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came to Pleasanton's assistance; and soon afterward Sickles, with his two brigades (Birney's and Whipple's), joined in the contest.
At this time Lee was making a vigorous artillery attack upon Hooker's left and center, formed by the corps of Generals Couch and Slocum, but the assailing force, whose heaviest demonstration was against General Hancock's front, was held in check by his skirmish line, under Colonel N. A. Miles.1 And while Lee was thus failing, a heavier misfortune than he had yet endured befell him, in the paralysis of the right-arm of his power, by the fall of General Jackson.
That officer, encouraged by the success of his first blow, was extremely anxious to press forward, and, by extending his lines to the left, cut off Hooker's communication with the United States Ford.
While awaiting the arrival of General Hill to the front, he pushed forward with his staff and an escort on a personal reconnoissance, and when returning in the gloom to his lines, he and his companions seem to have been mistaken by their friends for Union cavalry, and were fired upon.
Jackson fell, pierced by three bullets, and several of his staff were killed or wounded.
Jackson was the superior of Lee as an executive officer, in moral force and in personal magnetism, and his loss to the Confederacy, and especially to the Army of Northern Virginia, as Lee's troops were called, was irreparable.2
Jackson had ordered a forward movement so soon as Hill should reach the front, and it was at the moment when that was accomplished that the notable leader was prostrated.
Hill, also, was disabled by a contusion caused by the fragment of a shell while Jackson was on his way to the hospital, and the command of the corps devolved temporarily on Rodes, who, under the circumstances, thought it advisable not to attempt a forward movement in the night.
General Stuart, whom Hill called to the command, agreed with him, and the Confederates occupied the night in defensive operations, and in preparations for renewing the struggle in the morning.
Sickles, as we have observed, had reached Pleasanton at Hazel Grove, and at once attempted to recover a part of the ground lost by Howard.
Birney's division, with Hobart Ward's brigade in front, charged down the plank road at midnight, drove back the Confederates, recovered some lost ground, and brought away several abandoned guns and caissons.
Other attacks were made, but little more was accomplished, when Sickles, then reporting
1 His troops consisted of the Fifty-seventh, Sixty-fourth, and Sixty-sixth New York Volunteers, and detachments of the Fifty-second New York, Second Delaware, and One Hundred and Forty-eighth Pennsylvania. See Hancock's Report.
2 Jackson received three balls, one in the right hand and two in the left arm, by one of which the bone was shattered just below the shoulder, and an artery was severed. His frightened horse, now without guidance, turned and rushed toward the National lines, greatly imperiling the life of his rider, as he swept through the woods and underbrush. Jackson managed to turn him into the plank road, where he was checked by one of his staff (Captain Wilborn), who seized the bridle, and into his arms the general, exhausted by pain and loss of blood, fell. General Hill presently rode up, jumped from his horse, and stopped the flow of blood by bandaging the arm above the wound. Jackson was then placed on a litter, and conveyed to the rear in the midst of a storm of canister shot, which came sweeping down the road from two pieces of National cannon. One of the litter-bearers was shot dead. The wounded general was borne on to the Wilderness tavern (where the Confederates had established an hospital), attended by Dr. Hunter McGuire. There his arm was amputated. His wife was sent for, and two or three days afterward he was removed to Gainey's Station, nearer Richmond. There, at the Chandler House, he remained until his death, which was caused chiefly by pneumonia. That event occurred on Sunday, the 10th of May, 1863. “A few moments before he died.” says an eye witness (Captain J. Hotchkiss), “he cried out in his delirium, ‘Order A. P. Hill to prepare for action-pass the infantry to the front rapidly — tell Major Hawks----’ then stopped, leaving the sentence unfinished. Presently a smile of ineffable sweetness spread itself over his pale face, and he said quietly, and with an expression as if of relief, ‘Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.’ ”
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