CHAPTER XXI.
CHANCELLORSVILLE.
"FIGHTING JOE HOOKER"—LETTER FROM PRESIDENT LINCOLN—RESTORING THE DISCIPLINE OF THE ARMY—CAPTURING THE HEIGHTS OF FREDERICKSBURG—SKILLFUL MOVEMENT BY "STONEWALL" JACKSON—HEROIC CHARGE OF CAVALRY COMMANDED BY MAJOR PETER KEENAN—ACCIDENTAL SHOOTING OF GENERAL JACKSON—DEFEAT OF THE NATIONAL FORCES—GENERAL HOOKER'S EXPANATION OF HIS FAILURE—NUMEROUS INTERESTING INCIDENTS.
After Burnside's failure at Fredericksburg, he was superseded, January 25, 1863, by General Joseph Hooker, who had commanded one of his grand divisions. Hooker, now forty-eight years old, was a graduate of West Point, had seen service in the Florida and Mexican wars, had been through the peninsula campaign with McClellan, was one of our best corps commanders, and was a favorite with the soldiers, who called him "Fighting Joe Hooker." In giving the command to General Hooker, President Lincoln accompanied it with a remarkable letter, which not only exhibits his own peculiar genius, but suggests some of the complicated difficulties of the military and political situation. He wrote: "I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what appear to me sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skilful soldier, which of course I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if not indispensable quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition, and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country, and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying, that both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The Government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising their commander, and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you nor Napoleon, were he alive again, could get any good out of any army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now, beware of rashness! Beware of rashness! But with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories."
| MAJOR-GENERAL JOSEPH HOOKER. |
Hooker restored the discipline of the Army of the Potomac, which had been greatly relaxed, reorganized it in corps, and opened the spring campaign with every promise of success. The army was still on the Rappahannock, opposite Fredericksburg, and he planned to cross over and strike Lee's left. Making a demonstration with Sedgwick's corps below the town, he moved a large part of his army up-stream, crossed quickly, and had forty-six thousand men at Chancellorsville before Lee guessed what he was about. This "ville" was only a single house, named from its owner. Eastward, between it and Fredericksburg, there was open country; west of it was the great thicket known as the Wilderness, in the depths of which, a year later, a bloody battle was fought.
Instead of advancing into the open country at once, and striking the enemy's flank, Hooker lost a day in inaction, which gave Lee time to learn what was going on and to make dispositions to meet the emergency. Leaving a small force to check Sedgwick, who had carried the heights of Fredericksburg, he moved toward Hooker with nearly all his army, May 1st, and attacked at various points, endeavoring to ascertain Hooker's exact position. By nightfall of this same day, Hooker appears to have lost confidence in the plans with which he set out, and been deserted by his old-time audacity; for instead of maintaining a tactical offensive, he drew back from some of his more advanced positions, formed his army in a semicircle, and awaited attack. His left and his centre were strongly posted and to some extent intrenched; but his right, consisting of Howard's corps, was "in the air," and, moreover, it faced the Wilderness. When this weak spot was discovered by the enemy, on the morning of the 2d, Lee sent Jackson with twenty-six thousand men to make a long detour, pass into the Wilderness, and, emerging suddenly from its eastern edge, take Howard by surprise. Jackson's men were seen and counted as they passed over the crest of a hill; they were even attacked by detachments from Sickles's corps; and Hooker sent orders to Howard to strengthen his position, advance his pickets, and not allow himself to be surprised. But Howard appears to have disregarded all precautions, and in the afternoon the enemy came down upon him, preceded by a rush of frightened wild animals driven from their cover in the woods by the advancing battle-line. Howards corps was doubled up, thrown into confusion, and completely routed. The enemy was coming on exultingly, when General Sickles sent Gen. Alfred Pleasonton with two regiments of cavalry and a battery to occupy an advantageous position at Hazel Grove, which was the key-point of this part of the battlefield. Pleasonton arrived just in time to see that the Confederates were making toward the same point and were likely to secure it. There was but one way to save the army, and Pleasonton quickly comprehended it. He ordered Major Peter Keenan, with the Eighth Pennsylvania cavalry regiment, about four hundred strong, to charge immediately upon the ten thousand Confederate infantry. "It is the same as saying we must be killed," said Keenan, "but we'll do it." This charge, in which Keenan and most of his command were slain, astonished the enemy and stopped their onset, for they believed there must be some more formidable force behind it.1
1 This is the story of Keenan's charge as told by General Pleasanton, and generally accepted, which has been made the theme of much comment and several poems. Nobody questions that the charge was gallantly made, and resulted in heavy loss to the intrepid riders; but several participants have recorded their testimony that it did not take place by order of General Pleasanton or in any such manner as he relates—in fact, that it was rather an unexpected encounter with the enemy when the regiment was obeying orders to cross over from a point near Hazel Grove to the aid of General Howard. Among these is Gen. Pennock Huey, who was the senior major in command of the regiment, and was one of the few officers that survived the charge.
