John's Captain fell, dangerously wounded, and lay fifty feet beyond their battle line. The dry leaves in the woods had taken fire from a shell and the blaze was nearing the wounded men. The Westerner coolly leaped from his position behind a tree, walked out in a hail of lead, picked up his wounded Commander, and carried him safely to the rear. He had just stepped back to take his stand in line by John's side when a flying piece of shrapnel tore a hole in his side. He dropped to his knees, sank lower to his elbow, turned his blue eyes to the darkening sky and slowly muttered as if to himself:
"Poor—little—wife—and—babies!"
The night was drawing her merciful veil over the scene at last. Jackson having crushed and mangled Hooker's right wing and rolled it back in red defeat over five miles in two hours, was slowly feeling his way on his last reconnaissance for the day to make his plans for the next. Through a fatal misunderstanding he was fired on by his own men and borne from the field fatally wounded.
A shiver of horror thrilled the Southerners when the news of Jackson's fall was whispered through the darkness.
At midnight Sickles led his division back into the dense woods and for three terrible hours the men on both sides fought as demons in the shadows. The long lines of blazing muskets in the darkness looked like the onward rush of a forest fire. At times two solid walls of flame seemed to leap through the tree tops into the starlit heavens. A small portion of the captured ground was recovered at a frightful loss—and no man knows to this day how many gallant men in blue were shot down by their own comrades in the darkness and confusion of that mad assault.
Hooker sent a desperate call to Sedgwick to hurry to his relief by carrying out his plan of sweeping Marye's Heights and falling on Lee's rear.
At dawn Stuart in command of Jackson's corps led the new charge on Hooker's lines, his grey veterans shouting:
"Remember Jackson!"
Through the long hours of the terrible third day of May the fierce combat of giants raged. During the morning Hooker's headquarters were reached by the Confederate artillery and the old Chancellor House, filled with the wounded, was knocked to pieces and set on fire. The women and children and slaves of the Chancellor family were shivering in its cellar while the shells were hurling its bricks and timbers in murderous fury on the helpless wounded who lay in hundreds in the yard. The men from both armies rushed into this hell and carried the wounded to a place of safety.
General Hooker was wounded and the report flew over the Federal army that he had been killed. To allay their fears the General had himself lifted into the saddle and rode down his lines and out of sight, when he was taken unconscious from his horse.