Shortly after our return, occurred the confusion in which Stonewall Jackson was mortally wounded. Our picket line had been driven in by the enemy, and we had fired a volley or two into the woods on our front. At the same time we had been fired on in the darkness by the Thirteenth New Jersey. General Jackson was struck just at this time, in the woods into which we had fired. It has been presumed that he was hit by his own men, but there is a possibility that the bullet came from the Third Wisconsin.
We secured but little sleep that night. Our artillery continued throwing shot and shell over our heads into the woods fronting us, where the enemy were supposed to be in force. At midnight the Confederates again attacked us; but Birney's Division, which had been cut off from us in the afternoon by Jackson's attack, struck them with fixed bayonets in the flank at the same time that we opened on them in the front—and of course we made short work of them. We had now regained the ground where we had left our knapsacks, but for fear of another attack, the officers would not let us go up after them. So we shivered miserably through the night, and in the morning arose thoroughly chilled.
The enemy, however, soon gave us enough to do to warm our blood. Birney's Division had, during the night, taken a new position in our advance, at Hazel Grove. It was attacked early Sunday morning, and in the course of an hour driven back with the reported loss of one of its batteries. As Birney's men passed back over us, the enemy came on, flushed with victory, and in some disorder. But in a few minutes we sent them back, in worse disorder than they had come. We followed them for a quarter of a mile, but there encountered a second line. In a short time we had the satisfaction of seeing their backs, also, dimly in the distance. Colonel Colgrove of the Twenty-Seventh Indiana, who was commanding the Brigade, now ordered a bayonet charge; but before we were fairly started, General Ruger sent orders not to advance any farther. Soon the enemy attacked again; but after a stubborn fight we sent them back for a third time, their ranks disorganized and the ground thickly strewn with their dead.
It was now near nine o'clock. We had been fighting continuously for three hours, and all of the ammunition that we carried had been exhausted. That carried by the pack mules had been distributed, also, and was nearly all fired away. The muskets had become so heated and foul that it was difficult to load them. Some of the pieces were so hot that the cartridge would explode as soon as it struck the bottom of the gun, and before the man had been able to aim. Because of this, we were relieved by a fresh brigade, and marched back about a mile to the rear. From there we were sent to a position a little northeast of the Chancellor House, where we built breastworks and remained until the army was withdrawn across the river.
All the rest of the day we could hear the firing to our right, and the next day, off in the direction of Fredericksburg, where Sedgwick's Corps was engaged; but we made no move. We only sat around, wearily watching the time pass away, until the night of the 5th, when preparations began to be made for the withdrawal of the army to the north bank of the river. The night was cold and rainy. Our blankets and overcoats had been lost, for we had left them on the second night of the battle to pick up stragglers, and fires were not permitted, lest they reveal our movement. As we shivered through the long, dark hours, all the admiration vanished that we had previously felt for Fighting Joe Hooker.
Toward day we silently withdrew from the entrenchments we had made, and marched off to the river. We found when we came near, however, that the approaches to the bridge were still crowded with the moving troops; we had, therefore, to double-quick back to the entrenchments, and wait until the bridge was cleared. Then we crossed over, the last of the army, entirely unmolested except for a few shells thrown by a Confederate battery.
We now returned to Stafford Court House, and at night pitched our tents on the very ground we had left ten days before. We were all thoroughly discouraged over the outcome of our expedition, and feeling, as one of our officers expressed it, "that we had gone out for wool, and come back shorn." The old soldiers who took part in that movement cannot think of it, to this day, but with the strongest feelings of disgust.
The camp that we occupied on our return to Stafford Court House was one of the best we ever had. It was an old orchard, with a vacant field near by for a drill and parade ground. Our friends, the Second Massachusetts, occupied one end of the orchard and we the other. Between us was a good baseball ground, where we amused ourselves at playing ball or pitching quoits. Every night after supper, the officers of the two regiments would get together for a big game, while the rank and file would follow suit, and our drill ground would present an animated sight. Thus we whiled away the time with considerable comfort, often speculating on the possibility of the enemy coming across the river to attack us. So many regiments of two-year men and nine-months men were being mustered out of the service, that we did not consider it at all likely that we would cross the river until our ranks were filled by the conscription which had then been ordered.