After Burnside's failure at Fredericksburg, he was superseded, January 25, 1863, by General Joseph Hooker, who had commanded one of his grand divisions. Hooker, now forty-eight years old, was a graduate of West Point, had seen service in the Florida and Mexican wars, had been through the peninsula campaign with McClellan, was one of our best corps commanders, and was a favorite with the soldiers, who called him "Fighting Joe Hooker." In giving the command to General Hooker, President Lincoln accompanied it with a remarkable letter, which not only exhibits his own peculiar genius, but suggests some of the complicated difficulties of the military and political situation. He wrote: "I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what appear to me sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skilful soldier, which of course I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if not indispensable quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition, and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country, and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying, that both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The Government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising their commander, and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you nor Napoleon, were he alive again, could get any good out of any army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now, beware of rashness! Beware of rashness! But with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories."
| MAJOR-GENERAL JOSEPH HOOKER. |
Hooker restored the discipline of the Army of the Potomac, which had been greatly relaxed, reorganized it in corps, and opened the spring campaign with every promise of success. The army was still on the Rappahannock, opposite Fredericksburg, and he planned to cross over and strike Lee's left. Making a demonstration with Sedgwick's corps below the town, he moved a large part of his army up-stream, crossed quickly, and had forty-six thousand men at Chancellorsville before Lee guessed what he was about. This "ville" was only a single house, named from its owner. Eastward, between it and Fredericksburg, there was open country; west of it was the great thicket known as the Wilderness, in the depths of which, a year later, a bloody battle was fought.
Instead of advancing into the open country at once, and striking the enemy's flank, Hooker lost a day in inaction, which gave Lee time to learn what was going on and to make dispositions to meet the emergency. Leaving a small force to check Sedgwick, who had carried the heights of Fredericksburg, he moved toward Hooker with nearly all his army, May 1st, and attacked at various points, endeavoring to ascertain Hooker's exact position. By nightfall of this same day, Hooker appears to have lost confidence in the plans with which he set out, and been deserted by his old-time audacity; for instead of maintaining a tactical offensive, he drew back from some of his more advanced positions, formed his army in a semicircle, and awaited attack. His left and his centre were strongly posted and to some extent intrenched; but his right, consisting of Howard's corps, was "in the air," and, moreover, it faced the Wilderness. When this weak spot was discovered by the enemy, on the morning of the 2d, Lee sent Jackson with twenty-six thousand men to make a long detour, pass into the Wilderness, and, emerging suddenly from its eastern edge, take Howard by surprise. Jackson's men were seen and counted as they passed over the crest of a hill; they were even attacked by detachments from Sickles's corps; and Hooker sent orders to Howard to strengthen his position, advance his pickets, and not allow himself to be surprised. But Howard appears to have disregarded all precautions, and in the afternoon the enemy came down upon him, preceded by a rush of frightened wild animals driven from their cover in the woods by the advancing battle-line. Howards corps was doubled up, thrown into confusion, and completely routed. The enemy was coming on exultingly, when General Sickles sent Gen. Alfred Pleasonton with two regiments of cavalry and a battery to occupy an advantageous position at Hazel Grove, which was the key-point of this part of the battlefield. Pleasonton arrived just in time to see that the Confederates were making toward the same point and were likely to secure it. There was but one way to save the army, and Pleasonton quickly comprehended it. He ordered Major Peter Keenan, with the Eighth Pennsylvania cavalry regiment, about four hundred strong, to charge immediately upon the ten thousand Confederate infantry. "It is the same as saying we must be killed," said Keenan, "but we'll do it." This charge, in which Keenan and most of his command were slain, astonished the enemy and stopped their onset, for they believed there must be some more formidable force behind it.1
1 This is the story of Keenan's charge as told by General Pleasanton, and generally accepted, which has been made the theme of much comment and several poems. Nobody questions that the charge was gallantly made, and resulted in heavy loss to the intrepid riders; but several participants have recorded their testimony that it did not take place by order of General Pleasanton or in any such manner as he relates—in fact, that it was rather an unexpected encounter with the enemy when the regiment was obeying orders to cross over from a point near Hazel Grove to the aid of General Howard. Among these is Gen. Pennock Huey, who was the senior major in command of the regiment, and was one of the few officers that survived the charge.
In the precious minutes thus gained, Pleasonton brought together twenty-two guns, loaded them with double charges of canister, and had them depressed enough to make the shot strike the ground half-way between his own line and the edge of the woods where the enemy must emerge. When the Confederates resumed their charge, they were struck by such a storm of iron as nothing human could withstand; other troops were brought up to the support of the guns, and what little artillery the Confederates had advanced to the front was knocked to pieces.
Here, about dusk, General Jackson rode to the front to reconnoitre. As he rode back again with his staff, some of his own men, mistaking the horsemen for National cavalry, fired a volley at them, by which several were killed. Another volley inflicted three wounds upon Jackson; and as his frightened horse dashed into the woods, the general was thrown violently against the limb of a tree and injured still more. Afterward, when his men were bearing him off, a National battery opened fire down the road, one of the men was struck, and the general fell heavily to the ground. He finally reached the hospital, and his arm was amputated, but he died at the end of a week. Jackson's corps renewed its attack, under Gen. A. P. Hill, but without success, and Hill was wounded and borne from the field.
The next morning, May 3d, it was renewed again under Stuart, the cavalry leader, and at the same time Lee attacked in front with his entire force. The Confederates had sustained a serious disaster the evening before, in the loss of Lee's ablest lieutenant; but now a more serious one befell the National army, for General Hooker was rendered insensible by the shock from a cannon-ball that struck a pillar of the Chancellor house, against which he was leaning. After this there was no plan or organization to the battle on the National side—though each corps commander held his own as well as he could, and the men fought valiantly—while Lee was at his best. The line was forced back to some strong intrenchments that had been prepared the night before, when Lee learned that Sedgwick had defeated the force opposed to him, captured Fredericksburg heights, and was promptly advancing upon the Confederate rear. Trusting that the force in his front would not advance upon him, Lee drew off a large detachment of his army and turned upon Sedgwick, who after a heavy fight was stopped, and with some difficulty succeeded in crossing the river after nightfall. Lee then turned again upon Hooker; but a great storm suspended operations for twenty-four hours, and the next night the National army all recrossed the Rappahannock, leaving on the field fourteen guns, thousands of small arms, all their dead, and many of their wounded. In this battle or series of battles, the National loss was about seventeen thousand men, the Confederate about thirteen thousand. Hooker had commanded about one hundred and thirteen thousand five hundred, to Lee's sixty-two thousand (disregarding the different methods of counting in the two armies); but as usual they were not in action simultaneously; many were hardly in the fight at all, and at every point of actual contact, with the exception of Sedgwick's first engagement, the Confederates were superior in numbers.
Three general officers were killed in this battle. On the National side, Major-Gens. Hiram G. Berry and Amiel W. Whipple; on the Confederate side, Brig.-Gen. E. F. Paxton. General Jackson, as already mentioned, was mortally wounded, and several others were hurt, some of them severely.