SECOND BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG—CHANCELLORSVILLE—WOUNDING AND DEATH OF STONEWALL JACKSON
The battle at Kelly's Ford was the forerunner of the crossing of Burnside's army to our side of the river, although this was delayed longer than was expected. In the latter part of April we were roused one morning before dawn to go into position on the fatal hill in the bend of the railroad. The various divisions of the army were already in motion from their winter-quarters, and, as they reached the neighborhood, were deployed in line of battle above and below.
The high hills sloping toward the river on the enemy's side were manned with heavy siege-guns, from which shells were thrown at intervals as our troops came into view. Here we lay for a day or more, with guns unlimbered, awaiting the tedious disposition of the various divisions. The bluff on which our guns were posted, commanding, as it did, an extensive view of the country, attracted many of the officers, who had preceded their men, and, with field-glasses, scanned the surroundings. I saw at one time, within a few rods of where we stood, Generals Lee, Jackson, D. H. and A. P. Hill, Early, Rodes and Colston, besides a score of brigadiers. At this time the enemy were moving across their pontoon bridges and extending their skirmish-lines on the right and left.
The only time I met General Jackson to speak to him since he had left Lexington was when he rode away from this group of officers. As I held aside the limb of a tree in his way, near our gun, he extended his hand and, as he gave me a hearty shake, said, "How do you do, Edward?" A short time after this, our battery had orders to fire a few rounds, as a sort of "feeler", and the enemy at once replied. The officers, not having been informed of the order, were for a time exposed to an unnecessary and what might have proved very serious danger. However, they withdrew before any damage was done, although a large piece of shell which flew past our gun gave General Colston a close call as he tarried near it. After threatening weather, the sun rose clear on the following morning. A light mist which lay along the river soon disappeared, and again, as at Harper's Ferry, our elevated position afforded a superb view. A level plain extended to the river in our front and for some miles to the right, and as far as Fredericksburg (two miles) to the left, and beyond the river the Stafford Heights.
While we were standing admiring the scene, three horses without riders came dashing from within the Federal lines, and swept at full speed between the two armies. They ran as if on a regular race-track and conscious of the many spectators who cheered them to their best. Then, veering in their course from side to side, they finally shot through an opening made to receive them into our lines, which raised a "rebel yell," as if Jackson were passing by. One of these horses trotted into our battery and was caught and ridden by Sergeant Strickler, under the name of "Sedgwick," to the close of the war.
Burnside's crossing the river at Fredericksburg was only a feint, as the mass of his army crossed near Chancellorsville, and thither our army went, leaving Early's division, two other brigades and several batteries, including ours, to oppose Sedgwick's corps. After three days here, with occasional artillery duels, Sedgwick recrossed the river, and Early, supposing he would join Hooker, set out with his command toward Chancellorsville. Before we had gone three miles I heard General Barksdale, as he rode along the column, ask for General Early, who was a short distance ahead, and announce, "My young men have told me that the Federals are recrossing the river." A few moments later, as the two rode back together, General Early said, "If that is the case, I must go back or they will get my wagon-train."
We at once countermarched, and by eleven o'clock were back in position on the same bluff. The fourth detachment was in front and failed to get the order to countermarch, and so kept on almost to Chancellorsville, and did not rejoin us until eight o'clock the next morning (Sunday), having spent the whole night marching.
I will mention here a striking instance of what I suppose could be called the "irony of fate." My bedfellow, Stuart, as already stated, had been fearfully wounded at Winchester, his first battle. After his return many months later he often expressed the greatest desire to pass through one battle unhurt, and regarded his companions who had done so as fortunate heroes. It was now Sunday morning and there had been heavy firing for an hour or two about Fredericksburg, and thither the third and fourth pieces were ordered. As they were starting off, I saw Stuart bidding good-by to several friends, and I, not wishing to undergo a thing so suggestive, was quietly moving off. But he called out, "Where is my partner?" and came to me, looking so jaded after his long nightmarch that his farewell made me rather serious. In half an hour he was dead. As he was going with his gun into position a case-shot exploded close to him and three balls passed through his body, any one of which would have been fatal.
Two other members of the battery, Henry Foutz and J. S. Agnor, were also killed in this engagement. The position was a trying one. Two batteries had already suffered severely while occupying it, and the cannoneers of a third battery were lying inactive by their guns as ours came into it. But in less than an hour thereafter the enemy's guns were outmatched; at any rate, ceased firing. General Hoke, who had witnessed the whole affair, came and asked Major Latimer to introduce him to Captain Graham, saying he wanted to know the man whose guns could do such execution. About noon my section joined the others a short distance in rear of this place on the hills overlooking Fredericksburg.
