Lydia Estes Pinkham, died May 17, 1883

Lydia Estes Pinkham's husband, Isaac Pinkham, was financially ruined in the Panic of 1873;  he narrowly escaped arrest for debt and his health was permanently broken by the associated stress.  The fortunes of the Pinkham family had long been patchy but they now entered on hard times. Lydia sometimes accepted payment for her popular remedy for female complaints. 

The Panic of 1873
Bank Run on the Fourth National Bank in New York City

Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound made its commercial appearance in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1875 for $1 a bottle. She wrote handbills for her sons to distribute with slogans such as “Only a woman can understand a woman’s ills.” 

According to family lore, her son, Daniel, came up with the idea of had the idea of using his mother’s picture in newspaper advertisements to emphasize the homemade quality of the compound. His strategy succeeded, and continued heavy advertising made the face of the “savior of her sex,” as the ads described her, one of the best known in the country. She answered letters from customers and probably wrote most of the advertising copy. Her ads promised that the compound would cure "all those painful Complaints and Weaknesses so common to our best female population", including everything from flatulence to "all ovarian troubles", but it was most widely advised for menstrual pain and menopause.

Lydia initially made the remedy on her stove before its success enabled production to be transferred to a factory.  Patented and mass-marketed from 1876 on, Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound became one of the best known patent medicines of the 19th century. Descendants of this product are still available today. Lydia's skill was in marketing her product directly to women, and her company continued her shrewd marketing tactics after her death. Her own face was on the label and her company was particularly keen on the use of testimonials from grateful women.  Advertising copy urged women to write to Mrs. Pinkham. They did, and they received answers. 

The Pinkhams’ four children, Charles, Daniel, William and Aroline helped start the business and run it profitably.  Tragedy struck the family in 1881 when Dan and Will both died of
“consumption” (tuberculosis).  Lydia Pinkham died of a stroke in Lynn, Massachusetts on May 17, 1883, at the age of 64.  She was buried in Pine Grove Cemetery in Lynn.

Lydia Pinkham's Grave

At the time of her death, only eight years after first selling her "vegetable compound", the business was grossing about $300,000 per year. Labels and pamphlets were published in English, French and Spanish, and the product's popularity continued to grow, becoming a multi-million dollar business.

1880s Advertisement for Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound

After the death of his brothers and mother, Charles H. Pinkham ran the company.  Charles died in 1900 of kidney disease – a sad irony in light of the Compound’s claims to cure all kidney troubles.

Charles’ death triggered a power struggle within the family which raged intermittently for the next half-century or until the 1950s. Aroline Pinkham had married a lawyer named Will Gove, and while Charles was running the company, the Goves had little to do with the business. The Goves did little work and yet shared in the profits.

In 1900, after Charles’ death, Will and Aroline (Pinkham) Gove moved quickly to seize control of the company and drive out the Pinkham heirs, including Lydia’s grandchildren (Aroline’s cousins), Lucy and Marion Pinkham. Each side of the family held 56 shares in the

corporation. Because Will Gove was Secretary of the Board of Directors, after Charles’ death the Goves assumed control.  Since each side of the family owned equal shares in the company,Jennie Pinkham, Charles’ widow, was elected to the board. The equal shares facilitated a stalemate on the board because control could not be taken back from the Goves.

Jennie Pinkham asked her son Arthur to drop out of college and help her protect her stake in the Lydia Pinkham Medicine Company. Arthur realized the law offered the Pinkhams no recourse and to regain some control of the company he would have to force the Goves to negotiate.  Arthur also realized that the Pinkhams had two important assets – the Pinkham
name and his father, Charles’ reputation in the patent medicine industry. 

His first move was to order the postmaster to deliver the thousands of letters addressed

to “Mrs. Pinkham” to his mother – Mrs. Jennie Pinkham –  instead of the factory where the Goves had control. 

