"Fighting Joe Hooker" in Battle.
McClellan, who had accompanied the expedition thus far, rode back to the rear. Hooker pressed forward, accompanied by General Meade, then commanding a division—a dark-haired, scholarly-looking gentleman in spectacles. The grassy fields, the shining streams, and the vernal forests, stretched out in silent beauty. With their bright muskets, clean uniforms, and floating flags, Hooker's men moved on with assured faces.
"'Twere worth ten years of peaceful life, One glance at their array."
With a very heavy force of skirmishers, we pushed on, finding no enemy. Our line was three-quarters of a mile in length. Hooker was on the extreme right, close upon the skirmishers.
As we approached a strip of woods, a hundred yards wide, far on our extreme left, we heard a single musket. Then there was another, then another, and in an instant our whole line blazed like a train of powder, in one long sheet of flame.
Right on our front, through the narrow belt of woods, so near that it seemed that we might toss a pebble to them, rose a countless horde of Rebels, almost instantly obscured by the fire from their muskets and the smoke of the batteries.
My confrère and myself were within a few yards of Hooker. It was a very hot place. We could not distinguish the "ping" of the individual bullets, but their combined and mingled hum was like the din of a great Lowell factory. Solid shot and shell came shrieking through the air, but over our heads, as we were on the extreme front.
Hooker—common-place before—the moment he heard the guns, loomed up into gigantic stature. His eye gleamed with the grand anger of battle. He seemed to know exactly what to do, to feel that he was master of the situation, and to impress every one else with the fact. Turning to one of his staff, and pointing to a spot near us, he said:
"Go, and tell Captain ---- to bring his battery and plant it there at once!"
The lieutenant rode away. After giving one or two further orders with great clearness, rapidity, and precision, Hooker's eye turned again to that mass of Rebel infantry in the woods, and he said to another officer, with great emphasis: