Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 1

The Eleventh Corps was soon reorganized and marched to relieve the Fifth Corps, under General Meade, on our extreme left. Here it held an intrenched or barricaded line till the end of the Chancellorsville campaign.

For the operations of the next day; the work of Sedgwick's command at Fredericksburg; his fighting near and crossing the Rappahannock; the unjust aspersions cast upon him by pretentious writers; the grand council of war, where, mostly, the general officers voted to fight, and the final withdrawal, I wish to call attention to the good accounts of the Comte de Paris and to the more exhaustive handling of Chancellorsville by a brother officer-Major Theodore A. Dodge.

Chancellorsville was a dreadful field. The dead were strewn through forest and open farms. The wounded had often to wait for days before succor came. Sometimes it never came. One officer on my personal staff, Captain F. Dessaur, was killed while near me beside Barlow's intrenchments, endeavoring to rally the panic-stricken men. His young wife had besought him to resign and come home to Brooklyn, N. Y., before this battle commenced. He tendered his resignation, explaining the peculiar circumstances of the case. But we were before the enemy, and soon to be engaged in battle, so that I wrote my disapproval upon his application. Poor fellow, he was slain, and my heart was deeply pained at his loss and in sympathy with his stricken family. Dessaur is an example of that dreadful sacrifice made in the cause of our national unity and of human liberty.