Then he went into competition with the Lydia Pinkham Medicine Company – his mother’s own company; he began to manufacture "Vegetable Compound".  Copyright protected the trademark “Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound,” but not the formula of the medicine. Arthur could legally duplicate the Pinkham Compound as long as he gave it a different name. Jennie Pinkham took the first letter of the names of each of her children and arrived at the
name “Delmac.” Early in 1901 Arthur ran a full-page ad in the local paper introducing the “Delmac Liver Regulator.” Its label featured a picture of his late father, Charles Pinkham, known by druggists across the country as the manufacturer of the Pinkham medicine. As a final touch, Jennie Pinkham wrote an enthusiastic endorsement which she signed “Mrs.
Pinkham.”

A few weeks after producing and advertising his new medicine, Arthur called on Will Gove and invited him to sample the Delmac Regulator. One taste and Gove capitulated – the medicine was indistinguishable from Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound. The Pinkhams and the Goves reached a compromise. In return for the written promise that she would refrain from marketing products that competed with those manufactured by the Lydia

Pinkham Medicine Company, Jennie gained a seat on the Board of Directors. The newly constituted Board then elected Arthur Pinkham vice-president and secretary of the company.  Four months after the Goves’ takeover, the Pinkhams had regained a voice in the
company’s management. 

1910 letter from"Mrs. Pinkham"

1910 letter from"Mrs. Pinkham"

Will Gove was president of the company from 1900 until 1920. He proved to be a poor
administrator. The ongoing family feud continued and the dispute was passed on
to the Pinkham and Gove children.

Women continued to write and receive answers for decades after Lydia Pinkham's death. These staff-written answers combined forthright talk about women's medical issues, advice, and, of course, recommendations for her product. In 1905, the Ladies' Home Journal published a photograph of Lydia Pinkham's tombstone and exposed the ruse. The Pinkham company insisted that it had never meant to imply that the letters were being answered by Lydia Pinkham, but by her daughter-in-law, Jennie Pinkham.

The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 forced makers of patent medicines to disclose on the label the product's alcohol content.  For the first time, users of the compound--many of whom were adamant non-drinkers, and some of whom were Womens' Christian Temperance Union members--discovered that the Pinkham's was 15 percent alcohol.  In fact, just before labeling was required, the formula had been changed: the old, undisclosed formula was closer to 20 percent alcohol.

The new law also forced manufacturers to scale back the claim for cures on the labels. No longer would purchasers of the compound be treated to claims such as:

"A sure cure for PROLAPSUS UTERI, or falling of the womb and all FEMALE WEAKNESSES including leucorrhoea, irregular and painful menstruation, inflammation and ulceration of the womb, flooding,...for all weaknesses of the generative organs of either sex, it is second to no remedy that has ever been before the public, and for all diseases of the kidneys it is the GREATEST REMEDY IN THE WORLD."

1920 Advertisement for Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound

In 1922, Lydia's daughter Aroline Pinkham Chase Gove founded the Lydia E. Pinkham Memorial Clinic in Salem, Massachusetts to provide health services to young mothers and their children. The clinic is in operation as of 2012. 

In 1925 annual profits peaked at $3.8 million.  

1926 Booklet, "Health Hints",
with Lydia Pinkham and her Great Granddaughter

The family feud finally ended up in court and stayed there for  years, eventually going to the Massachusetts Supreme Court. In July of 1937, the Court granted the Pinkhams an injunction against the Goves to prevent them from interfering in the business.  The final chapter of the Pinkham-Gove feud was recorded in Maine, before that state’s Supreme Judicial Court, where the Gove stockholders had filed for receivership. Aroline Gove died at the age of eighty-two before the final decision was made.  Lydia Pinkham Gove herself was

the one responsible for losing the case in the Maine courts: under questioning from her own lawyer, she testified that absolute equality between the two families had always been intended and upheld by both sides until Arthur Pinkham sought to take control of the business.  

The Lydia Pinkham Medicine Company proved to be the biggest loser in the Pinkham-Gove feud; the lengthy wrangling between the families badly crippled the business.  During the early years of the court fight, advertising virtually ceased, and sales declined precipitously. The 1940s saw an increase in sales that reached $2,636,000 in 1945.

Reminiscent of the irony of Charles Pinkham’s death in 1900 of kidney disease, and as if to once again mock claims of the Vegetable Compound’s efficacy, Lydia Pinkham Gove died in 1948 of ovarian cancer.

