The country around
Chancellorsville for the most part is a wilderness, with but here and there an opening.
If we consult the recent maps (no good ones existed before the battle), we notice that the two famous rivers, the
Rapidan and the
Rappahannock, join at a point due north of
Chancellorsville; thence the
Rappahannock runs easterly for two miles, till suddenly at the
United States Ford it turns and flows south for a mile and a half, and then, turning again, completes a horse-shoe bend.
Here, on the south shore, was
General Hooker's battle-line on the morning of the 2d of May, 1863.
Here his five army corps, those of
Meade,
Slocum,
Couch,
Sickles, and
Howard, were deployed.
The face was toward the south, and the ranks mainly occupied a ridge nearly parallel with the
Rapidan.
The left touched the high ground just west of the horse-shoe bend, while the bristling front, fringed with skirmishers, ran along the
Mineral Spring road, bent forward to take in the cross-roads of
Chancellorsville, and then, stretching on westerly through lower levels, retired to Dowdall's Tavern.
Just beyond
Dowdall's was a slight backward hook in the line, partially encircling Talley's Hill, a sunny spot in the forest between the Orange Plank road and the pike.
This pike is an old roadway which skirts the northern edge of
Talley's farm, and makes an angle of some forty degrees with the Orange Plank road.
At dawn of that eventful day
General Hooker was at
Chancellorsville.
Slocum and
Hancock were just in his front, infantry and artillery deployed to the right and left.
French's division was in his rear.
Meade occupied the extreme left, and my corps, the Eleventh, the right.
Sickles connected me with
Slocum.
Our lines covered between five and six miles of frontage, and
Hooker was near the middle point.
The main body of our cavalry, under
Stoneman, had gone off on a raid upon
Lee's communications, and the remainder of the Army of the Potomac was under the sturdy
Sedgwick, beyond
Fredericksburg.
Our opponents, under
General Robert E. Lee, the evening before, were about two miles distant toward
Fredericksburg, and thus between us and
Sedgwick.
Lee had immediately with him the divisions of
McLaws,
Anderson,
Rodes,
Colston, and
A. P. Hill, besides some cavalry under
Stuart.
He
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 |
The old Chancellor house, burned during the battle.
From a photograph. |
held, for his line of battle, a comparatively short front between the
Rappahannock and the
Catherine Furnace, not exceeding two miles and a half in extent.
His right wing, not far from the river, was behind Mott's Run, which flows due east, and his left was deployed along the
Catherine Furnace road.
Could
Hooker, on the first day of May, have known
Lee's exact location, he never could have had a better opportunity for taking the offensive.
But he did not know, and after the few troops advancing toward
Fredericksburg had met the approaching enemy he ordered all back to the “old position,” the
Chancellorsville line, which I have just described.
On the preceding
Thursday, the last of April, the three corps that constituted the right wing of the army,
Meade's,
Slocum's, and mine, had crossed from the north to the south side of the
Rapidan, and by 4 o'clock in the afternoon had reached the vicinity of
Chancellorsville, where
Slocum, who was the senior commander present, established his headquarters.
I, approaching from Germanna Ford, halted my divisions at Dowdall's Tavern and encamped them there.
Then I rode along the
Plank road through the almost continuous forest to the
Chancellorsville House.
There I reported to
Slocum.
He said that the orders were for me to cover the right of the general line, posting my command near Dowdall's Tavern.
He pointed to a place on the map marked “Mill” near there, on a branch of
Hunting Run [see map, p. 193], and said, “Establish your right there.”
General Slocum promised, with the Twelfth Corps, to occupy the space between his headquarters and
Dowdall's clearing; but, finding the distance too great, one of his division commanders sent me word that I must cover the last three-quarters of a mile of the
Plank road.
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This was done by a brigade of
General Steinwehr, the commander of my left division, though with regret on our part, because it required all the corps reserves to fill up that gap.
