, near Harrisonburg, on the evening of June 6, 1862. The next day I received an order, written in pencil on the blank margin of a newspaper, from our great commander, Stonewall Jackson, to join him with my little command during the ensuing night at Port Republic, with a postscript that conveyed the first intelligence I had of the fate of my peerless friend. It was couched in these words: " I know that you will share my grief over the death of our mutual friend, the gallant Ashby, who was killed last evening in a charge upon the enemy. The Confederacy had no truer or braver soldier, nor Virginia any nobler gentleman.' Such was the spontaneous tribute of one whose testimony is in itself a monument that will stand out on the pages of Virginia's history even when the structure reared by the untiring efforts of noble Virginia women at the University of Virginia shall have crumbled into dust under the inexorable laws of the physical world.
It is the grave of such a man in the midst of his fallen comrades that would have invested the ceremonies of the day with a sacredness in my heart never to have been erased as long as life lasts.
I have turned this morning to Vol.XII., Series I, page 712, of the "Official Records" of the war, and find this reference to Ashby's death, in Stonewall Jackson's report of his great "Valley Campaign of 1862." Describing the skirmish of June 6, 1862, near Harrisonburg, he says: "In this skirmish our infantry loss was seventeen killed and fifty wounded. In this affair Gen. Turner Ashby was killed. An official report is not an appropriate place for more than a passing notice of the distinguished dead, but the close relation which Gen. Ashby bore to my command for most of the previous twelve months will justify me in saying that as a partisan officer I never knew his superior. His daring was proverbial, his powers of endurance almost incredible, his tone of character heroic, and his sagacity almost intuitive in divining the purposes and movements of the enemy." If these words be not carved upon the marble that marks his resting-place, no matter, for they are inscribed and imperishable on the pages-the brightest and the saddest pages-of Virginia's history.
Bibliographic Information: Source copy consulted: Confederate Veteran, Vol. 5, 1897, p. 151