1963 Advertisement in Ebony Magazine
for Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound

The Pinkhams and the Goves during an uneasy truce ran the company, but not very

successfully,  for another decade or so.  The family-owned business sold out to Cooper Laboratories in 1968.  Cooper paid the Pinkhams over a million dollars for the firm and moved it to Puerto Rico.  According to one of Lydia’s biographers, Sara Stage, “Cooper Labs, drawing on a residual demand created by past advertising, managed to gross over $700,000 annually on sales of the Vegetable Compound.”  

Pills and a liquid bearing the name of Lydia Pinkham are still for sale. The ingredients are water, alcohol, vitamin B1, licorice, chamomile, pleurisy root, black cohosh, life root plant, true unicorn, false unicorn, gentian and dandelion root. The medicine has a bitter, nut-like flavor with a faint aftertaste of licorice. “Your initial reaction is to screw up your face,” according to a comment by Hermon E. Smith, one of Lydia’s great-grandsons whose job it was to taste every batch made in the early 1970s.

Although Pinkham's motives were partly self-serving, many modern-day feminists admire her for distributing information on menstruation and the "facts of life", and consider her to be a crusader for women's health issues in a day when women were poorly served by the medical establishment. 

The Lydia Pinkham House located near her factory in Lynn, Massachusetts was placed on the National Register of Historic Places September 25, 2012. 

The Lydia Pinkham House

John Jay, died May 17, 1829

In 1801, John Jay retired to the life of a farmer at his 24-room farmhouse in Westchester County, New York.

Jay Homestead

His wife of 28 years, Sarah, died in 1802.  

Sarah Jay

In 1807, he transferred the remains of his ancestors from the family vault in the Bowery in Manhattan to Rye, New York, establishing a private cemetery. 

Jay, who served as vice-president (1816–21) and president (1821–27) of the American Bible Society, believed that the most effective way of ensuring world peace was through propagation of the Christian gospel. In a letter addressed to Pennsylvania House of Representatives member John Murray, dated October 12, 1816, Jay wrote, 

"Real Christians will abstain from violating the rights of others, and therefore will not provoke war. Almost all nations have peace or war at the will and pleasure of rulers whom they do not elect, and who are not always wise or virtuous. Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest, of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."

He also expressed a belief that the moral precepts of Christianity were necessary for good government, saying, 

"No human society has ever been able to maintain both order and freedom, both cohesiveness and liberty apart from the moral precepts of the Christian Religion. Should our Republic ever forget this fundamental precept of governance, we will then, be surely doomed."

Jay maintained a close interest in state and national affairs, evidenced in his correspondence with his sons, Peter Augustus, who was active in local Federalist political circles, and William, who, among other things, became an outspoken abolitionist.

In the last two years of his life, he was unable to walk without assistance.  On the night of May 14, 1829, Jay was stricken with palsy, probably caused by a stroke. He lived for three days, dying in Bedford, New York on May 17, at the age of 83. 

Jay's farm and home were inherited by William Jay, John's second son. The Homestead became a center in the anti-slavery movement.

Jay chose to be buried in Rye, where he lived as a boy.  Today, the Jay Cemetery is an integral part of the Boston Post Road Historic District, adjacent to the historic Jay Property. The Cemetery is maintained by the Jay descendants and closed to the public. 

John Jay Gravesite

Isaac Hopper, died May 7, 1852

From 1841, Isaac Hopper served as treasurer and book agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society.

Hopper Medallion

On March 25, 1841, the National Anti-Slavery Standard, the official publication of the American Anti-Slavery Society, ran an article headlined "A Rare Specimen of a Quaker!" The titular specimen was Quaker minister George Fox White; the article accused him of being "in the constant practice of denouncing abolitionists in the most offensive and opprobrious terms." 

Complaints were subsequently lodged with New York Monthly Meeting (Hicksite), that the article "excite[d] discord and disunity" amongst the Society of Friends, contrary to discipline. The article's author, Oliver Johnson, was not a Quaker, but the meeting determined that the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society should be held responsible for the contents of the publication.  Only three members of the Executive Committee fit both criteria of being Quaker and residing full-time in New York City: Isaac T. Hopper, his son-in-law James S. Gibbons, and Charles Marriott. 

