May 5, 1863. |
May 5. |
May. |
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Ford, pursued as vigorously as the nature of the country (hilly, furrowed by ravines, and thick-wooded) allowed, until dark, when the chase ended.
Before morning, Sedgwick, with the remnant of his corps, passed to the north side of the Rappahannock, over pontoon bridges, near Banks's Ford, under cover of thirty-two pieces of artillery.
In the space of two days he had lost more than one-fifth of his entire command.
Gibbon also withdrew from Fredericksburg to Falmouth that night, passing the river on pontoon bridges, just below the ford; and on Tuesday
Lee had only Hooker to contend with, and was free to concentrate all his forces.
against him. So he recalled McLaws and Anderson, to add strength to his main army, leaving Early and Barksdale to hold the line of the river from Fredericksburg to Banks's Ford, and prepared to strike Hooker a crushing blow before night.
A heavy rain storm came on, which suspended operations, and caused a postponement of the forward movement until the next morning.
Meanwhile Hooker had been busy in preparations to avoid or avert the blow.
When, on Monday night, he was told of the situation of Sedgwick.
then hovering on the bank of the Rappahannock, under the shelter of great guns, and utterly unable to co-operate with the main army, he determined to retreat across the river and save it. He conferred with five of his corps commanders1 that night, when two of them (Couch and Sickles, whose forces, with Slocum's, had borne the brunt of the battle on Sunday) agreed with him, and one (Reynolds) did not express any opinion.
Finding himself in accord with a majority of his active counselors, and with his chief of staff,, General Butterfield, who was present, Hooker determined to retreat on the following day,
and made preparations accordingly.2 The storm that restrained Lee favored Hooker, but it made the passage.
of the river a perilous task, for its banks were submerged at each end of his pontoon bridges, and the latter were in imminent danger of being swept away by the violent current at any moment.
The passage, covered by Meade's corps, was safely made, however, without molestation, during the night, and, on the morning of the 6th,
the Army of the Potomac returned to its old quarters opposite Fredericksburg.
On the same day the Confederate army resumed its former position on the heights in the rear of the city.
The losses of each had been heavy.
That of the Confederates was reported twelve thousand two hundred and seventy-seven, including about two thousand prisoners,3 and that of the Nationals was
1 Generals Meade, Reynolds, Howard, Couch, and Sickles. Slocum was not present, for the reason that the messenger who was sent failed to find him.
2 In his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War (volume I., 1865, pages 134 and 135), General Hooker said that General Reynolds, being very weary, threw himself on a bed, saying that “his opinion would be the same as General Meade's,” and went to sleep; and that General Howard voted for an advance assigning as a reason that he felt that his corps (Eleventh), by its bad conduct, had placed the army in its perilous position, and that he “had to vote for an advance under any circumstances.” General Meade was at first for an advance, because he did not believe a safe retreat across the river possible; but, according to the testimony of Generals Sickles and Howard (pages 135 and 136), he yielded his opinions to those of General Hooker, and acquiesced in his commander's decision. Couch and Sickles were decidedly in favor of a retreat. Howard was the only officer, at the close of the conference, who was decidedly in favor of an advance. The author of a history of the Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, has recorded an error into which he was led, in saying, concerning the conference, that a majority of the corps commanders present “were in favor of an advance rather than a withdrawal,” and giving as an inference, because the chief insisted on retreating, that “Hooker had lost all stomach for fight.”
3 Lee, in his report of the Battle of Chancellorsville (September 21, 1868), did not give an account of his losses, and it is only from those of his subordinates, published with his report in 1864, that the number, above given, has been ascertained. A Confederate surgeon at Richmond reported their loss, immediately after the battle, at 18,000 men; and in a congratulatory address to his troops, Hooker declared
May 6, 1863. |
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