On the 27th of April the Eleventh Corps, under Howard, and the Twelfth, under Slocum, at half past five in the morning started for Kelley's Ford by the Hartwood Church road.
The Third, under Sickles, and the Fifth, under Meade, moved at the same time, by a road nearer the river, in the same direction. The Second, under Couch, went towards United States Ford, which is only three miles from Chancellorsville. A dense fog hung over the river, concealing the movement. The Eleventh, Twelfth, and Fifth Corps marched fourteen miles during the day, and bivouacked at four o'clock in the afternoon a mile west of Hartwood Church. To Lee, who looked across the river from Fredericksburg, there was no change in the appearance of things on the Stafford hills. The camps of the Yankees were still there, dotting the landscape, teams were moving to and fro, soldiers were at drill, and the smoke of camp-fires was curling through the air.
During the evening of the 27th the pontoons belonging to the Sixth Corps were taken from the wagons, carried by the soldiers down to the river, and put into the water so noiselessly that the Rebel pickets stationed on the bank near Bernard's house had no suspicion of what was going on. The boats were manned by Russell's brigade. At a given signal they were pushed rapidly across the stream, and, before the Rebel pickets were aware of the movement, they found themselves prisoners. The First Corps went a mile farther down, to Southfield. It was daylight before the engineers of this corps could get their boats into the water. The Rebel sharpshooters who were lying in rifle-pits along the bank commenced a deadly fire. To silence them, Colonel Warner placed forty pieces of artillery on the high bank overlooking the river, under cover of which the boats crossed, and the soldiers, leaping ashore, charged up the bank and captured one hundred and fifty Rebels. The engineers in a short time had both bridges completed. General Wadsworth's division of the First Corps was the first to cross the lower bridge. General Wadsworth had become impatient, and, instead of waiting for the completion of the structure, swam his horse across the stream. General Brooks, of the Sixth Corps, was the first to cross the bridge at Bernard's.
It was now five o'clock in the morning. There was great commotion in Fredericksburg. A courier dashed into town on horseback, shouting, "The Yankees are crossing down the river."[20] The church-bells were rung. The people who had returned to the town after the battle of the 13th of December sprang from their beds. They went out and stood upon Maryee's Hill, looked across the river, and saw the country alive with troops.
"All through the day," wrote the correspondent of the Richmond Examiner, "the Yankee balloons were in the air at a great height, and the opposite side of the river, as far as the eye could reach, was blue with their crowded columns."[21]
The drummers beat the long-roll. "Fall in! Fall in!" was the cry, and the whole army was quickly under arms. The movement was a surprise to General Lee.
The crossing of the First and Sixth Corps was slow and deliberate. "They continued to cross," says the same writer, "until two o'clock P. M.,—infantry, artillery, and wagons. They swarmed irregularly over the fields and bluffs, of which they had taken possession, seeming not to have fallen into ranks. About five P. M. a light rain commenced, when they pitched their tents, and seemed to make themselves at home."
In order to deceive General Lee, only Wadsworth's and Brooks's divisions were sent over in the forenoon; but portions of the other divisions, which had been concealed behind a belt of woods, were put in motion, and marched along the crest of the ridge, through an open field, in sight of the Rebels, as though on their way down the river; but, instead of crossing, were marched up through a gully around the hill to their starting-point, and were again moved over the same ground,—a circus-march, calculated to deceive the Rebels into thinking that the whole army was moving in that direction. A part of Jackson's corps had been lying at Shinker's Neck, several miles below Fredericksburg, which Lee ordered to Hamilton's crossing, occupying the same position that it held in the first battle.
It was night before the remainder of the Sixth Corps crossed the stream, while the other two divisions of the First Corps still remained on the northern bank. Lee could not comprehend this new state of affairs. The night of the 28th passed, and no advance was made by the Sixth Corps. The morning of the 29th saw them in the same position, evidently in no haste to make an attack.
Meanwhile the main body of the army was making a rapid march up the river. The Eleventh Corps reached Kelley's Ford, twenty-eight miles above Falmouth, at half past four in the afternoon. The pontoons arrived at six o'clock. Four hundred men went over in the boats, and seized the Rebel rifle-pits, capturing a few prisoners, who were stationed there to guard the Ford. As soon as the bridge was completed, the troops began to cross. The Seventeenth Pennsylvania cavalry preceded the infantry, pushed out on the road leading to Culpepper, and encountered a detachment of Stuart's cavalry.