James S. Gibbons with his wife,
Abigail Hopper Gibbons (in the dark dress),
and their children

After over a year of deliberation, the three men were disowned in 1842. Nonetheless, they continued to attend religious meetings, and 40 years later--after the abolition of slavery--New York Yearly Meeting acknowledged regret for disowning them. 

In 1845 Hopper became active in prison reform and devoted the rest of his life to the Prison Association of New York, which sought reform in prisons and the justice system. 

Hopper frequently visited the state capital of  Albany, New York, to represent the association and to address the legislature.  Judge Edmonds said of one of these occasions: “His eloquence was simple and direct, but most effective. If he was humorous, his audience were full of laughter; if solemn, a death-like stillness reigned; if pathetic, tears flowed all around him.”.

John Young

He often pled for the pardon of prisoners. Governor John Young of New York, once said to him: “Friend Hopper, I will pardon any convict whom you say you conscientiously believe I ought to pardon.”

Abigail Hopper Gibbons

His married daughter,  Abigail Hopper Gibbons, founded the Women's Prison Assocation,  also to work for prison reform. She founded an asylum for women prisoners who had been released, to help with their re-entry to society, which she named for her father as the “Isaac T. Hopper Home.”.

Isaac Hopper died in New York City on May 7, 1852; he was 80 years old.  

He spoke his final words to his friend Lydia Maria Child, (who later became his biographer): "Tell them I love them all."

 

Lydia Maria Child

 

Isaac T. Hopper: A True Life, by Lydia Maria Child

J.E.B. Stuart, died May 12, 1864

James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart graduated from West Point in 1854.  Robert E. Lee had been appointed superintendent of the Academy in 1852, and Stuart became friends with the Lee family, seeing them socially on frequent occasions. Lee's nephew, Fitzhugh Lee, also arrived at the academy in 1852.  In Stuart's final year, in addition to achieving the cadet rank of second captain of the corps, he was one of eight cadets designated as honorary "cavalry officers" for his skills in horsemanship.  Stuart graduated 13th in his class of 46. 

Stuart was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant and assigned to the U.S. Regiment of Mounted Riflemen in Texas.  He was soon transferred to the newly formed 1st Cavalry Regiment at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Territory where he became regimental quartermaster and commissary officer.

In 1855, Stuart met Flora Cooke, the daughter of the commander of the 2nd U.S. Dragoon Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke.  Flora was described as  "an accomplished horsewoman, and though not pretty, an effective charmer."  

Flora Cooke Jackson

They became engaged in September 1855, less than two months after meeting.  Stuart humorously wrote of his rapid courtship in Latin "Veni, Vidi, Victus sum" (I came, I saw, I was conquered). The death of Stuart's father on September 20 caused a change of plans and the marriage on November 14, 1855 was small and limited to family witnesses. The couple owned two slaves until 1859, one inherited from his father's estate, the other purchased.

Their first child, a girl, was born in 1856 but died the same day.

Stuart was wounded on July 29, 1857, while fighting at Solomon River, Kansas against the Cheyenne. Colonel Sumner ordered a charge with drawn sabers against a wave of Indian arrows. Scattering the warriors, Stuart and three other lieutenants chased one down, whom Stuart wounded in the thigh with his pistol. The Cheyenne turned and fired at Stuart with an old-fashioned pistol, striking him in the chest with a bullet, which did little more damage than to pierce the skin.

On November 14, 1857, Flora gave birth to another daughter, whom the parents named Flora after her mother. The family relocated in early 1858 to Fort Riley, where they remained for three years.

Harpers Ferry 1859

While in Washington, D.C. in 1859 to discuss government contracts, Stuart heard about John Brown's raid on the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry.  Stuart volunteered to accompany Colonel Robert E. Lee with a company of  U.S. Marines and four companies of Maryland militia.  While delivering Lee's written surrender ultimatum to the leader of the group, who had been calling himself Isaac Smith, Stuart recognized "Old Ossawatomie Brown" from his days in Kansas.

