Campaign of 1863—Battle of Chancellorsville.
On the morning of April 29th the soldiers were aroused from their slumbers by the beating of the long roll. What an ominous sound is the long roll to the soldier wrapped in his blanket and enjoying the sweets of sleep. It is like a fire bell at night. It denotes battle. It tells the soldier the enemy is moving; it means haste and active preparation. A battle is imminent. The soldiers thus roused, as if from their long sleep since Fredericksburg, feel in a touchous mood. The frightful scenes of Fredericksburg and Mayree's Hill rise up before them as a spectre. Soldiers rush out of their tents, asking questions and making suppositions. Others are busily engaged folding blankets, tearing down tents, and making preparations to move; companies formed into regiments and regiments into brigades. The distant boom of cannon beyond the Rappahannock tells us that the enemy is to cross the river again and try conclusions with the soldiers of Lee. All expected a bloody engagement, for the Federal Army had been greatly recruited, under excellent discipline, and headed by Fighting Joe Hooker. He was one of the best officers in that army, and he himself had boasted that his was the "finest army that had ever been organized upon the planet." It numbered one hundred and thirty-one thousand men of all arms, while Lee had barely sixty thousand. We moved rapidly in the direction of Fredericksburg. I never saw Kershaw look so well. Riding his iron-gray at the head of his columns, one could not but be impressed with his soldierly appearance. He seemed a veritable knight of old. Leading his brigade above the city, he took position in the old entrenchments.
Before reaching the battle line, the enemy had already placed pontoons near the old place of landing, crossed over a portion of their army, and was now picketing on the south side of the river. One company from each regiment was thrown out as sharpshooters or skirmishers, under [209] Captain Goggans, of the Seventh, and deployed in the valley below, where we could watch the enemy. My company was of the number. Nothing was done during the day but a continual change of positions. We remained on the skirmish line during the night without fire or without any relief, expecting an advance next morning, or to be relieved at least. The sun was obscured by the densest fog the following morning I had almost ever witnessed. When it cleared up, about 10 o'clock, what was our astonishment?—to find no enemy in our front, nor friends in our rear. There were, however, some Federals opposite and below the city, but they belonged to another division. We could hear occasional cannonading some miles up the Rappahannock. By some staff officers passing, we ascertained that Hooker had withdrawn during the night in our front, recrossed the river at Ely's and Raccoon fords, or some of the fords opposite the Wilderness. This was on Friday, May the first. After a consultation with the officers of our detachment, it was agreed to evacuate our position and join our regiments wherever we could find them. We had no rations, and this was one of the incentives to move. But had the men been supplied with provisions, and the matter left to them alone, I doubt very much whether they would have chosen to leave the ground now occupied, as we were in comparative safety and no enemy in sight, while to join our commands would add largely to the chances of getting in battle. I am sorry to say a majority of the officers were of that opinion, too. Some brought to bear one of Napoleon's maxims I had heard when a boy, "When a soldier is in doubt where to go, always go to the place you hear the heaviest firing," and we could indistinctly hear occasional booming of cannon high up the river, indicating that a part of the army at least was in that direction.
So we moved back and over the breastworks, on to the plank road leading to Orange Court House. Making our way, keeping together as a battalion, up that road in the direction of the Wilderness, near noon we could hear the deep bay of cannon, now distant and indistinct, then again more rapidly and quite distinguishable, showing plainly that Lee was having a running fight. Later in the day we passed dead horses and a few dead and wounded soldiers. On every hand were indications of the [210] effects of shot and shell. Trees were shattered along the road side, fences torn down and rude breastworks made here and there, the evidence of heavy skirmishing in our front. Lee was pressing the advance guard that had crossed at one of the lower fords back on the main army, crossing then at fords opposite and above the Chancellor's House. Near sundown the firing was conspicuously heavy, especially the artillery. The men of most of the companies evinced a desire to frequently rest, and in every way delay our march as much as possible. Some of the officers, too, joined with the men and offered objections to rushing headlong into battle without orders. I knew that our brigade was somewhere in our front, and from the firing I was thoroughly convinced a battle was imminent, and in that case our duty called us to our command. Not through any cowardice, however, did the men hesitate, for all this fiction written about men's eagerness for battle, their ungovernable desire to throw themselves upon the enemy, their great love of hearing the bursting of shells over their heads, the whizzing of minnie balls through their ranks is all very well for romance and on paper, but a soldier left free to himself, unless he seeks notoriety or honors, will not often rush voluntarily into battle, and if he can escape it honorably, he will do it nine times out of ten. There are times, however, when officers, whose keen sense of duty and honorable appreciation of the position they occupy, will lead their commands into battle unauthorized, when they see the necessity, but a private who owes no obedience nor allegiance only to his superiors, and has no responsibility, seldom ever goes voluntarily into battle; if so, once is enough.
