Almost at the beginning of the attack Devens was wounded. In the confusion and panic, there was no one to take his place till Howard arrived. Hooker was at once in his saddle.
"The enemy have attacked Howard and driven him in," was his word to Sickles.
"That can't be," said Sickles, incredulous.
"Return at once," was the order from Hooker, by a second messenger.
The heavy firing, constantly growing nearer, gave force to the instruction.
It was now quite dark. Sickles set out to return with all possible haste, but soon found that he had got to fight his way back. Jackson's left wing had swept round, till it rested upon the road, over which he had marched on his way out to the Furnace. Berry's division came first upon the enemy. A severe contest ensued, lasting till nine o'clock, when he succeeded in re-establishing his connection with Howard, who had thus far fought the battle almost alone. Lee, with Anderson's command, all the while was making a demonstration against the Twelfth and Fifth Corps east of Chancellorsville, and the Second was too far in rear to be of any service to Howard before the return of Sickles and Barlow.
Jackson gained no advantage after his first attack, but on the other hand came near experiencing a panic in his own lines. General Colston says:—
"We continued to drive the enemy until darkness prevented our farther advance. The firing now ceased, owing to the difficult and tangled nature of the ground over which the troops had advanced, and the mingling of my first and second lines of battle. The formation of the troops became very much confused, and different regiments, brigades, and divisions were mixed up together.... The troops were hardly reformed and placed in position when the enemy opened, about ten o'clock, a furious fire of shot, shell, and canister, sweeping down the plank-road and the woods on each side. A number of artillery horses, some of them without drivers, and a great many infantry soldiers, belonging to other commands, rushed down the road in wild disorder; but, although many casualties occurred at this time in my division, the troops occupied their position with the utmost steadiness. It was at this time that General Nichols, of the Louisiana Brigade (Fourth), a gallant and accomplished officer, had his leg torn off by a shell, and was carried off the field. It was also about the same time that our great, and good and ever to be lamented corps commander fell under the fire of some of the men of General Lane's brigade."[27]
Under cover of the fire of the artillery, Berry's division of the Third Corps attacked Jackson. The Rebel commander had just placed A. P. Hill's division in the front line, and was contemplating an attack upon Sickles, when Berry advanced. His biographer says:—
"Such was his ardor at this critical moment, and his anxiety to penetrate the movements of the enemy, doubly screened as they were by the dense forest and gathering darkness, that he rode ahead of the skirmishers, and exposed himself to a close and dangerous fire from the enemy's sharpshooters, posted in the timber. So great was the danger which he ran, that one of his staff said, 'General, don't you think this is the wrong place for you?' He replied, quickly, 'The danger is all over; the enemy is routed. Go back and tell A. P. Hill to press right on!' Soon after giving this order, General Jackson turned, and, accompanied by his staff and escort, rode back at a trot on his well-known 'Old Sorrel' toward his own men. Unhappily, in the darkness,—it was now nine or ten o'clock at night,—the little body of horsemen was mistaken for Federal cavalry charging, and the regiments on the right and left of the road fired a sudden volley into them with the most lamentable results. Captain Boswell, of Jackson's staff, was killed, and borne into our lines by his horse. Colonel Crutchfield, chief of artillery, was wounded, and two couriers killed. General Jackson received one ball in his left arm, two inches below the shoulder-joint, shattering the bone and severing the chief artery; a second passed through the same arm, between the elbow and wrist, making its exit through the palm of the hand; a third entered the palm of his right hand, about the middle, and, passing through, broke two of the bones.