The so-called Dowdall's Tavern was at that time the home of
Melzi Chancellor.
He had a large family, including several grown people.
I placed my headquarters at his house.
In front of me, facing south along a curving ridge, the right of
Steinwehr's division was located.
He had but two brigades,
Barlow on the
Plank road and
Buschbeck on his right.
With them
Steinwehr covered a mile, leaving but two regiments for reserve.
These he put some two hundred yards to his rear, near the little “Wilderness Church.”
Next to
Steinwehr, toward our right, came
General Carl Schurz's division.
First was
Captain Dilger's battery.
Dilger was one of those handsome, _ _ _ hearty, active young men that everybody liked to have near.
His guns pointed to the southwest and west, along the Orange Plank road.
Next was
Krzyzanowski's brigade, about half on the front and half in reserve.
Schurz's right brigade was that of
Schimmelfennig, disposed in the same manner, a part deployed and the remainder kept a few hundred yards back for a reserve.
Schurz's front line of infantry extended along the old turnpike and faced to the south-west.
The right division of the corps was commanded
 |
Map: position of the 11th Corps at 6pm.
May 2, 1863. |
by
General Charles Devens, afterward attorney-general in the cabinet of
President Hayes.
Devens and I together had carefully reconnoitered both the Orange Plank road and the old turnpike for at least three miles toward the west.
After this reconnoissance he established his division,--the Second Brigade, under
McLean, next to
Schurz's first, and then pushing out on the pike for half a mile he deployed the other,
Gilsa's, at right angles facing west, connecting his two parts by a thin skirmish-line.
Colonel Gilsa's brigade was afterward drawn back, still facing west at right angles to the line, so as to make a more solid connection, and so that, constituting, as it did, the main right flank, the reserves of the corps could be brought more promptly to its support, by extending its right to the north, should an enemy by any possible contingency get so far around.
A section of
Dieckmann's battery which looked to the west along the old pike was located at the angle.
The reserve batteries, twelve guns, were put upon a ridge abreast of the little church and pointed toward the north-west, with a view to sweep all
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approaches to the north of
Gilsa, firing up a gradually ascending slope.
This ridge, where I stood during the battle, was central, and, besides, enabled the artillerymen to enfilade either roadway, or meet an attack from south, west, or north.
Here epaulments for the batteries were constructed, and cross-intrenchments for the battery supports were dug, extending from the little church across all the open ground that stretched away from the tavern to the right of
Devens's line.
To my great comfort,
General Sickles's corps came up on Friday, May 1st, and took from our left
Steinwehr's three-quarters of a mile of the
Plank road.
Thus he relieved from the front line
Barlow's large brigade, giving me, besides the several division reserves,
General Barlow with 1500 men as a general reserve for the corps.
These were massed near the cross-intrenchments,
 |
Dowdall's Tavern, Howard's headquarters.
From a War-time photograph. |
and held avowedly to support the batteries and protect
General Devens's exposed right flank.
As to pickets, each division had a good line of them.
My aide,
Major Charles H. Howard, assisted in connecting them between divisions, and during the 2d of May that fearless and faithful staff-officer,
Major E. Whittlesey, rode the entire circuit of their front to stimulate them to special activity.
Those of
Devens were “thrown out at a distance from a half-mile to a mile and stretching well around covering our right flank” ;
1 and the picket-posts in front on the pike were over two miles beyond the main line.
The nature of the country in the neighborhood of the three adjoining farms,
Dowdall's Talley's, and
Hawkins's, became well known to the Army of the Potomac in subsequent experiences, never to be forgotten.
It is the terrible “
Wilderness” where, later in the war, so many brave men fell.
Here were stunted trees, such as scraggy oaks, bushy firs, cedars, and junipers, all entangled with a thick, almost impenetrable undergrowth, and criss-crossed with an abundance of wild vines.
In places all along the south-west and west front the forest appeared impassable, and the skirmishers could only work their way through with extreme difficulty.