Philip St. George Cooke

Stuart resigned from the U.S. Army on May 3, 1861, to join the Confederate States Army,  following the secession of Virginia.  Upon learning that his father-in-law, Colonel Cooke, would remain in the U.S. Army during the coming war, Stuart wrote to his brother-in-law (future Confederate General John Rogers Cooke), "He will regret it but once, and that will be continuously."  

John Rogers Cooke

On June 26, 1860, Flora had given birth to a son, Philip St. George Cooke Stuart, but Stuart changed the boy's name to James Ewell Brown Stuart, Jr. ("Jimmie"), in late 1861 out of disgust with his father-in-law.

He served first under Stonewall Jackson in the  Shenandoah Valley, but then in increasingly important cavalry commands of the Army of Northern Virginia, playing a role in all of that army's campaigns until his death. He established a reputation as an audacious cavalry commander.

 Joseph Johnston

In 1862, the Union Army of the Potomac began its Peninsula Campaign against Richmond, Virginia, and Stuart's cavalry brigade assisted General Joseph Johnston's army as it withdrew up the Virginia Peninsula in the face of superior numbers.  When Robert E. Lee became commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, he requested that Stuart perform reconnaissance to determine whether the right flank of the Union army was vulnerable. Stuart set out with 1,200 troopers on the morning of June 12 and, having determined that the flank was indeed vulnerable, took his men on a complete circumnavigation of the Union army, returning after 150 miles on July 15 with 165 captured Union soldiers, 260 horses and mules, and various quartermaster and ordnance supplies. His men met no serious opposition from the more decentralized Union cavalry, coincidentally commanded by his father-in-law, Colonel Cooke. The maneuver was a public relations sensation and Stuart was greeted with flower petals thrown in his path at Richmond.

On November 6, 1862, Stuart received sad news by telegram that his daughter Flora had died just before her fifth birthday, of  typhoid fever on November 3.

In the December 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg, Stuart and his cavalry protected Stonewall Jackson's flank at Hamilton's Crossing.  General Lee commended his cavalry, which "effectually guarded our right, annoying the enemy and embarrassing his movements by hanging on his flank, and attacking when the opportunity occurred." 

Stuart reported to Flora the next day that he had been shot through his fur collar but was unhurt.

Montgomery Meigs

After Christmas, Lee ordered Stuart to conduct a raid north of the Rappahannock River to "penetrate the enemy's rear, ascertain if possible his position & movements, & inflict upon him such damage as circumstances will permit." Assigning 1,800 troopers and a horse artillery battery to the operation, Stuart's raid reached as far north as 4 miles south of Fairfax Court House, seizing 250 prisoners, horses, mules, and supplies. Tapping telegraph lines, his signalmen intercepted messages between Union commanders.  Stuart sent a personal telegram to Union Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs, "General Meigs will in the future please furnish better mules; those you have furnished recently are very inferior."

On March 17, 1863, Stuart's cavalry clashed with a Union raiding party at Kelly's Ford.   The minor victory was marred by the death of Major John Pelham, which caused Stuart profound grief, as he thought of him as close as a younger brother. He wrote to a Confederate Congressman, "The noble, the chivalric, the gallant Pelham is no more. ... Let the tears of agony we have shed, and the gloom of mourning throughout my command bear witness." 

John Pelham

Flora was pregnant at the time and Stuart told her that if it were a boy, he wanted him to be named John Pelham Stuart. (Virginia Pelham Stuart was born October 9, 1863.)

At the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1864, he distinguished himself as a temporary commander of the wounded Stonewall Jackson's infantry corps.  Stonewall Jackson died on May 10 and Stuart was once again devastated by the loss of a close friend, telling his staff that the death was a "national calamity." Jackson's wife, Mary Anna, wrote to Stuart on August 1, thanking him for a note of sympathy: "I need not assure you of which you already know, that your friendship & admiration were cordially reciprocated by him. I have frequently heard him speak of Gen'l Stuart as one of his warm personal friends, & also express admiration for your Soldierly qualities."