Under these circumstances, as the sun was near setting, we learned from some wounded soldier that Kershaw was moving in line of battle to the left of the plank road. Another Captain and myself deserted our companions and made our way to our regiments with our companies. As we came upon it, it was just moving out from a thicket into an open field under a heavy skirmish fire and a fierce fire from a battery in our front. We marched at a double-quick to rejoin the regiment, and the proudest moments of my life, and the sweetest words to hear, was as the other portion of the regiment saw us coming they gave a cheer of welcome and shouted, "Hurrah! for the Dutch; the Dutch has come; [211] make way to the left for the Dutch," and such terms of gladness and welcome, that I thought, even while the "Dutch" and its youthful commander were but a mere speck of the great army, still some had missed us, and I was glad to feel the touch of their elbow on the right and left when a battle was in progress.
Companies in the army, like school boys, almost all have "nick-names." Mine was called the "Dutch" from the fact of its having been raised in that section of the country between Saluda River and the Broad, known as "Dutch Fork." A century or more before, this country, just above Columbia and in the fork of the two rivers, was settled by German refugees, hence the name "Dutch Fork."
After joining the regiment, we only advanced a little further and halted for the night, sleeping with guns in arms, lest a night attack might find the troops illy prepared were the guns in stack. We were so near the enemy that fires were not allowed, and none permitted to speak above a whisper. Two men from each company were detailed to go to the rear and cook rations. It is not an easy task for two men, who had been marching and fighting all day, to be up all night cooking three meals each for thirty or forty men, having to gather their own fuel, and often going half mile for water. A whole day's ration is always cooked at one time on marches, as night is the only time for cooking. The decrees of an order for a detail are inexorable. A soldier must take it as it comes, for none ever know but what the next duties may be even worse than the present. As a general rule, soldiers rarely ever grumble at any detail on the eve of an engagement, for sometimes it excuses them from a battle, and the old experienced veteran never refuses that.
At daylight a battery some two hundred yards in our front opened a furious fire upon us, the shells coming uncomfortably near our heads. If there were any infantry between the battery and our troops, they must have laid low to escape the shots over their heads. But after a few rounds they limbered up and scampered away. We moved slowly along with heavy skirmishing in our front all the morning of the second. When near the Chancellor's House, we formed line of battle in a kind of semi-circle, our right resting on the river and extending over the [212] plank road, Kershaw being some distance to the left of this road, the Fifteenth Regiment occupying the right. Here we remained for the remainder of the day. We heard the word coming up the line, "No cheering, no cheering." In a few moments General Lee came riding along the lines, going to the left. He had with him quite a number of his staff and one or two couriers. He looked straight to the front and thoughtful, noticing none of the soldiers who rushed to the line to see him pass. He no doubt was then forming the masterful move, and one, too, in opposition to all rules or order of military science or strategy, "the division of his army in the face of the enemy," a movement that has caused many armies, before, destruction and the downfall of its commander. But nothing succeeds like success. The great disparity in numbers was so great that Lee could only watch and hope for some mistake or blunder of his adversary, or by some extraordinary strategic manoeuver on his own part, gain the advantage by which his opponent would be ruined. Hooker had one hundred and thirty thousand men, while Lee had only sixty thousand. With this number it seemed an easy task for Hooker to threaten Lee at Fredericksburg, then fall upon him with his entire force at Chancellorsville and crush him before Lee could extricate himself from the meshes that were surrounding him, and retreat to Richmond. The dense Wilderness seemed providential for the movement upon which Lee had now determined to stake the fate of his army and the fortunes of the Confederacy. Its heavy, thick undergrowth entirely obstructed the view and hid the movements to be