To the officers of the Eleventh Corps the position was never a desirable one.
It presented
a flank in the air. We were more than four miles south from Ely's ford, where were
Hooker's nearest cavalry flankers.
In his report after the battle,
General Schurz says:
 |
Dowdall's Tavern in 1884. |
[
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 |
The Wilderness Church (in the left middle-ground) and Hawkins's farm (on the right) as seen from the Plank road in front of Dowdall's Tavern. |
“Our right ought to have been drawn back toward the
Rapidan, to rest on that river at or near the mouth of
Hunting Run, the corps abandoning so much of the
Plank road as to enable it to establish a solid line.”
Yes; but we were ordered to Dowdall's Tavern, and not to the
Rapidan, three or four miles in our rear!
And our right was fixed for us at the “Mill.”
It is true the mill no longer existed, but the point required was not doubted.
Again, this position, which
Schurz recommended in his report subsequent to our battle, was the very one into which
Hooker's whole army was forced two days afterward.
He was so cramped by it that he did not dare to take the offensive.
In that position, “solid” and fortified as it was, our army, out-numbering
Lee's, was so badly handled by the enemy that
Hooker at last deemed it safer to return to the north side of the
Rappahannock.
The strength of
Hooker's five corps, and
Reynolds's, which was not far behind, was, on tile morning of the 2d of May, about 90,000 effectives.
The right corps, the Eleventh, had in all, artillery and infantry, twelve thousand men.
Lee faced us with five large divisions, having on the spot about 40,000 rifles, with considerable artillery.
In my youth my brother and I had a favorite spot in an upper field of my father's farm from which we were accustomed, after the first symptoms of a coming storm, to watch the operations of the contending winds; the sudden
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gusts and whirlwinds; the sideling swallows excitedly seeking shelter; the swift and swifter, black and blacker clouds, ever rising higher and pushing their angry fronts toward us. As we listened we heard the low rumbling from afar; as the storm came nearer the woods bent forward and shook fiercely their thick branches; the lightning zigzagged in flashes, and the deep-bassed thunder echoed more loudly, till there was scarcely an interval between its ominous crashing discharges.
In some such manner came on that battle of May 2d to the watchers at Dowdall's Tavern and
Talley's farm-house.
The first distant symptom occurred on the evening of May 1st.
Then was heard the sudden crack of rifle-shooting.
It began with
Steinwehr's skirmishers, and then passed on to
Schurz.
Schimmelfennig pushed out a brigade straightforward toward the south-west and received a sudden fire of artillery from the intruders.
They left him and pushed on.
It was “a rolling reconnoissance,” evidently to determine, for
Lee's and
Jackson's information, the position of our flank.
They probably had, however, some more certain knowledge, gained from one or two of the enterprising residents let loose during that Friday by our general forward movement.
We forgot these friends to
Lee as we excitedly marched to Friday's battle.
When we unexpectedly came back, some of these residents, with little baskets of provisions in hand, were gone beyond recall.
I suspect that the commander of the “rolling reconnoissance” and the said residents formed part of the famous night conference of
Lee and
Jackson, where cracker-boxes served as seats and tables.
General Lee says: “It was therefore resolved to endeavor to turn his right flank and gain his rear, leaving a force in front to hold him in check and conceal the movement.
The execution of this plan was intrusted to
Lieutenant-General Jackson with his three divisions.”
Jackson's movement, with a stronger indication of battle, began at sunrise,
Rodes,
Colston, and
A. P. Hill, in the order named, following the old road by the
Catherine Furnace, there shoving off farther south to get beyond the sight of our men; then sweeping around by a private road, well known to them, up to the Orange Plank road; and thence on, perhaps a mile farther, through the wild forest till the old turnpike was found and crossed.
The Catherine Furnace, nearly opposite
Sickles's right and two and a half miles distant, gave an open reach and fully exposed the moving column to view.
