The thunder of the guns ceased suddenly. There was heard a trample of feet, A. P. Hill's brigades on the turnpike. "Who leads?" asked a voice. "Lane's North Carolinians," answered another. General Lane came by, young, an old V. M. I. cadet. He drew rein a moment, saluted. "Push right ahead, Lane! right ahead!" said Jackson.
A. P. Hill, in his battle shirt, appeared, his staff behind him. "Your final order, general?"
"Press them, Hill! Cut them off from the fords. Press them!"
A. P. Hill went. From the east, the guns upon his own front now having quieted, rolled the thunder of those with Lee. The clamour about Chancellorsville where, in hot haste, Hooker made dispositions, streamed east and west, meeting and blending with, westward, a like distraction of forming commands, of battle lines made in the darkness, among thickets. The moon was high, but not observed; the Wilderness fiercely chanting. Behind him was Captain Wilbourne of the Signal Corps, two aides and several couriers, Jackson rode along the Plank road.
There was a regiment drawn across this way through the Wilderness, on the road and in the woods on either hand. In places in the Wilderness, the scrub that fearfully burned the next day and the next was even now afire, and gave, though uncertainly and dimly, a certain illumination. By it the regiment was perceived. It seemed composed of tall and shadowy men. "What troops are these?" asked the general.
"Lane's North Carolinians, sir,—the 18th."
As he passed, the regiment started to cheer. He shook his head. "Don't, men, we want quiet now!"
A very few hundred yards from Chancellorsville he checked Little Sorrel. The horse stood, fore feet planted. Horse and rider, they stood and listened. Hooker's reserves were up. About the Chancellor House, on the Chancellorsville ridge, they were throwing up entrenchments. They were digging the earth with bayonets, they were heaping it up with their hands. There was a ringing of axes. They were cutting down the young spring growth; they were making an abattis. Tones of command could be heard. "Hurry, hurry—hurry! They mean to rush us. Hurry—hurry!" A dead creeper mantling a dead tree, caught by some flying spark, suddenly flared throughout its length, stood a pillar of fire, and showed redly the enemy's guns. Stonewall Jackson sat his horse and looked. "Cut them off from the ford," he said. "Never let them get out of Virginia." He jerked his hand into the air.
Turning Little Sorrel, he rode back along the Plank road toward his own lines. The light of the burning brush had sunken. The cannon smoke floating in the air, the very thick woods, made all things obscure.
"There are troops across the road in front," said an aide.