 |
| Hooker's New line of intrenchments.1 |
May 2, 1863. |
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[32]
directly to Hooker, was ordered to fall back and take position, and intrench in a new line formed by the chief, on heights between Fairview (a short distance west of Chancellorsville) and the Confederate lines in front of Dowdall's tavern.
This was done at dawn on Sunday morning.
Hooker's situation was extremely critical, but with characteristic energy he had made new dispositions on Saturday night to meet the inevitable attack
on the morrow.
When he heard of the southward march of Jackson's column on Saturday morning,
he called Reynolds's corps, more than twenty thousand strong, from Sedgwick.
It arrived late that evening, and was received with joy, for it more than filled the space of the shattered Eleventh, and made Hooker's force full sixty thousand men, with whom to confront a little more than forty thousand men; yet his situation was perilous, and he knew it. He ordered Sedgwick to cross the river at once, and seize and hold the city and heights of Fredericksburg, and then, pushing along the roads leading to Chancellorsville, crush every impediment and join the main army as speedily as possible.
He changed the front of a portion of his line so as to receive the Confederate attack, making a new line of battle, as we have observed, with more than thirty pieces of cannon, massed at Fairview, a little westward of his Headquarters.
Sickles, connecting with Slocum on his left, occupied the intrenched line in advance of Fairview, which extended across the plank road, and included the elevated plateau at Hazel Grove.
On the left of the line was a part of the Second Corps, and still further to the right, behind breastworks on the Elly's Ford road, was Reynolds's corps.
On the National left, Meade's corps, with their faces toward Fredericksburg, joined Slocum's, Hancock's division being thrown back in a position to guard the communications with Banks's Ford; and on the extreme left the remains of Howard's corps were placed.
The Confederates had also made dispositions for attack, in three lines: the first under Hill, the second under Colson, and the third under Rodes, with cannon massed on heights so as to command much of the
1 this is a view of the line of intrenchments on the plank road, between Fairview and Melzie Chancellor's, as it appeared when the writer sketched it, in June, 1866. the works were constructed of logs and earth, breast high.
Scanned printed text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.