Stuart's most famous campaign, Gettysburg, was marred when he was surprised by a Union cavalry attack at the Battle of Brandy Station and by his separation from Lee's army for an extended period, leaving Lee unaware of Union troop movements.

Cavalry Charge Near Brandy Station

One of the most forceful post-war defenses of Stuart was by Colonel John Mosby, who had served under him during the campaign and was fiercely loyal to the late general, writing, "He made me all that I was in the war. ... But for his friendship I would never have been heard of."  He wrote numerous articles for popular publications and published a book length treatise in 1908, a work that relied on his skills as a lawyer to refute categorically all of the claims laid against Stuart.

John Mosby

The Overland Campaign, General Ulysses Grant's offensive against Lee in the spring of 1864, began at the Battle of the Wilderness, where Stuart aggressively pushed Thomas L. Rosser's Laurel Brigade into a fight against George Custer's better-armed Michigan Brigade, resulting in significant losses. General Lee sent a message to Stuart: "It is very important to save your Cavalry & not wear it out. ... You must use your good judgment to make any attack which may offer advantages." As the armies maneuvered toward their next confrontation at Spotsylvania Court House, Stuart's cavalry fought delaying actions against the Union cavalry. His defense at Laurel Hill skillfully delayed the advance of the Federal army for nearly 5 critical hours.

Learning of Union General John Sedgwick's death near Spotsylvania Court House on May 9, Stuart told a staffer that he would have gladly shared a blanket and his last crust of bread with him.

Philip Sheridan

General Philip Sheridan moved aggressively to the southeast, crossing the North Anna River and seizing Beaver Dam Station on the Virginia Central Railroad, where his men liberated a train carrying 3,000 Union prisoners and destroyed more than one million rations and medical supplies destined for Lee's army. Stuart dispatched a force of about 3,000 cavalrymen to intercept Sheridan's cavalry, which was more than three times their numbers. As he rode in pursuit, accompanied by his aide, Major Andrew Reid Venable, they were able to stop briefly along the way to be greeted by Stuart's wife, Flora, and his children, Jimmie and Virginia.  They rode a mile and a half to the Edmond Fontaine plantation, where his family, who had been staying as guests of Colonel Fontaine.  After embracing his wife, Flora, Stuart kissed four-year-old James, Jr., and 17-month-old Virginia Pelham Stuart. 

The "most affectionate fare-well," as Venable pronounced it, lasted only minutes; then Stuart and he galloped back.  Venable wrote of Stuart, "He told me he never expected to live through the war, and that if we were conquered, that he did not want to live."

The Battle of Yellow Tavern occurred May 11, at an abandoned inn located six miles north of Richmond. The Confederate troopers tenaciously resisted from the low ridgeline bordering the road to Richmond, fighting for over three hours. A countercharge by the 1st Virginia Cavalry pushed the advancing Union troopers back from the hilltop as Stuart, on horseback, shouted encouragement while firing his revolver at the Union troopers. 

As the 5th Michigan Cavalry streamed in retreat past Stuart, a dismounted Union private, 48-year-old John A. Huff of Amanda, Michigan, turned and shot Stuart with his .44-caliber revolver from a distance of 10–30 yards.  Huff's bullet struck Stuart in the left side. It then sliced through his stomach and exited his back, 1 inch to the right of his spine. 

Gustavus W. Dorsey

Members of Stuart's staff turned to see their general, an expert horseman, reel in his saddle. When a crimson stain spread along the waist of his gray jacket, they realized to their horror that Stuart had been wounded. One of Stuart's closest subordinates, Captain Gustavus W. Dorsey of the 1st Virginia, was close enough to reach up and steady him in the saddle. When Dorsey asked Stuart about his condition, Stuart replied in a quiet voice, "'I'm afraid they've killed me, Dorsey."

The noise and carnage on every side had rendered Stuart's horse unmanageable, so Dorsey helped the general to the ground, placed him against the base of a tree, rounded up another horse, and, with the assistance of comrades, helped him remount. Holding the suffering Stuart in the saddle, Dorsey and the others helped him to the rear. 