In the precious minutes thus gained, Pleasonton brought together twenty-two guns, loaded them with double charges of canister, and had them depressed enough to make the shot strike the ground half-way between his own line and the edge of the woods where the enemy must emerge. When the Confederates resumed their charge, they were struck by such a storm of iron as nothing human could withstand; other troops were brought up to the support of the guns, and what little artillery the Confederates had advanced to the front was knocked to pieces.
Here, about dusk, General Jackson rode to the front to reconnoitre. As he rode back again with his staff, some of his own men, mistaking the horsemen for National cavalry, fired a volley at them, by which several were killed. Another volley inflicted three wounds upon Jackson; and as his frightened horse dashed into the woods, the general was thrown violently against the limb of a tree and injured still more. Afterward, when his men were bearing him off, a National battery opened fire down the road, one of the men was struck, and the general fell heavily to the ground. He finally reached the hospital, and his arm was amputated, but he died at the end of a week. Jackson's corps renewed its attack, under Gen. A. P. Hill, but without success, and Hill was wounded and borne from the field.
The next morning, May 3d, it was renewed again under Stuart, the cavalry leader, and at the same time Lee attacked in front with his entire force. The Confederates had sustained a serious disaster the evening before, in the loss of Lee's ablest lieutenant; but now a more serious one befell the National army, for General Hooker was rendered insensible by the shock from a cannon-ball that struck a pillar of the Chancellor house, against which he was leaning. After this there was no plan or organization to the battle on the National side—though each corps commander held his own as well as he could, and the men fought valiantly—while Lee was at his best. The line was forced back to some strong intrenchments that had been prepared the night before, when Lee learned that Sedgwick had defeated the force opposed to him, captured Fredericksburg heights, and was promptly advancing upon the Confederate rear. Trusting that the force in his front would not advance upon him, Lee drew off a large detachment of his army and turned upon Sedgwick, who after a heavy fight was stopped, and with some difficulty succeeded in crossing the river after nightfall. Lee then turned again upon Hooker; but a great storm suspended operations for twenty-four hours, and the next night the National army all recrossed the Rappahannock, leaving on the field fourteen guns, thousands of small arms, all their dead, and many of their wounded. In this battle or series of battles, the National loss was about seventeen thousand men, the Confederate about thirteen thousand. Hooker had commanded about one hundred and thirteen thousand five hundred, to Lee's sixty-two thousand (disregarding the different methods of counting in the two armies); but as usual they were not in action simultaneously; many were hardly in the fight at all, and at every point of actual contact, with the exception of Sedgwick's first engagement, the Confederates were superior in numbers.
Three general officers were killed in this battle. On the National side, Major-Gens. Hiram G. Berry and Amiel W. Whipple; on the Confederate side, Brig.-Gen. E. F. Paxton. General Jackson, as already mentioned, was mortally wounded, and several others were hurt, some of them severely.
Sedgwick's part of this engagement is sometimes called the battle of Salem Heights, and sometimes the second battle of Fredericksburg.
