THE WOUNDING OF GENERAL LONGSTREET AT THE WILDERNESS, MAY 6, 1864.
Finally Hancock’s line began to break. As they retreated and the Confederates advanced, a fire was started in the dry leaves and began to spread. The Confederate forces, in spite of the fire, moved on. As the battle waged, General Wadsworth, who was gallantly leading a division of the Federal forces, fell mortally wounded, and there was then a general break in the Union line. Jenkins’s brigade was conspicuous among the Confederates in pursuit. Jenkins exclaimed to those around him, “I am happy; I have felt despair of the cause for some months, but am relieved, and feel assured that we will put the enemy back across the Rapidan before night.” A few minutes later he fell mortally wounded. In the general mêlée Longstreet was leading in advance of his troops, and in the midst of close firing was shot by his own men. This caused the Confederate lines to slow up in their advance. Orders were given General Field by Longstreet to push on before the enemy could have time to rally, but in the midst of the general confusion, General Lee ordered the broken lines to be reformed, and the advantage already gained was not followed up.
General Field, in his subsequent account of the day, said,—
“I was at Longstreet’s side in a moment, and in answer to my anxious inquiry as to his condition, he replied that he would be looked after by others, and directed me to take command of the corps and push on. Though at this moment he could not have known the extent or character of his wounds (that they were severe was apparent), he seemed to forget himself in the absorbing interest of the movement he was making.
“Had our advance not been suspended by this disaster, I have always believed that Grant would have been driven across the Rapidan before night; but General Lee was present, and ordered that our line, which was nearly a right angle, should first be straightened out. The difficulty of manœuvring through the brush made this a tedious operation, so that when we did advance with large reinforcements from Ewell’s Corps placed under my orders, the enemy was found awaiting us behind new breastworks, thoroughly prepared.”
In a letter touching this subject to General Longstreet, Colonel Fairfax said,—
“On reaching the line of troops you were taken off the horse and propped against a tree. You blew the bloody foam from your mouth and said, ‘Tell General Field to take command, and move forward with the whole force and gain the Brock road,’ but meantime hours were lost.”
A Northern historian[H] said, on the same point,—
“It seemed indeed that irretrievable disaster was upon us; but in the very torrent and tempest of the attack it suddenly ceased and all was still. What could cause this surcease of effort at the very height of success was then wholly unknown to us.”