The Civil War Through the Camera - Henry W. Elson

In this tangled nook Lee’s right-hand man was shot through a terrible mistake of his own soldiers. It was the second of May, 1863. After his brilliant flank march, the evening attack on the rear of Hooker’s army had just been driven home. About half-past eight, Jackson had ridden beyond his lines to reconnoiter for the final advance. A single rifle-shot rang out in the darkness. The outposts of the two armies were engaged. Jackson turned toward his own line, where the Eighteenth North Carolina was stationed. The regiment, keenly on the alert and startled by the group of strange horsemen riding through the gloom, fired a volley that brought several men and horses to the earth. Jackson was struck once in the right hand and twice in the left arm, a little below the shoulder. His horse dashed among the trees; but with his bleeding right hand Jackson succeeded in seizing the reins and turning the frantic animal back into the road. Only with difficulty was the general taken to the rear so that his wounds might be dressed. To his attendants he said, “Tell them simply that you have a wounded Confederate officer.” To one who asked if he was seriously hurt, he replied: “Don’t bother yourself about me. Win the battle first and attend to the wounded afterward.” He was taken to Guiney’s Station. At first it was hoped that he would recover, but pneumonia set in and his strength gradually ebbed. On Sunday evening, May 10th, he uttered the words which inspired the young poet, Sidney Lanier, to write his elegy, beautiful in its serene resignation.

THE STONE WALL AT FREDERICKSBURG

Behind the deadly stone wall of Marye’s Heights after Sedgwick’s men had swept across it in the gallant charge of May 3, 1863. This was one of the strongest natural positions stormed during the war. In front of this wall the previous year, nearly 6,000 of Burnside’s men had fallen, and it was not carried. Again in the Chancellorsville campaign Sedgwick’s Sixth Corps was ordered to assault it. It was defended the second time with the same death-dealing stubbornness but with less than a fourth of the former numbers—9,000 Confederates against 20,000 Federals. At eleven o’clock in the morning the line of battle, under Colonel Hiram Burnham, moved out over the awful field of the year before, supported to right and left by flanking columns. Up to within twenty-five yards of the wall they pressed, when again the flame of musketry fire belched forth, laying low in six minutes 36.5 per cent. of the Fifth Wisconsin and the Sixth Maine. The assailants wavered and rallied, and then with one impulse both columns and line of battle hurled themselves upon the wall in a fierce hand-to-hand combat. A soldier of the Seventh Massachusetts happened to peer through a crack in a board fence and saw that it covered the flank of the double line of Confederates in the road. Up and over the fence poured the Federals and drove the Confederates from the heights.

THE WORK OF ONE SHELL