Except at that point the
Confederates were covered by woods and by
Stuart's busy and noisy cavalry.
 |
The Wilderness Church.
From a War-time photograph.
See previous page. |
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 |
The Confederates carrying Howard's breastworks. |
About sunrise at
Dowdall's I heard cheering.
It was a hearty sound, with too much bass in it for that of the enemy's charge.
It was occasioned by
General Hooker, with
Colonel Comstock and a few staff-officers, riding along slowly and inspecting the lines.
General Sickles says of this: “It is impossible to pass over without mention the irrepressible enthusiasm of the troops for
Major-General Hooker, which was evinced in hearty and prolonged cheers as he rode along the lines of the Third, Eleventh, and Twelfth corps.”
I was ready, mounted, and with my officers joined the ever-increasing cavalcade.
Hooker observed the troops in position;
Barlow, who filled the cross-trenches an hour later, had not yet come out of the front line, so that my reserves just at that time were small.
Hooker noticed the breastworks, unusually well built by
Schurz and
Devens.
He passed to the extreme right, and then returned by the shortest route.
As he looked over the barricades, while receiving the salutes and cheers of the men, he said to me, “How strong!
How strong!”
I still had much extension, so that there were gaps along
Schurz's and
Devens's fronts.
Colonel Comstock spoke to me in his quiet way: “General, do close in those spaces!”
I said, “The woods are thick and entangled; will anybody come through there”
“ Oh, they may!”
His suggestion was heeded.
During the forenoon
General Sickles discovered
Jackson's moving column.
It was passing toward
Orange Court House, so everybody said.
Sickles forwarded all reports to
General Hooker, who now returned to
Chancellorsville.
He tried to divine
Jackson's purpose.
About midday
Sickles received
General Hooker's orders to advance south cautiously.
Soon after, perhaps by 2 P. M., there was a stronger apprehension
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of a conflict, for there was a sharp skirmish in the direction of
Catherine Furnace.
The rattle of musketry followed; then in a little time was heard the booming of cannon.
I sent the news to every division and said, “Be ready.”
2 Slocum went forward to the aid of
Sickles, and
Hancock was behind him with support.
Next, the enemy was reported to be in full retreat.
General Hooker so telegraphed to
Sedgwick;
Captain Moore, of his staff, who had gone out with
Birney to see the attack upon
Jackson, came hurriedly to me with an order from
General Hooker for my reserve brigade,
Barlow's.
Major Howard rode rapidly to
Sickles, that he might point out exactly where to locate the brigade.
The major was also to ascertain the nearest route, so as to save time and not weary the men by a circuitous march.
It was already past 4.
There was much excitement among the groups of officers at the different points of observation.
We who were at
Dowdall's had been watching the enemy's cavalry, which kept pushing through the woods just far enough to receive a fire, and then withdrawing.
Devens and his brigade and regimental commanders gathered, in various ways, all the information possible, while from a high point they obtained glimpses of a moving column crossing the
Plank road and apparently making off. I sent out scouts, who returned with reports that the enemy was not more than three or four miles off, and in motion.
Schurz was anxious and, with my approval, moved a part of his reserves to the north of
Hawkins's farm into good position to cover
Devens's flank.
Devens held at least two regiments well in hand, for the same purpose, and
Steinwehr's whole division I knew could just face about and defend the same point.
A few companies of cavalry came from
Pleasonton.
I sent them out. “Go out beyond my right; go far, and let me know if an assault is coming.”
All my staff,
Asmussen,
Meysenberg,
Whittlesey,
C. H. Howard,
Schofield,
Dessauer,
Stinson,
Schirmer, and
Hoffmann, were keenly on the alert.
We had not a very good position, it is true, but we did expect to make a good strong fight should the enemy come.
General Hooker's circular order to “
Slocum and
Howard” neither reached me, nor, to my knowledge,
Colonel Meysenberg, my adjutant-general.