Two coincidences are noticeable in this action. First, each commander made a powerful flank movement against his opponent's right, and neither of these movements was completely successful, although they were most gallantly and skilfully made. Second, each commander, in his after explanations accounting for his failure to push the fight any farther, declared that he could not conscientiously order his men to assail the strong intrenchments of the enemy.
| BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE, SUNDAY, MAY 3, 1863—REPELLING ATTACK OF CONFEDERATES. |
General Hooker's explanation of his failure, so far as it could be explained, was given in a conversation with Samuel P. Bates, his literary executor, who visited the ground with him in 1876. Mr. Bates says: "Upon our arrival at the broad, open, rolling fields opposite Banks's Ford, three or four miles up the stream, General Hooker explained, waving his hand significantly: 'Here on this open ground I intended to fight my battle. But the trouble was to get my army on it, as the banks of the stream are, as you can see, rugged and precipitous, and the few fords were strongly fortified and guarded by the enemy. By making a powerful demonstration in front of and below the town of Fredericksburg with a part of my army, I was able, unobserved, to withdraw the remainder, and, marching nearly thirty miles up the stream, to cross the Rappahannock and the Rapidan unopposed, and in four days' time to arrive at Chancellorsville, within five miles of this coveted ground.... But at midnight General Lee had moved out with his whole army, and by sunrise was in firm possession of Jackson's Ford, had thrown up this line of breastworks, which you can still follow with the eyes, and it was bristling with cannon from one end to the other. Before I had proceeded two miles the heads of my columns, while still upon the narrow roads in these interminable forests, where it was impossible to manoeuvre my forces, were met by Jackson with a full two-thirds of the entire Confederate army. I had no alternative but to turn back, as I had only a fragment of my command in hand, and take up the position about Chancellorsville which I had occupied during the night, as I was being rapidly outflanked upon my right, the enemy having open ground on which to operate.... Very early on the first day of the battle I rode along the whole line and examined every part, suggesting some changes and counselling extreme vigilance. Upon my return to headquarters I was informed that a continuous column of the enemy had been marching past my front since early in the morning. This put an entirely new phase upon the problem, and filled me with apprehension for the safety of my right wing, which was posted to meet a front attack from the south, but was in no condition for a flank attack from the west. I immediately dictated a despatch to Generals Slocum and Howard, saying that I had good reason to believe that the enemy was moving to our right, and that they must be ready to meet an attack from the west.... The failure of Howard to hold his ground cost us our position, and I was forced, in the presence of the enemy, to take up a new one.'"2
2 "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War," vol. iii, p. 217, et seq.
General Howard says he did not receive that despatch, and in his report he gave the following reasons for the disaster that overtook his corps: "I. Though constantly threatened and apprised of the moving of the enemy, yet the woods were so dense that he was able to mass a large force, whose exact whereabouts neither patrols, reconnoissances, nor scouts ascertained. He succeeded in forming a column opposite to and outflanking my right. II. By the panic produced by the enemy's reverse fire, regiments and artillery were thrown suddenly upon those in position. III. The absence of General Barlow's brigade, which I had previously located in reserve and en echelon with Colonel Von Gilsa's, so as to cover his right flank. This was the only general reserve I had."
|
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL THOMAS J. ("STONEWALL") JACKSON, C. S. A. |
Every such battle has its interesting incidents, generally enough to fill a volume, and they are seldom repeated. Some of the most interesting incidents of Chancellorsville are told by Capt. Henry N. Blake, of the Eleventh Massachusetts Regiment. Here are a few of them:
"A man who was loading his musket threw away the cartridge, with a fearful oath about government contractors; and I noticed that the paper was filled with fine grains of dry earth instead of gunpowder. In the thickest of the firing an officer seized an excited soldier—who discharged his piece with trembling hands near the ears, and endangered the lives, of his comrades—and kicked him into the centre of the road. Trade prospered throughout the day, and the United States sharp-shooters were constantly exchanging their dark green caps for the regulation hats which were worn by the regiment. The captain of one of the companies of skirmishers was posted near a brook at the base of a slight ascent upon which the enemy was massed, and there was a scattering fire of bullets which cautioned all to 'lie down.' While he was rectifying the alignment he perceived with amazement one of his men, who sat astride a log and washed his hands and face, and then cleansed the towel with a piece of soap which he carried. One sharp-shooter shielded himself behind a blanket; and another concealed himself behind an empty cracker-box, the sides of which were half an inch in thickness, exposed his person as little as possible, and felt as secure as the ostrich with his head buried in the sand.