made. Jackson, with Rhodes, Colston's, and A.P. Hill's Divisions, were to make a detour around the enemy's right, march by dull roads and bridle paths through the tangled forest, and fall upon the enemy's rear, while McLaws, Anderson's, and Early's Divisions were to hold him in check in front. Pickett's Division had, before this time, been sent to Wilmington, N.C., while Ransom's Division, with Barksdale's Mississippi Brigade, of McLaws' Division, were to keep watch of the enemy at Fredericksburg. The Federal General, Stoneman, with his cavalry, was then on his famous but disastrous raid to Richmond. Jackson commenced his march early in the morning, and kept it up all day, turning back [213] towards the rear of the enemy when sufficiently distant that his movement could not be detected. By marching eighteen or twenty miles he was then within three miles of his starting point. But Hooker's Army stood between him and Lee. Near night Jackson struck the enemy a terrific blow, near the plank road, just opposite to where we lay, and the cannonading was simply deafening. The shots fired from some of the rifled guns of Jackson passed far overhead of the enemy and fell in our rear. Hooker, bewildered and lost in the meshes of the Wilderness, had formed his divisions in line of battle in echelon, and moved out from the river. Great gaps would intervene between the division in front and the one in rear. Little did he think an enemy was marching rapidly for his rear, another watching every movement in front, and those enemies, Jackson and Lee, unknown to Hooker, his flank stood exposed and the distance between the columns gave an ordinary enemy an advantage seldom offered by an astute General, but to such an enemy as Jackson it was more than he had hoped or even dared to expect. As he sat watching the broken columns of the enemy struggling through the dense undergrowth, the favorable moment came. Seizing it with promptness and daring, so characteristic of the man, he, like Napoleon at Austerlitz, when he saw the Russians passing by his front with their flanks exposed, rushed upon them like a wild beast upon its prey, turning the exposed column back upon its rear. Colston, commanding Jackson's old Division, led the attack, followed by A.P. Hill. Rhodes then fell like an avalanche upon the unexpectant and now thoroughly disorganized divisions of the retreating enemy. Volley after volley was poured into the seething mass of advancing and receding columns. Not much use could be made of artillery at close range, so that arm of the service was mainly occupied in shelling their trains and the woods in rear. Until late in the night did the battle rage in all its fury. Darkness only added to its intensity, and the fire was kept up until a shot through mistake lay the great Chieftain, Stonewall Jackson, low. General A.P. Hill now took command of the corps, and every preparation was made for the desperate onslaught of to-morrow. By some strange intuition peculiar to the soldier, and his ability to gather news, the word that Jackson had [214] fallen burst through the camp like an explosion, and cast a gloom of sorrow over all.
As our brother South Carolinians, of McGowan's Brigade, were on the opposite side of us, and in the heat of the fray, while we remained idle, I take the liberty of quoting from "Caldwell's History" of that brigade a description of the terrible scenes being enacted on that memorable night in the Wilderness in which Jackson fell:
"Now it is night. The moon a day or two past full, rose in cloudless sky and lighted our way. We were fronted, and then advanced on the right of the road into a thick growth of pines. Soon a firing of small arms sprang up before us, and directly afterwards the enemy's artillery opened furiously, bearing upon us. The scene was terrible. Volley after volley of musketry was poured by the Confederate line in front of us upon the enemy. The enemy replied with equal rapidity; cheer, wild and fierce, rang over the whole woods; officers shouted at the top of their voices, to make themselves heard; cannon roared and shells burst continuously. We knew nothing, could see nothing, hedged in by the matted mass of trees. Night engagements are always dreadful, but this was the worst I ever knew. To see your danger is bad enough, but to hear shells whizzing and bursting over you, to hear shrapnell and iron fragments slapping the trees and cracking off limbs, and not know from whence death comes to you, is trying beyond all things. And here it looked so incongruous—below raged, thunder, shout, shriek, slaughter—above soft, silent, smiling moonlight, peace!"