En route, an increasing number of riders passed them at breakneck speed. The sight so overwhelmed Stuart that he called out in an anguished voice, "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."

The Battle of Yellow Tavern, May 11, 1864

About half a mile behind the front, Confederates placed Stuart in an ambulance, which he shared with Venable and a second aide, Lieutenant Walter Hullihen.  Soon afterward, Fitz Lee and Stuart's medical director, Major John B. Fontaine, arrived. Stuart formally passed his command to Fitz Lee, and then Doctor Fontaine turned Stuart onto his side and gently probed the wound. During or immediately after the procedure, Stuart, fearing he had taken on the death-pallor he had observed on the countenance of so many badly wounded subordinates, asked Venable and Hullihen how he looked "in the face."  Hesitating only slightly, both aides pronounced him free of the pallor. Stuart was silent for a moment and then remarked, " Well, I don't know how this will turn out; but if it is God's will that I shall die I am ready." 

At one point Fontaine suggested that Stuart would benefit from an alcoholic stimulant. At first Stuart, a lifetime teetotaler, refused, but at Venable's strong urging, he relented.

Fontaine's original diagnosis — that Huff's bullet had severed blood vessels and perforated Stuart's intestines, a fatal condition — was later confirmed via more thorough examination by other surgeons. Stuart suffered great pain as an ambulance took him to Richmond.  Early on May 12, Stuart was placed in bed at the Grace Street home of his brother-in-law Dr. Charles Brewer. Doctors tried unsuccessfully to stop the internal hemorrhaging. 

About noon on that Thursday, Confederate President Jefferson Davis visited his bedside, and spent some fifteen minutes with him.   The President, taking his hand, said, "General, how do you feel?" He replied, "Easy, but willing to die, if God and my country think I have fulfilled my destiny and done my duty." 

Jefferson Davis 

To Mrs. Robert E. Lee, the wife of the general, Stuart directed that spurs be given to the general and his sword given to his son. He gave his horses to his staff officers. He disposed of his official papers, and  led his attendants in the singing of hymns:  

"Rock of ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in thee"

During the afternoon, Stuart asked, "How long can I live, Charles?  Can I last through the night?"  "I'm afraid the end is near," Brewer said.  Stuart asked for Flora several times during the afternoon.

Death from peritonitis overtook Stuart at 7:38 p.m. on May 12, hours before his wife, Flora,  could reach his side.  His last whispered words were: "I am resigned; God's will be done." He was 31 years old. 

More than three hours later, Flora arrived.  After only nine years of marriage, Flora at age 28 became a widow.  Her sister, Maria, snipped off a lock of the red-golden hair from Stuart's head, tied it with a ribbon and put it into an envelope. 

Upon learning of Stuart's death, General Lee is reported to have said that he could hardly keep from weeping at the mere mention of Stuart's name and that Stuart had never given him a bad piece of information.  Lee later said he had lost his right arm when Jackson died, and his eyes when Stuart was killed.

Stuart was buried at Hollywood Cemetery from St. James' Episcopal Church where the funeral service was performed by Joshua Peterkin, Pastor of St. James' Church.  Among the pall bearers were John Winder, Braxton Bragg, Joseph R. Anderson, George W. Randolph, and Commodore Forrest.  The sounds of cannon fire and fighting at Drewry's Bluff could be heard as the procession bearing the metal coffin drew up at St. James Church at about 5 o'clock.  Burke Davis wrote: "There was no music on the streets, and no military escort, since the Public Guard was in the field." Among the mourners were President Davis, General Bragg, General Ransom, and other civic and military officials in Richmond.  The coffin was then put in the hearse, decorated with black plumes and drawn by four white horses.

Temporary Marker at Grave of Stuart in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia

Like his friend, Stonewall Jackson, J.E.B. Stuart was a legendary figure and is considered one of the greatest cavalry commanders in American history.  His friend from his federal army days, Union General John Sedgwick, said that Stuart was "the greatest cavalry officer ever foaled in America."

