This text is part of:
[437] towards Chancellorsville, and the enemy, pressing into the breastworks, crowned it with their standards. Yet the victory was short-lived; it was only the more adventurous that had penetrated the breastworks (inside of which, indeed, a few were killed), and these were quickly driven out by a forward rush of Carroll's brigade. Lee then abandoned the attack, in which he had suffered a considerable loss. This closed the main action of the day; but just before dark, Ewell moved a considerable force around the right flank of the wing held by Ricketts' division of the Sixth Corps, and, in conjunction with a demonstration in front, succeeded in forcing this division back in considerable confusion, making prisoners of Brigadier-Generals Seymour and Shaler, and a considerable number of men. The attack produced a good deal of alarm; but the break was soon repaired, and darkness prevented the Confederates following up the success of this sally. When the dawn of the third day (Saturday, May 7th) came to light up the dark hollows of the Wilderness, neither army showed any disposition to take the offensive. The terrible conflict of the past two days had left both combatants bleeding and exhausted, and the events of the 7th were confined to a severe but indecisive combat between the opposing cavalry at Todd's Tavern. The heavy losses Lee had suffered in the battle, in which he had acted on the aggressive quite as much as his antagonist, admonished a more cautious conduct; and though he was willing to be assailed, he dared not venture further attack. When, therefore, the skirmish line was thrown forward on the morning of the 7th, the Confederates were found standing at bay behind their intrenchments.1
1 General Grant appears to have drawn an inference from Lee's remaining behind his intrenchments on the morning of the 7th, which facts do not justify. ‘From this,’ says he, ‘it was evident to my mind that the two days fighting had satisfied him of his inability to further maintain the contest in the open field, notwithstanding his advantage of position.’—Report of Operations, p. 6 It is not entirely clear what the lieutenant-general means by ‘maintaining the contest in the open field.’ During the two days battle, both armies pivoted on intrenchments covering their entire front. From these, one side or the other sallied forth to attack his adversary, who endeavored to receive the attack from behind his breastworks. Lee attacked Grant's force behind intrenched lines, quite as much as Grant attacked Lee's force behind intrenched lines. The real conclusion at which both commanders had arrived was, that farther assault on these lines was hopeless.
1866.
Tufts University provided support for entering this 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.