The next morning A.P. Hill was moving early, but was himself wounded, and General Jeb. Stuart, of the cavalry, took command. The fighting of Jackson's Corps to-day surpassed that of the night before, and after overcoming almost insurmountable obstacles, they succeeded in dislodging Hooker from his well fortified position.
Kershaw remained in his line of battle, keeping up a constant fire with his skirmishers. An advance upon the Chancellor's House was momentarily expected. The long delay between the commencement of Jackson's movement until we heard the thunder of his guns immediately in our front and in rear of the enemy, was taken up in conjecturing, [215] "what move was next." All felt that it was to be no retreat, and as we failed to advance, the mystery of our inactivity was more confounding.
Early next morning, however, the battle began in earnest. Hooker had occupied the night in straightening out his lines and establishing a basis of battle, with the hope of retrieving the blunder of the day before. Stuart (or rather A.P. Hill, until wounded,) began pressing him from the very start. We could hear the wild yells of our troops as line after line of Hooker's were reformed, to be brushed away by the heroism of the Southern troops. Our skirmishers began their desultory firing of the day before. The battle seemed to near us as it progressed, and the opening around Chancellor's House appeared to be alive with the enemy's artillery. About two o'clock our lines were ordered forward, and we made our way through the tangled morass, in direction of our skirmish line. Here one of the bravest men in our regiment was killed, private John Davis, of the "Quitman Rifles." He was reckless beyond all reason. He loved danger for danger's sake. Stepping behind a tree to load (he was on skirmish line) he would pass out from this cover in plain view, take deliberate aim, and fire. Again and again he was entreated and urged by his comrades to shield himself, but in vain. A bullet from the enemy's sharpshooters killed him instantly.
A singular and touching incident of this family is here recorded. Davis had an only brother, who was equally as brave as John and younger, James, the two being the only children of an aged but wealthy couple, of Newberry County. After the death of John, his mother exerted herself and hired a substitute for her baby boy, and came on in a week after the battle for the body of her oldest son and to take James home with her, as the only hope and solace of the declining years of this aged father and mother. Much against his will and wishes, but by mother's entreaties and friends' solicitations, the young man consented to accompany his mother home. But fate seemed to follow them here and play them false, for in less than two weeks this brave, bright, and promising boy lay dead from a malignant disease.
As our brigade was moving through the thicket in the interval between our main line and the skirmishers, and under a heavy fire, we came [216] upon a lone stranger sitting quietly upon a log. At first he was thought an enemy, who in the denseness of the undergrowth had passed our lines on a tour of observation. He was closely questioned, and it turned out to be Rev. Boushell, a methodist minister belonging to one of McGowan's South Carolina regiments, who became lost from his command in the great flank movement of Jackson (McGowan's Brigade belonged to Jackson's Corps), and said he came down "to see how the battle was going and to lend aid and comfort to any wounded soldier should he chance to find one in need of his services."
