A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee

by John Esten Cooke

General Gregg now swung round his right, and prepared to advance along the eastern slope of the hill. Stuart had, however, posted his artillery there, and, as the Federal line began to move, arrested it with a sudden and destructive fire of shell. At the same time a portion of Hampton's division, under the brave Georgian, General P.M.B. Young, was ordered to charge the enemy. The assault was promptly made with the sabre, unaided by carbine or pistol fire, and Young cut down or routed the force in front of him, which dispersed in disorder toward the river. The dangerous assault on the rear of Fleetwood Hill was thus repulsed, and the advance of the enemy on the left, near the river, met with the same ill success. General W.H.F. Lee, son of the commanding general, gallantly charged them in that quarter, and drove them back to the Rappahannock, receiving a severe wound, which long confined him to his bed. Hampton had followed the retreating enemy on the right, under the fire of Stuart's guns from Fleetwood Hill; and by nightfall the whole force had recrossed the Rappahannock, leaving several hundred dead and wounded upon the field. [Footnote: The Southern loss was also considerable. Colonel Williams was killed, Generals Lee and Butler severely wounded—the latter losing his foot—and General Stuart's staff had been peculiarly unfortunate. Of the small group of officers, Captain Farley was killed, Captain White wounded, and Lieutenant Goldsborough captured. The Federal force sustained a great loss in the death of the gallant Colonel Davis, of the Eighth New-York Cavalry, and other officers.]

This reconnoissance in force—the Federal numbers probably amounting to fifteen thousand—had no other result than the discovery of the fact that Lee had infantry in Culpepper. Finding that the event of the fight was critical, General Lee had moved a body of infantry in the direction of the field of action, and the gleam of the bayonets was seen by the enemy. The infantry was not, however, engaged on either side, unless the Federal infantry participated in the initial skirmish near Beverley's Ford, and General Lee's numbers and position were not discovered.

We have dwelt with some detail upon this cavalry combat, which was an animated affair, the hand-to-hand encounter of nearly twenty thousand horsemen throughout a whole day. General Stuart was censured at the time for allowing himself to be "surprised," and a ball at Culpepper Court-House, at which some of his officers were present several days before, was pointed to as the origin of this surprise. The charge was wholly unjust, Stuart not having attended the ball. Nor was there any truth in the further statement that "his headquarters were captured" in consequence of his negligence. His tents on Fleetwood Hill were all sent to the rear soon after daylight; nothing whatever was found there but a section of the horse-artillery, who fought the charging cavalry with sabres and sponge-staffs over the guns; that Fleetwood Hill was at one time in the hands of the enemy, was due not to Stuart's negligence, but to the numbers and excellent soldiership of General Gregg, who made the flank and rear attack while Stuart was breasting that in front.

These detached statements, which may seem unduly minute, are made in justice to a brave soldier, who can no longer defend himself.

XII.

THE MARCH TO GETTYSBURG.

This attempt of the enemy to penetrate his designs had not induced General Lee to interrupt the movement of his infantry toward the Shenandoah Valley. The Federal corps sent across the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg, still remained facing General Hill; and, two days after the Fleetwood fight. General Hooker moved up the river with his main body, advancing the Third Corps to a point near Beverley's Ford. But these movements were disregarded by Lee. On the same day Ewell's corps moved rapidly toward Chester Gap, passed through that defile in the mountain, pushed on by way of Front Royal, and reached Winchester on the evening of the 13th, having in three days marched seventy miles.

The position of the Southern army now exposed it to very serious danger, and at first sight seemed to indicate a deficiency of soldiership in the general commanding it. In face of an enemy whose force was at least equal to his own,[Footnote: General Hooker stated his "effective" at this time to have been diminished to eighty thousand infantry.] Lee had extended his line until it stretched over a distance of about one hundred miles. When Ewell came in sight of Winchester, Hill was still opposite Fredericksburg, and Longstreet half-way between the two in Culpepper. Between the middle and rear corps was interposed the Rapidan River, and between the middle and advanced corps the Blue Ridge Mountains. General Hooker's army was on the north bank of the Rappahannock, well in hand, and comparatively massed, and the situation of Lee's army seemed excellent for the success of a sudden blow at it.

It seems that the propriety of attacking the Southern army while thus in transitu, suggested itself both to General Hooker and to President Lincoln, but they differed as to the point and object of the attack. In anticipation of Lee's movement, General Hooker had written to the President, probably suggesting a counter-movement across the Rappahannock, somewhere near Fredericksburg, to threaten Richmond, and thus check Lee's advance. This, however. President Lincoln refused to sanction.

"In case you find Lee coming to the north of the Rappahannock," President Lincoln wrote to General Hooker, "I would by no means cross to the south of it. I would not take any risk of being entangled upon the river, like an ox jumped half over a fence, and liable to be torn by dogs, front and rear, without a fair chance to gore one way or kick the other"