Editing J. E. B. Stuart (section)

===Early service===
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|quote=[Stuart] is a rare man, wonderfully endowed by nature with the qualities necessary for an officer of light cavalry. ... Calm, firm, acute, active, and enterprising, I know no one more competent than he to estimate the occurrences before him at their true value. If you add to this army a real brigade of cavalry, you can find no better brigadier-general to command it.
|source= —General [[Joseph E. Johnston]], letter to [[President of the Confederate States of America|Confederate President]] [[Jefferson Davis]], August 1861<ref>Wert, p. 62.</ref>}}
Stuart was commissioned as a [[lieutenant colonel]] of Virginia Infantry in the Confederate Army on May 10, 1861.<ref name=Eicher/> [[Major General (CSA)|Major General]] Robert E. Lee, now commanding the [[Provisional Army of Virginia|armed forces of Virginia]], ordered him to report to [[Colonel (United States)|Colonel]] [[Stonewall Jackson|Thomas J. Jackson]] at Harper's Ferry. Jackson chose to ignore Stuart's infantry designation and assigned him on July 4 to command all the cavalry companies of the [[Confederate Army of the Shenandoah|Army of the Shenandoah]], organized as the [[1st Virginia Cavalry|1st Virginia Cavalry Regiment]].<ref>Wert, p. 49; Davis, pp. 51–52.</ref> He was promoted to colonel on July 16.<ref name=Eicher/>
[[File:Jackson-Stonewall-LOC.jpg|thumb|180px|left|[[Stonewall Jackson]] assigned Stuart to cavalry. In this portrait he wears the coat Stuart gifted him.]]
After early service in the [[Shenandoah Valley]], Stuart led his regiment in the [[First Battle of Bull Run]] (where Jackson got his nickname, "Stonewall"), and participated in the pursuit of the retreating Federals, leading to sensationalist reports in the Northern press about the dreaded Confederate "black horse" cavalry. He then commanded the Army's outposts along the upper [[Potomac River]] until given command of the cavalry brigade for the army then known as the [[Confederate Army of the Potomac|Army of the Potomac]] (later named the [[Army of Northern Virginia]]). He was promoted to [[Brig. Gen. (CSA)|brigadier general]] on September 24, 1861.<ref name=Eicher/>