The batteries in our front were now raking the matted brush all around and overhead, and their infantry soon became aware of our presence, and they, too, began pouring volleys into our advancing column. The ranks became confused, for in this wilderness we could not see twenty paces in front. Still we moved forward with such order as was under the conditions permissible. When near the turn-pike road General Kershaw gave the command to "charge." The Fifteenth raised the yell; then the Third dashed forward; the Seventh was somewhat late on account of the almost impassable condition of the ground, but still it and the Third Battalion, with the Second on the left, made a mad rush for the public road, and entered it soon after the Fifteenth and Third. A perfect sea of fire was in our faces from the many cannon parked around the Chancellor House and graping in all directions but the rear. Lee on the one side and Stuart on the other had closed upon the enemy, their wings joining just in front of the house. Some of the pieces of the enemy's artillery were not more than fifty yards in our front, and the discharges seemed to blaze fire in our very ranks. Infantry, too, was there massed all over the yard, and in rear of this one vast, mingling, moving body of humanity, dead horses lay in all directions, while the dead and wounded soldiers lay heaped and strewn with the living. But a few volleys from our troops in the road soon silenced all opposition from the infantry, while cannoneers were hitching up their horses to fly away. Some were trying to drag away their caissons and light pieces by hand, while thousands of "blue coats," with and without arms, were running for cover to the rear. In less than twenty minutes the firing ceased in our front, and men [217] were ordered to prepare breastworks. Our soldiers, like the beaver in water, by this time had become accustomed to burrow in the ground as soon as a "halt" was made. A shovel and a spade were carried at all times by each company to guard against emergencies. The bursting of a shell near my company caused a fragment to strike one of my own men on the shoulder. He claimed to be desperately wounded, and wished to go to the hospital. I examined him hastily to see if I could give him any assistance. He claimed his shoulder was broken. Just then the order was given to "commence to fortify." "G.," the wounded man, was the first to grasp the shovel, and threw dirt with an energy that caused my Orderly Sergeant, a brave and faithful soldier, but who never allowed the comic side of any transaction to pass him, to say: "Captain, look at the 'wild pigeon;' see how he scratches dirt." All soldiers carried a "nick-name," a name given by some physical disability or some error he had made, or from any circumstance in his life out of the usual order. Hardly had we taken possession of the turn-pike road and began fortifying, than the sound of shells down the river was heard, and we were hurriedly marched down the road. McLaws' and Andersen's Divisions were doubled-quicked down the turn-pike road and away from the battle to meet Sedgwick, who had crossed the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg, stormed Mayree's Heights, routed and captured the most of Barksdale's Mississippi Brigade, and was making his way rapidly upon Lee's rear.
This Battle of Chancellorsville certainly had its many sides, with its rapid marching, changing of positions, and generalship of the highest order. On the day before Jackson had gone around the right flank of Hooker and fell upon his rear, while to-day we had the novel spectacle of Sedgwick in the rear of Lee and Stuart in rear of Hooker. No one can foretell the result of the battle, had Hooker held his position until Sedgwick came up. But Lee's great mind ran quick and fast. He knew the country and was well posted by his scouts of every move and turn of the enemy on the chessboard of battle. Anderson, with his division, being on our right, led the advance down the road to meet Sedgwick. We passed great parks of wagons (ordnance and commissary) [218] on either side of the road. Here and there were the field infirmaries where their wounded were being attended to and where all the surplus baggage had been stacked before the battle.
On reaching Zoar Church, some five miles in rear, we encountered Sedgwick's advance line of skirmishers, and a heavy fusilade began. Anderson formed line of battle on extreme right, and on right of plank road, with the purpose of sweeping round on the enemy's left. McLaws formed on left of the corps, his extreme left reaching out toward the river and across the road; Kershaw being immediately on right of the road, with the Second resting on it, then the Fifteenth, the Third Battalion, the Eighth, the Third, and the Seventh on the right. On the left of the road leading to Fredericksburg was a large open field extending to the bluff near the river; on the right was a dense thicket of pines and undergrowth. In this we had to form. The Seventh experienced some trouble in getting into line, and many camp rumors were afloat a few days afterwards of an uncomplimentary nature of the Seventh's action. But this was all false, for no more gallant regiment nor better officered, both in courage and ability, was in the Confederate service than the "Bloody Seventh." But it was the unfavorable nature of the ground, the difficulties experienced in forming a line, and the crowding and lapping of the men that caused the confusion.