"The ominous silence of the sharp-shooters in front was a sure indication that the main force was approaching; and a rebel officer, upon the left, brought every man into his place in the ranks by exclaiming to his command: 'Forward, double-quick, march! Guide left!' The hideous yells once more disclosed their position in the dark woods; but the volleys of buck and ball, and the recollection of the previous repulse, quickly hushed their outcries, and they were again vanquished. The conflict upon the left still continued, and the defeated soldiers began to reinforce the troops that were striving by desperate efforts to pierce the line, until a company swept the road with its fire and checked the movement, and only one or two rebels at intervals leaped across the deadly chasm. A demand for ammunition was now heard—the most fearful cry of distress in a battle—and every man upon the right contributed a few cartridges, which were carried to the scene of action in the hats of the donors. The forty rounds which fill the magazines are sufficient for any combat, unless the troops are protected by earthworks or a natural barrier; and the extra cartridges, which must be placed in the pockets and knapsacks, are seldom used.
"It was after sunset; but the flashes of the rifles in the darkness were the targets at which the guns were fired, until the enemy retired at nine P.M., and the din of musketry was succeeded by the groans of the wounded. The song of the whippoorwills increased the gloom that pervaded the forest; and the pickets carefully listened to them, because the hostile skirmishers might signal to each other by imitating the mournful notes. The rebels gave a yell as soon as they were beyond the range of Union bullets, and repeated it in tones which grew more distinct when they had retreated a great distance and considered themselves safe. The abatis upon the extreme left was set on fire in this prolonged struggle; and a gallant sergeant—who fell at Gettysburg—sprang over the work, and averted the most serious results by pouring water from the canteens of his comrades until the flames were extinguished. The skirmishers began to exchange shots at daybreak upon May 3d, and a bullet penetrated the head of a lieutenant who was asleep in the adjoining company, and he never moved. There was a ceaseless roll of musketry; at half-past five A.M. the batteries emitted destructive charges of canister, and most of the men in the ranks of the support crouched upon the ground while the balls passed over them. For two hours the hordes of Jackson, encouraged by their easy victory upon May 2d, screamed like fiends, assailed the troops that defended the plank road, and succeeded in turning their left, and compelling them to retire through the forest, and re-form their shattered lines. There was no running: the soldiers fell back slowly, company after company, and wished for some directing mind to select a new position. Unfortunately the National cause had lost General Berry, the brave commander of the division; the ranking brigadier, General Mott, was wounded; another brigadier was an arrant coward; and the largest part of nine regiments were marched three miles to the rear by one of the generals without any orders. The regiments of the brigade, under the supervision of their field and line officers, rallied in the open field near the Chancellor house, which was the focus upon which Lee concentrated his batteries, until the shells ignited it; and the flames consumed some of the wounded who were helpless, and three women that remained in the cellar for safety barely escaped from the ruins. The brigade was aligned upon the road to the United States ford at nine A.M., and the men recovered their knapsacks in the midst of a heavy cannonading which still continued. No symptoms of fear were manifested, although the artillery was planted upon the left, in the rear and the front, from which point most of the shells were hurled; and the force was threatened with capture. A rebel and a member of the brigade rested together near an oak, and mutually assisted each other to fight the fire in the forest, that began raging while the battle was in progress; and joyfully clasped their scorched and aching hands in friendship when it was quelled. Colors were captured, and hundreds of the foe threw down their arms and retreated with the Union forces; and happy squads without any guard were walking upon the road, and inquiring the way to the rear. Three batteries lost most of their horses, and a large proportion of their men, by the concentration of Lee's artillery, and the bullets of the sharp-shooters, who were specially instructed to pick off the animals before they shot the gunners. Several pieces, including one without wheels, which had been demolished, were drawn from the field by details from the infantry. Some of those who were slightly injured returned to their commands after their wounds had been dressed, and fought again. One cannon-ball killed a cavalryman and his horse; and a shell tore the clothing from an aid, but inflicted no personal hurt, and he returned, after a brief absence, to search for his porte-monnaie, which he carried in the pocket that had been so suddenly wrested from him.