On January 25, 1865, General Philip St. George Cooke in  New York City sent a letter  to Ulysses Grant in Virginia: "I have two daughters, one a widow, with infant children suffering for clothing--I propose sending them a box, of two cubic feet or less, containing clothing and nothing other, on honor: unless letters of affection only, from their mother. The box to be sent to you, with the request that you have it marked 'For Mrs Charles Brewer or Mrs J. E. B. Stuart; care of Genl. Lee or Mr. Ould; by flag of truce. My feelings & strong motive must be my only justification, for attempting thus to trouble you, & to consume even a moment of your so valuable time. (Such things, I know, have been allowed.) An Aide, D. C. can write me if you approve & assent."

Stuart Monument near site of shooting

 A monument was erected near where Stuart was shot, enclosed by an iron fence. A plaque at the site reads:

“This monument, erected in memory of Major General James Ewell Brown Stuart, C.S.A. by his cavalrymen about thirty feet from the spot where he fell mortally wounded on May 11, 1864, was dedicated June 18, 1888, by the Governor of Virginia, Fitzhugh Lee, a former division commander in Stuart’s cavalry.”  

Flora wore the black mourning clothes for the remainder of her life, and never remarried. She lived in Saltville, Virginia for 15 years after the war, where she opened and taught at a school in a log cabin. 

Saltville, Virginia

She worked from 1880 to 1898 as principal of the Virginia Female Institute in Staunton, Virginia, a position for which Robert E. Lee had recommended her before his death ten years earlier.  Upon the death of her daughter Virginia, from complications in childbirth in 1898, Flora resigned from the Institute and moved to Norfolk, Virginia, where she helped Virginia's widower, Robert Page Waller, in raising her grandchildren.  In 1907, the Institute was renamed Stuart Hall School in her honor.

Stuart Hall

One of Stuart's great literary advocates was his wife's first cousin, John Esten Cooke, who also served as one of Stuart's staff officers. In newspaper dispatches during the war and in books after, Cooke glorified his commander's exploits.

John Esten Cooke

A statue of General J.E.B. Stuart by sculptor Frederick Moynihan was dedicated on Richmond's Monument Avenue at Stuart Circle in 1907. Like General Stonewall Jackson, his equestrian statue faces north, indicating that he died in the war.

Statue of General J.E.B. Stuart
Richmond's Monument Avenue at Stuart Circle

With Lee and Jackson, he was enshrined as the third member of the "Holy Trinity" of the secular religion of the postbellum South, as illustrated in Charles Hoffbauer's large-scale mural, "Autumn," from the Four Seasons of the Confederacy. Commissioned by the Confederate Memorial Association in 1914 and completed in 1921 for Richmond's Battle Abbey (now the home of the Virginia Historical Society), the paintings use the seasons of the year as a metaphor for the Confederate army's declining fortunes during the war. As Hoffbauer's work suggests, Stuart will be remembered as the caped Cavalier, leading his troopers through the Virginia woods and waving his plumed hat.

Stuart in Charles Hoffbauer's large-scale mural, "Autumn,"
from "The Four Seasons of the Confederacy"

Flora Jackson died in Norfolk on May 10, 1923, after striking her head in a fall on a city sidewalk. 

Grave of Flora and J.E.B. Stuart

She was buried alongside her husband and their daughter, Little Flora, in Hollywood Cemetery. 

Stuart Monument at Hollywood Cemetery

In December 2006, a personal Confederate battle flag, sewn by Flora Stuart, was sold in an auction for a world-record price for any Confederate flag, for $956,000 (including buyer's premium).  

Confederate battle flag, sewn by Flora Stuart

The 34-inch by 34-inch flag was hand-sewn for Stuart by Flora in 1862 and Stuart carried it into some of his most famous battles.  However, in December of 1862, it fell from a tent front into a campfire and was damaged. Stuart returned it to his wife with a letter describing the accident and telling of his despondency over the banner's damage.  The flag remained with the Stuart family until 1969 when it was given to Stuart Hall, Staunton, Virginia, by a granddaughter of the general.  The school quietly sold the flag and letter to a private collector in 2000.  In 2006, the flag and letter, which had been displayed in a single frame in the Stuart Hall front parlor, were sold separately at auction.