3 From some confused notion it was issued to “
Slocum and
Howard,” when
Slocum was no longer within two miles of me, and had not been in command of my corps after
Hooker's arrival at
Chancellorsville.
Slocum, naturally supposing that I had a copy, would not think of forwarding a joint order to me after that, and certainly no such order came to me. But
Generals Devens,
Schurz, and
Steinwehr, my division commanders, and myself did precisely what we should have done had that order come.
The three reserve batteries were put in position, and the infantry reserves were held well in hand for the possible emergency.
My aide had now returned from
Sickles, near the
Furnace,
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and reported in substance that he (
Sickles) was glad to receive the help; that he was about to make a grand attack, having been for some time driving the enemy, and expected soon a brilliant result; that he desired to place my reinforcement upon his right flank in the forward movement.
Such was the state of things when, through
Captain Moore,
General Hooker directed to
Sickles's attack, at the
Furnace, all of my general infantry reserves, consisting of
Barlow's stanch brigade.
Steinwehr and I, with
Major Howard as guide, went far enough southward to see what was to be done with our men, and to see if
Steinwehr's division, as was probable, must swing in to the left in support of
Sickles's promised attack.
There was no real battle there, so we returned rapidly to our post at the tavern and dismounted.
Meanwhile the
Confederate General Rodes had been reaching his place in the
Wilderness.
At 4 P. M. his men were in position; the line of battle of his own brigade touched the pike west of us with its right and stretched away to the north; beyond his brigade came
Iverson's in the same line.
On the right of the pike was
Doles's brigade, and to his right
Colquitt's. One hundred yards to the rear was
Trimble's division (
Colston commanding), with
Ramseur on the right following
Colquitt.
After another interval followed the division of
A. P. Hill.
The advance Confederate division had more men in it than there were in the Eleventh Corps, now in position.
Counting the ranks of this formidable column, beginning with the enveloping skirmish line, we find 7, besides the 3 ranks of file-closers.
Many of them were brought into a solid mass by the entanglements of the forest, and gave our men the idea that battalions were formed in close columns doubled on the center.
With as little noise as possible, a little after 5 P. M., the steady advance of the enemy began.
Its first lively effects, like a cloud of dust driven before a coming shower, appeared in the startled rabbits, squirrels, quail, and other game flying wildly hither and thither in evident terror, and escaping, where possible, into adjacent clearings.
The foremost men of
Doles's brigade took about half an hour to strike our advance picket on the pike.
This picket, of course, created no delay.
Fifteen minutes later he reached our skirmishers, who seem to have resisted effectively for a few minutes, for it required a main line to dislodge them.
Doles says, concerning the next check he received, “After a resistance of about ten minutes we drove him [Devens] from his position on the left and carried his battery of two guns, caissons, and horses.”
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This was the fire that
Steinwehr and I heard shortly after our return from
Barlow.
Somebody's guns thundered away for a few short minutes, and then came the fitful rattle of musketry; and before I could again get into the saddle there arose the ceaseless roar of the terrible storm.
I sent out my chief-of-staff,
Colonel Asmussen, who was the first officer to mount,--“The firing is in front of
Devens, go and see if all is in order on the extreme right.”
He instantly turned and galloped away.
I mounted and set off for a prominent place in rear of
Schurz's line, so as to change front to the north-west of every brigade south-east of the point of attack, if the attack should extend beyond
Devens's right flank; for it was divined at once that the enemy was now west of him. I could see numbers of our men — not the few stragglers that always fly like chaff at the first breeze, but scores of them-rushing into the opening, some with arms and some without, running or falling before they got behind the cover of
Devens's reserves, and before
General Schurz's waiting masses could deploy or charge.
The noise and the smoke filled the air with excitement, and to add to it
Dieckmann's guns and caissons, with battery men scattered, rolled and tumbled like runaway wagons and carts in a thronged city.