Soon after we had gotten together, the bodies of our dead comrades were brought from the places at which they had fallen, and William Bolling, Berkeley Minor and myself, messmates of Stuart, were detailed to bury him. His body was taken in our battery ambulance, which we accompanied, to the Marye family cemetery near our old camp, and permission gotten to bury it there. If I was ever utterly miserable, it was on this Sunday afternoon as we stood, after we had dug the grave, in this quiet place, surrounded by a dense hedge of cedar, the ground and tombstones overgrown with moss and ivy, and a stillness as deep as if no war existed. Just at this time there came timidly through the hedge, like an apparition, the figure of a woman. She proved to be Mrs. Marye; and, during the battle, which had now continued four days, she had been seeking shelter from the enemy's shells in the cellar of her house. She had come to get a lock of Stuart's hair for his mother, and her presence, now added to that of our ambulance driver, as Minor read the Episcopal burial service, made the occasion painfully solemn. In less than an hour we were again with the battery and in line of battle with the whole of our battalion, twenty guns, all of which opened simultaneously on what appeared to be a column of artillery moving through the woods in our front. However, it proved to be a train of wagons, some of which were overturned and secured by us the next day.
Here we lay during the night with guns unlimbered near Gen. "Extra Billy" Smith's brigade of infantry. Next afternoon we had a fine view of a charge by Early's division, with Brigadier-Generals Gordon and Hoke riding to and fro along their lines and the division driving the Federals from their position along the crest of the hill. The greater portion of the enemy's killed and wounded were left in our hands. Many of the latter with whom we talked were heartily sick of the war and longed for the expiration of their term of service. This series of battles, continuing, as it did, at intervals for a week, was not yet done with.
After dark our battery was ordered to move down toward Fredericksburg and occupy some earthworks just outside of the town. We had been well in range of the siege-guns already, but now the only hope was that they would overshoot us. As I was on guard that night I had ample time, while pacing the breastworks, for cogitation. I heard distinctly the barking of the dogs and the clocks striking the hours during the night. When morning came, a dense fog had settled along the river, entirely concealing us, and while it hung we were ordered to pull out quietly.
Two hundred yards back from this place we came into clear sunlight and, as we turned, saw an immense balloon poised on the surface of the mist, and apparently near enough to have pierced it with a shell. Not a shot was fired at us—veiled, as we were, by the mist—until we had gotten still farther away, but then some enormous projectiles landed around us.
A question that would naturally present itself to one who had heard of the repeated victories won by the Confederate army would be, "Why were no decisive results?" By carefully studying the history of the war, the inquirer could not fail to notice that at every crisis either some flagrant failure on the part of a subordinate to execute the duty assigned to him occurred, or that some untoward accident befell the Confederate arms. Conspicuous among the latter was Jackson's fall at Chancellorsville.
That General Hooker seemed entirely ignorant of the proximity of General Lee's army was disclosed by the discovery, by General Fitz Lee, that the right flank of the Federal army was totally unguarded.
General Jackson, when informed of this, proceeded by a rapid march to throw his corps well to the right and rear of this exposed wing, and by this unexpected onset threw that portion of Hooker's army into the utmost confusion and disorder. Falling night for a time checked his advance, but, while making dispositions to push the advantage gained, so as to envelope his adversary, he passed, with his staff, outside of his picket line, and when returning to re-enter was mortally wounded by his own men.
This May 4 closed the great effort of General Hooker, with 132,000 men, to "crush" General Lee's army of 47,000. The two last of the six days of his experience in the effort probably made him thankful that the loss of 20,000 of his force had been no greater.
The mortal wounding of Jackson and his death on the tenth more than offset the advantage of the victory to the Confederates. His loss was deplored by the whole army, especially by General Lee, and to his absence in later battles, conspicuously at Gettysburg, was our failure to succeed attributed. In fact General Lee said to a friend, after the war, that with Jackson at Gettysburg our success would have been assured—a feeling that was entertained throughout the army.
On the evening of the fifth, rain, which seemed invariably to follow a great battle, fell in torrents and we went into camp drenched to the skin. After drying by a fire, I went to bed and slept for eighteen hours. Being in our old position on the hill, we converted it into a camp and there remained.
On that portion of the great plain which extended along the railroad on our right we witnessed a grand review of Jackson's old corps, now commanded by General Ewell. The three divisions, commanded, respectively, by Generals Ed. Johnson, Rodes and Early, were drawn up one behind the other, with a space of seventy-five yards between, and General Lee, mounted on "Traveler" and attended by a full staff and numerous generals, at a sweeping gallop, made first a circuit of the entire corps, then in front and rear of each division. One by one his attendants dropped out of the cavalcade. Gen. Ed. Johnson escaped a fall from his horse by being caught by one of his staff. Early soon pulled out, followed at intervals by others; but the tireless gray, as with superb ease and even strides he swept back and forth, making the turns as his rider's body inclined to right or left, absorbed attention. The distance covered was nine miles, at the end of which General Lee drew rein with only one of his staff and Gen. A. P. Hill at his side. Such spectacles were to us extremely rare, and this one was especially well timed, affording the troops, as it did, an opportunity to see that they were still formidable in number, and although Jackson was dead that the soul of the army had not passed away.