Soon after our line of battle was formed and Kershaw awaiting orders from McLaws to advance, a line of support came up in our rear, and mistaking us for the enemy, commenced firing upon us. Handkerchiefs went up, calls of "friends," "friends," but still the firing continued. One Colonel seeing the danger—the enemy just in front, and our friends firing on us in the rear—called out, "Who will volunteer to carry our colors back to our friends in rear?" Up sprang the handsome and gallant young Sergeant, Copeland, of the "Clinton Divers," (one of the most magnificent and finest looking companies in his service, having at its enlistment forty men over six feet tall), and said, "Colonel, send me." Grasping the colors in his hand, he carried them, waving and jesticulating in a friendly manner, until he convinced the troops that they were friends in their front.
While thus waiting for Anderson to swing around the left of the enemy, [219] a desperate charge was made upon us. The cannonading was exceedingly heavy and accurate. Great trees all around fell, snapped in twain by the shell and solid shot, and many men were killed and wounded by the falling timber. Trees, a foot in diameter, snapped in two like pipe stems, and fell upon the men. It was growing dark before Anderson could get in position, and during that time the troops never experienced a heavier shelling. It was enough to make the stoutest hearts quake. One of my very bravest men, one who had never failed before, called to me as I passed, "Captain, if I am not here when the roll is called, you may know where I am. I don't believe I can stand this." But he did, and like the man he was, withstood it. Another, a young recruit, and under his first fire, almost became insane, jumping upon me and begging "for God's sake" let him go to the rear. I could not stand this piteous appeal, and knowing he could not be of any service to us in that condition, told him "to go." It is needless to say he obeyed my orders. Dr. Evans, our surgeon, told me afterwards that he came to his quarters and remained three days, perfectly crazy.
At last the order came after night to advance. In a semi-circle we swept through the thicket; turning, we came into the road, and over it into the opening in front. The enemy was pushed back into the breastworks on the bluff at the river. These breastworks had been built by our troops during the Fredericksburg battle, and afterwards to guard and protect Raccoon and Ely's fords, just in rear. As night was upon us, and the enemy huddled before us at the ford, we were halted and lay on the field all night. This was the ending of the battle of Chancellorsville.
Next morning the sun was perfectly hidden by a heavy fog, so much so that one could not see a man twenty yards distant. Skirmishers were thrown out and our advance made to the river, but nothing was found on this side of the river but the wounded and the discarded rifles and munitions of war. The wounded lay in all directions, calling for help and heaping curses upon their friends, who had abandoned them in their distress. Guns, tent flies, and cartridge boxes were packed up by the wagon loads. Hooker's Army was thoroughly beaten, disheartened, and [220] disorganized. Met and defeated at every turn and move, they were only too glad to place themselves across the river and under the protection of their siege guns on Stafford's Heights. Hooker's losses were never correctly given, but roughly computed at twenty-five thousand, while those of Lee's were ten thousand two hundred and eighty-one. But the Confederates counted it a dear victory in the loss of the intrepid but silent Stonewall Jackson. There was a magic in his name that gave enthusiasm and confidence to the whole army. To the enemy his name was a terror and himself an apparition. He had frightened and beaten Banks out of the Shennandoah Valley, had routed Fremont, and so entangled and out-generaled Seigle that he was glad to put the Potomac between himself and this silent, mysterious, and indefatigable chieftain, who oftened prayed before battle and fought with a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other. He came like a whirlwind upon the flank of McClellan at Mechanicsville, and began those series of battles and victories that terminated with the "Little Giant" being hemmed in at Drury's Bluff and Malvern Hill. While Pope, the "Braggart," was sweeping the fields before him in Northern Virginia, and whose boast was he "saw only the enemy's back," and his "headquarters were in the saddle," Jackson appeared before him like a lion in his path. He swings around Pope's right, over the mountains, back through Thoroughfare Gap; he sweeps through the country like a comet through space, and falls on Pope's rear on the plains of Manassas, and sent him flying across the Potomac like McDowell was beaten two years before. While pursuing the enemy across the river and into Maryland, he turns suddenly, recrosses the river, and stands before Harper's Ferry, and captures that stronghold with scarcely a struggle. All this was enough to give him the sobriquet of the "Silent Man," the man of "mystery," and it is not too much to say that Jackson to the South was worth ten thousand soldiers, while the terror of his name wrought consternation in the ranks of the enemy.