The guns and the masses of the right brigade struck the second line of
Devens before
McLean's front had given way; and, more quickly than it could be told, with all the fury of the wildest hailstorm, everything, every sort of organization that lay in the path of the mad current of panic-stricken men,
4 had to give way and be broken into fragments.
My own horse seemed to catch the fury; he sprang — he rose high on his hind legs and fell over, throwing me to the ground.
My
aide-de-camp,
Dessauer, was struck by a shot and killed, and for a few moments I was as helpless as any of the men who were speeding without arms to the rear.
But faithful orderlies helped me to remount.
Schurz was still doing all he could to face regiments about and send them to
Devens's northern flank to help the few who still held firm.
Devens, already badly wounded, and several officers were doing similar work.
I rode quickly to the reserve batteries.
A staff-officer of
General Hooker,
Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Dickinson,
Assistant Adjutant-General, joined me there; my own staff gathered around me. I was eager to fill the trenches that
Barlow would have held.
Buschbeck's second line was ordered to change front there.
His men kept their ranks, but at first they appeared slow.
Would they never get there!
Dickinson said, “Oh, General, see those men coming from that hill way off to the right, and there's the enemy after them.
Fire, oh, fire at them; you may stop the flight!”
“ No,
Colonel,” I said, “I will never fire on my own men!”
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As soon as our men were near enough the batteries opened, firing at first shells and then canister over their heads.
As the attacking force emerged from the forest and rushed on, the men in front would halt and fire, and, while these were reloading, another set would run before them, halt and fire, in no regular line, but in such multitudes that our men went down before them like trees in a hurricane.
By extraordinary effort we had filled all our long line of cross-intrenchments, mainly with fragments of organizations and individual soldiers.
Many officers running away stopped there and did what they could, but others shouted, “We've done all we can,” and ran on.
5 Schirmer managed
 |
1. Union breastworks in the woods between Dowdall's Tavern and Chancellorsville.
2. Relics of the dead in the woods near the Plank road.
3. The Plank road near where Jackson fell.
from photographs taken in 1864. |
the reserve artillery fairly.
Dilger, the battery commander on
Schurz's left, rolled the balls along the
Plank road and shelled the wood.
General Steinwehr was on hand, cool, collected, and judicious.
Like
Blair at
Atlanta, he had made his men (who were south of
Dowdall's) spring to the reverse side of their intrenchments and be ready to fire the instant it was possible.
Let us pause here a moment and follow
Doles, who led the enemy's attack.
He states that, after his first successful
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charge, “the command moved forward at the double-quick to assault the enemy, who had taken up a strong position on the crest of a hill in the open field.”
This position was the one on
Hawkins's farm where
Devens's and
Schurz's reserves began their fight.
But wave after wave of Confederate infantry came upon them, and even their left flank was unprotected the instant the runaways had passed it. To our sorrow, we, who had eagerly observed their bravery, saw these reserves also give way, and the hill and crest on
Hawkins's farm were quickly in the hands of the men in gray.
6
Doles, who must have been a cool man to see so clearly amid the screeching shells and all the hot excitement of battle, says again: “He” (meaning our forces from
Schimmelfennig's and
Buschbeck's brigades, and perhaps part of
McLean's, who had faced about and had not yet given way) “made a stubborn resistance from behind a wattling fence on a hill covered thickly with pines.”
Among the stubborn fighters at this place was
Major Jeremiah Williams.
The enemy was drawing near him. His men fired with coolness and deliberation.
His right rested among scrubby bushes and saplings, while his left was in comparatively open ground.
The fire of the approaching enemy was murderous, and almost whole platoons of our men were falling; yet they held their ground.
Williams waited, rapidly firing, till not more than thirty paces intervened, and then ordered the retreat.
Out of 333 men and 16 commissioned officers in the regiment (the 25th Ohio), 130, including 5 officers, were killed or wounded.
Major Williams brought a part of the living to the breastworks near me; the remainder, he says, were carried off to the rear by another regimental commander.