| JACKSON'S ATTACK ON RIGHT WING AT CHANCELLORSVILLE. |
"The corps color was always waving in the front; and General Sickles, smoking a cigar, stood a few feet from the regiment, in the road up which the troops had marched from the Chancellor house; and aids and orderlies were riding to and fro, one of whom reported that his steed had been killed. 'Captain, the Government will furnish you with another horse,' he complacently replied.
"A rebel officer of high rank, who had been captured, stopped near the general, and sought to open a conversation, with the following result:
"'General, I have met you in New York.'
"'Move forward that battery.'
"'General, I have seen you before.'
"'The brigade must advance to the woods.'
"'General, don't you remember'—
"'Go to the rear, sir; my troops are now in position.'
|
BRIGADIER-GENERAL J. H. VAN ALLEN. (Aide-de-Camp to General Hooker.) |
"There were few, if any, stretcher bearers at the front, and wounded men that had lost a leg or an arm dragged themselves to the field-hospital; and the surgeons of some regiments which had not been engaged in the battle sat upon a log in idleness, and refused, with a great display of dignity, to assist the suffering who were brought to them, because they did not belong to their commands. This shameful conduct, which I often witnessed, exasperated the officers and soldiers; and they compelled the surgeons to discharge their duty in a number of cases by threatening to shoot them. The heat was very severe; many cannoneers divested themselves of their uniforms while they were working; and a number of the skirmishers, who were posted in the open field, and obliged to lie low without any shelter, were sometimes afflicted by sunstroke. 'I will win a star or a coffin in this battle,' remarked a colonel as he was riding to the scene of conflict in which a bullet checked his noble military aspirations. 'To take a soldier without ambition is to pull off his spurs.' 'I have got my leave of absence now,' gladly said an officer, whose application had always been refused at headquarters, when he left the regiment to go to the hospital. The appearance of a rabbit causes an excitement and a chase upon all occasions, and one ran in front of the line as the action commenced; and the birds were flying wildly among the trees, as if they anticipated a storm; and a soldier shouted, 'Stop him, stop him! I could make a good meal if I had him.' 'This is English neutrality,' an intelligent metal moulder remarked, in examining the fragment of a shell, and explaining the process of its manufacture to the company; while the rebel batteries every minute added some specimens to his collection. The officials in Richmond published at this time an order, directing that the clothing should be taken from the bodies of their dead and issued to the living. They always stripped the dead and the dying upon every field; and I noticed that one man who had been stunned, and afterward effected his escape, wore merely a shirt and hat when he entered the lines. An officer who was going the rounds in the night was surprised to find one of his most faithful men who returned no answer to his inquiries; and supposing that he had been overcome by fatigue, and fallen asleep, grasped his hands to awaken him: but they were cold with death. The soldier, killed upon his post of duty, rested in the extreme front, with his musket by his side, and face toward the enemies of his country. General Whipple, the able commander of the third division of the corps, was mortally wounded by a sharp-shooter who was one-third of a mile from him; and a priest administered the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church upon the spot where he fell, in the presence of his weeping staff and soldiers, by whom he was greatly beloved. A brigade made a reconnoissance in the forest at one P.M., and captured forty sharp-shooters who were perched upon the limbs of lofty oaks, and could not descend and escape before this force advanced.
"The rebels ascertained the location of the trains upon the north bank of the Rappahannock, opened a battery upon them, and a squad of three hundred prisoners uttered a yell of joy when they saw a cannon-ball enter a large tent which was crowded with the dying and disabled. The direction of the firing was changed, and caused utter dismay when some of the number were killed by the missiles that were hurled by their comrades in the army of Lee."
| OFFICERS SETTING OUT TO MAKE CALLS OF CEREMONY ON THEIR GENERALS. |