It was now dark, and General Jackson ordered the third line, under General Hill, to advance to the front and relieve the troops of Rodes and Colston, who were completely blended, and in such disorder, from their rapid advance through intricate woods and over broken ground, that it was necessary to reform them. As General Hill’s men moved forward, General Jackson, with his staff and escort, returning from the extreme front, met his skirmishers advancing, and in the obscurity of the night were taken for the enemy and fired upon. Captain J. K. Boswell, chief engineer of the corps and several others were killed and a number wounded. General Jackson himself received a severe injury and was borne from the field. He was taken to the Chandler house, at Guiney’s station, in Caroline county, where, notwithstanding everything possible was done for him that loving hearts could do or medical skill could suggest, he died on the 9th of May. Amid the sorrow and tears of the Southern people he was laid to rest at his home in Lexington, Virginia.
General Jubal A. Early had been left at Fredericksburg to watch General Sedgwick, and had been instructed, in the event of the enemy withdrawing from his front and moving up the river, to join the main body of the army. This order was repeated on the 2nd, but by some mistake General Early was directed to move unconditionally. Leaving Hays’s brigade and one regiment of Barksdale’s at Fredericksburg, he moved with the rest of his command towards Chancellorsville. As soon as his withdrawal was perceived the enemy began to advance, and General Early returned to his original position.
The line to be defended by Barksdale’s brigade extended from the Rappahannock, above Fredericksburg, to the rear of Howison’s house, a distance of more than two miles. The artillery was posted along the heights in rear of the town.
Before dawn on the morning of the 3rd General Barksdale reported to General Early that the enemy had occupied Fredericksburg in large force and had bridged the Rappahannock river. Hays’s brigade was sent to his support, and placed on his extreme left, with the exception of one regiment, stationed on the right of his line behind the Howison house. Seven companies of the Twenty-first Mississippi regiment were posted by General Barksdale between the Marye house and the Plank road, the Eighteenth and the three other companies of the Twenty-first occupied the Telegraph road, behind the stone wall, at the foot of Marye’s Hill, the two remaining regiments of the brigade being farther to the right on the hills near Howison’s house. The enemy made a demonstration against the extreme right, which was easily repulsed by General Early. Soon afterward a column moved from Fredericksburg along the river bank as if to gain the heights on the extreme left, which commanded those immediately in rear of the town. This attempt was foiled by General Hays and the arrival of General Wilcox from Banks’s Ford, who deployed a few skirmishers on the hill near Dr. Taylor’s house and opened on the enemy with a section of artillery. Very soon the enemy advanced in large force against Marye’s Heights and the hills to the right and left. Two assaults were gallantly repulsed by Barksdale’s men and the artillery. After the second, a flag of truce, it was claimed, was sent from the town to obtain permission to provide for the wounded, which was granted.
At the end of the truce three heavy lines advanced and renewed the attack. They were bravely repulsed on the right and left, but the small force at the foot of Marye’s Hill, overpowered by more than ten times their numbers, was captured after a heroic resistance, and the Heights carried. Eight pieces of artillery were taken on Marye’s and the adjacent heights. The remainder of Barksdale’s brigade, together with that of General Hays, and the artillery on the right, retired down the Telegraph road. The success of the enemy enabled him to threaten Gen. Lee’s communications by moving down the telegraph road, or gain his rear at Chancellorsville by the Plank road. He at first advanced on the Telegraph road, but was checked by General Early, who had halted the brigades of Barksdale and Hays with the artillery, about two miles from Marye’s Hill, and reënforced them with three regiments of General John B. Gordon’s brigade. The enemy then began to advance up the Plank road, his progress being gallantly disputed by the brigade of General Cadmus M. Wilcox, who had moved from Banks’s Ford as rapidly as possible to the assistance of General Barksdale, but arrived too late to take part in the action. General Wilcox fell back slowly until he reached Salem church, on the Plank road, about four miles from Fredericksburg.
Information of the state of affairs in our rear having reached Chancellorsville, General McLaws, with his three brigades and one of General Anderson’s, was ordered to reinforce General Wilcox. He arrived at Salem church early in the afternoon, where he found General Wilcox in line of battle, with a large force of the enemy—consisting, as was reported, of one army corps and part of another, under Major-General Sedgwick—in his front. The brigades of General Kershaw and General Wofford were placed on the right of General Wilcox and those of Semmes and Mahone on the left. The enemy’s artillery played vigorously upon our position for some time, when his infantry advanced in three strong lines, the attack being directed mainly against General Wilcox, but partially involving the brigades on his left.
The assault was met with the utmost firmness, and after a fierce struggle the first line was repulsed with great slaughter. The second then came forward, but immediately broke under the close and deadly fire which it encountered, and the whole mass fled in confusion to the rear. They were pursued by the brigades of General Wilcox and General Semmes, in the direction of Banks’s Ford, where the enemy crossed to the Stafford side of the river.
The next morning General Early advanced along the Telegraph road and recaptured Marye’s Heights and the adjacent hills without difficulty. General Barksdale’s brigade entered the town, to find the enemy gone, with the exception of some stragglers who had secreted themselves in cellars and elsewhere about town. These were captured and sent to the rear, and the brigade took up its former quarters in the town, where it remained until the first of June.
After some four weeks of rest and reorganization the army was again put in motion, the object of Gen. Lee being the invasion of Pennsylvania. After the removal of the army Fredericksburg was left practically without any armed troops, and soon relapsed into her usual quiet, so characteristic of the place. This condition of things existed until the return of the army from its invasion in the Fall, when the town was occasionally visited by scouting cavalry from the Confederate army, the main body of the troops camping west of Fredericksburg.
GEN. GRANT’S ARMY IN POSSESSION.