During the delays we had thus far caused to the first division of our enemy, all his rear lines had closed up, and the broad mass began to appear even below me on my left front to the south of
Steinwehr's knoll.
Then it was, after we had been fighting an hour, that
Sickles's and
Pleasonton's guns began to be heard, for they had faced about at
Hazel Grove obliquely toward the north-west, and were hurrying artillery, cavalry, and infantry into position to do what they could against the attack now reaching them.
I had come to my last practicable stand.
The Confederates were slowly advancing, firing as they came.
The twelve guns of
Schirmer, the corps
chief of artillery, increased by a part of
Dilger's battery, fired, at first with rapidity; but the battery men kept falling from death and wounds.
Suddenly, as if by an order, when a sheet of the enemy's fire reached them, a large number of the men in the supporting trenches vacated their positions and went off.
No officers ever made more strenuous exertions than those that my staff and myself put forth to stem the tide of retreat and refill those trenches,
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but the panic was too great.
Then our artillery fire became weaker and weaker.
 |
Positions of the 12th Corps and part of the 3d Corps, covering the Chancellorsville plateau, May 2 and 3. |
I next ordered a retreat to the edge of the forest toward
Chancellorsville, so as to uncover
Steinwehr's knoll, the only spot yet firmly held.
The batteries, except four pieces, were drawn off and hurried to the rear.
The stand at the edge of the forest was necessarily a short one.
General Steinwehr, being now exposed from flank and rear, having held his place for over an hour, drew off his small remnants and all moved rapidly through openings and woods, through low ground and swamps, the two miles to the first high land south of
Hooker's headquarters.
Captain Hubert Dilger with his battery sturdily kept along the
Plank road, firing constantly as he retired.
The Confederate masses rushed after us in the forest and along all paths and roads with triumphant shouts and redoubled firing, and so secured much plunder and many prisoners.
It was after sundown and growing dark when I met
General Hiram G. Berry, commanding a division of the Third Corps, as I was ascending the high ground above named.
“Well, General, where now?”
he asked.
“You take the right of this road and I will take the left and try to defend it,” I replied.
Our batteries, with many others, were on the crest facing to the rear, and as soon as
Steinwehr's troops had cleared the way these guns began a terrible cannonade and continued it into the night.
They fired into the forest, now full of Confederates, all disorganized by their exciting chase, and every effort of the enemy to advance in that direction in the face of the fire was effectually barred by the artillery and supporting troops.
Stonewall Jackson fell that evening from bullet-wounds, in the forest in front of
Berry's position.
And here, on the forenoon of the next day, May 3d, the gallant
General Berry met his death.
It was here, too, that officers of the Eleventh Corps, though mortified by defeat, successfully rallied the scattered brigades and divisions, and, after shielding the batteries, went during the night to replace the men of the Fifth Corps and thereafter defend the left of the general line.
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Twenty-three years ago, in my report to
General Hooker, I wrote the following:
Now, as to the causes of this disaster to my corps: 1st.
Though constantly threatened and apprised of the moving of the enemy, yet the woods were so dense that he was able to mass a large force, whose exact where-abouts7, neither patrols, reconnoissances, nor scouts ascertained.
He succeeded in forming a column opposite to and outflanking my right.
2d.
By the panic produced by the enemy's reverse fire, regiments and artillery were thrown suddenly upon those in position.
3d.
The absence of General Barlow's brigade, which I had previously located in reserve and en échelon with Colonel von Gilsa's, so as to cover his right flank.
This was the only general reserve I had.
Stonewall Jackson was victorious.
Even his enemies praise him; but, providentially for us, it was the last battle that he waged against the American Union.
For, in bold planning, in energy of execution, which he had the power to diffuse, in indefatigable activity and moral ascendency,
Jackson stood head and shoulders above his confreres, and after his death
General Lee could not replace him.
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Rescuing the wounded on Sunday, May 2d, from the burning woods.
From a War-time sketch. |