PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ALONG LINE OF CONFEDERATE PRISONERS AFTER CAVALRY CHARGE IN 1863
THE retreat from Chancellorsville began on the fourth of May, in 1863. In the midst of a pouring rain, with ammunition wagons and cavalry struggling hub-deep through the mud, the Federals moved back to the Rappahannock. The ponderous batteries, with heavy wheels wrapped in blankets, passed over the road. Then came the ordnance supply trains, swathed in strips of cloth, followed by columns of hurrying infantry. During the remainder of May, neither of the armies assumed an offensive attitude. Lee, now in high hopes, began preparations for a second invasion in Maryland. Panic again seized the people of the North. Lincoln called on Pennsylvania for 50,000 militia; Ohio, 30,000; New York, 20,000; Maryland and Virginia, 10,000 each. The Army of the Potomac had lost all of its two years' service men and its strength did not reach 100,000. The Confederacy had been endeavoring for months to induce England to recognize it as a separate nation, but learned that it must first conquer Northern territory. Lee's movements began early in June and resulted in frequent skirmishes as he approached the Potomac. This photograph was taken immediately after one of these encounters at Aldie, Virginia, on the seventeenth of June, 1863. The Confederate cavalry, under "Jeb" Stuart, was guarding the passes of the Bull Run mountains and watching Hooker's Army. There was a succession of cavalry combats and many Confederates were taken prisoners. This view shows a group of Confederates under a Union guard composed largely of negro soldiers.
IN the stirring scenes of war there is nothing more exciting than to see a battery take position in battle. On the sixth of June, in 1863, this picture was secured by the government photographers just as the artillery was going into action on the south bank of the Rappahannock River. It is one of the earliest attempts to secure a photograph at the instant of motion and was taken at a strategic moment during Sedgwick's reconnaissance. An artilleryman who remembers the day says that while a battery has not the thrill of the cavalry charge, nor the grimness of a line of bayonets moving to slaughter, there is an intense emotion about it that brings the tears to the eyes and the cheers to the throats of battle-scarred veterans. Every horse on the gallop, every rider lashing his team and yelling; through ugly clumps of bushes; over fallen logs and falling men—the sight is one that can never be forgotten. The guns jump from the ground as the heavy wheels strike a rock or lunge from a ditch, but not a horse slackens his pace, not a cannoneer loses his seat. Six guns, six caissons, sixty horses, eighty men race for the brow of the hill. Boom! Boom! The ground shakes and trembles. The roar shuts out all sound from a line several miles long. Shells shriek through the swamps, cutting down great trees, mowing deep gaps in regiments of men. It is like a tornado howling through the forest, followed by billows of fire. There are men to-day who will look upon this picture and live again the scenes which it recalls. Artillery is the great support of armies and often saves them from defeat.
PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AS ARTILLERY WAS GOING INTO ACTION ON THE RAPPAHANNOCK IN 1863