CHANCELLORSVILLE.
"FIGHTING JOE HOOKER"--LETTER FROM PRESIDENT LINCOLN--RESTORING THE
DISCIPLINE OF THE ARMY--CAPTURING THE HEIGHTS OF
FREDERICKSBURG--SKILLFUL MOVEMENT BY "STONEWALL" JACKSON--HEROIC
CHARGE OF CAVALRY COMMANDED BY MAJOR PETER KEENAN--ACCIDENTAL SHOOTING
OF GENERAL JACKSON--DEFEAT OF THE NATIONAL FORCES--GENERAL HOOKER'S
EXPANATION OF HIS FAILURE--NUMEROUS INTERESTING INCIDENTS.
After Burnside's failure at Fredericksburg, he was superseded, January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."
[Illustration: 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 {242} 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]
[Footnote 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.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK.]
[Illustration: BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL D. N. COUCH.]
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. {243} General Jackson, as
already mentioned, was mortally wounded, and several others were hurt,
some of them severely.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE.]
Sedgwick's part of this engagement is sometimes called the battle of
Salem Heights, and sometimes the second battle of Fredericksburg.
Two coincidences are noticeable in this action. First, each commander
made a powerful flank movement against his opponent's right, and
neither of these movements was completely successful, although they
were most gallantly and skilfully made. Second, each commander, in his
after explanations accounting for his failure to push the fight any
farther, declared that he could not conscientiously order his men to
assail the strong intrenchments of the enemy.
{244} [Illustration: BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE, SUNDAY, MAY 3,
1863--REPELLING ATTACK OF CONFEDERATES.]
General Hooker's explanation of his failure, so far as it could be
explained, was given in a conversation with Samuel P. Bates, his
literary executor, who visited the ground with him in 1876. Mr. Bates
says: "Upon our arrival at the broad, open, rolling fields opposite
Banks's Ford, three or four miles up the stream, General Hooker
explained, waving his hand significantly: 'Here on this open ground I
intended to fight my battle. But the trouble was to get my army on it,
as the banks of the stream are, as you can see, rugged and
precipitous, and the few fords were strongly fortified and guarded by
the enemy. By making a powerful demonstration in front of and below
the town of Fredericksburg with a part of my army, I was able,
unobserved, to withdraw the remainder, and, marching nearly thirty
miles up the stream, to cross the Rappahannock and the Rapidan
unopposed, and in four days' time to arrive at Chancellorsville,
within five miles of this coveted ground.... But at midnight General
Lee had moved out with his whole army, and by sunrise was in firm
possession of Jackson's Ford, had thrown up this line of breastworks,
which you can still follow with the eyes, and it was bristling with
cannon from one end to the other. Before I had proceeded two miles the
heads of my columns, while still upon the narrow roads in these
interminable forests, where it was impossible to manoeuvre my forces,
were met by Jackson with a full two-thirds of the entire Confederate
army. I had no alternative but to turn back, as I had only a fragment
of my command in hand, and take up the position about Chancellorsville
which I had occupied during the night, as I was being rapidly
outflanked upon my right, the enemy having open ground on which to
operate.... Very early on the first day of the battle I rode along the
whole line and examined every part, suggesting some changes and
counselling extreme vigilance. Upon my return to headquarters I was
informed that a continuous column of the enemy had been marching past
my front since early in the morning. This put an entirely new phase
upon the problem, and filled me with apprehension for the safety of my
right wing, which was posted to meet a front attack from the south,
but was in no condition for a flank attack from the west. I
immediately dictated a despatch to Generals Slocum and Howard, saying
that I had good reason to believe that the enemy was moving to our
right, and that they must be ready to meet an attack from the west....
The failure of Howard to hold his ground cost us our position, and I
was forced, in the presence of the enemy, to take up a new one.'"[2]
[Footnote 2: "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War," vol. iii, p. 217,
_et seq._]
{245} General Howard says he did not receive that despatch, and in his
report he gave the following reasons for the disaster that overtook
his corps: "I. Though constantly threatened and apprised of the moving
of the enemy, yet the woods were so dense that he was able to mass a
large force, whose exact whereabouts neither patrols, reconnoissances,
nor scouts ascertained. He succeeded in forming a column opposite to
and outflanking my right. II. By the panic produced by the enemy's
reverse fire, regiments and artillery were thrown suddenly upon those
in position. III. The absence of General Barlow's brigade, which I had
previously located in reserve and _en echelon_ with Colonel Von
Gilsa's, so as to cover his right flank. This was the only general
reserve I had."
[Illustration: MAJOR PETER KEENAN.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL HIRAM G. BERRY.]
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-GENERAL THOMAS J. ("STONEWALL") JACKSON,
C. S. A.]
[Illustration: JACKSON'S ATTACK ON RIGHT WING AT CHANCELLORSVILLE.]
Every such battle has its interesting incidents, generally enough to
fill a volume, and they are seldom repeated. Some of the most
interesting incidents of Chancellorsville are told by Capt. Henry N.
Blake, of the Eleventh Massachusetts Regiment. Here are a few of them:
"A man who was loading his musket threw away the cartridge, with a
fearful oath about government contractors; and I noticed that the
paper was filled with fine grains of dry earth instead of gunpowder.
In the thickest of the firing an officer seized an excited
soldier--who discharged his piece with trembling hands near the ears,
and endangered the lives, of his comrades--and kicked him into the
centre of the road. Trade prospered throughout the day, and the United
States sharp-shooters were constantly exchanging their dark green caps
for the regulation hats which were worn by the regiment. The captain
of one of the companies of skirmishers was posted near a brook at the
base of a slight ascent upon which the enemy was massed, and there was
a scattering fire of bullets which cautioned all to 'lie down.' While
he was rectifying the alignment he perceived with amazement one of his
men, who sat astride a log and washed his hands and face, and then
cleansed the towel with a piece of soap which he carried. One
sharp-shooter shielded himself behind a blanket; and another concealed
himself behind an empty cracker-box, the sides of which were half an
inch in thickness, exposed his person as little as possible, and felt
as secure as the ostrich with his head buried in the sand.
"The ominous silence of the sharp-shooters in front was a sure
indication that the main force was approaching; and a rebel officer,
upon the left, brought every man into his place in the ranks by
exclaiming to his command: 'Forward, double-quick, march! Guide left!'
The hideous yells once more disclosed their position in the dark
woods; but the volleys of buck and ball, and the recollection of the
previous repulse, quickly hushed their outcries, and they were again
vanquished. The conflict upon the left still continued, and the
defeated soldiers began to reinforce the troops that were striving by
desperate efforts to pierce the line, until a company swept the road
with its fire and checked the movement, and only one or two rebels at
intervals leaped across the deadly chasm. A demand for ammunition was
now heard--the most fearful cry of distress in a battle--and every man
upon the right contributed a few cartridges, which were carried to the
scene of action in the hats of the donors. The forty rounds which fill
the magazines are sufficient for any combat, unless the troops are
protected by earthworks or a natural barrier; and the extra
cartridges, which must be placed in the pockets and knapsacks, are
seldom used.
"It was after sunset; but the flashes of the rifles in the darkness
were the targets at which the guns were fired, until the enemy retired
at nine P.M., and the din of musketry was succeeded by the groans of
the wounded. The song of the whippoorwills increased the gloom that
pervaded the forest; and the pickets carefully listened to them,
because the hostile {246} skirmishers might signal to each other by
imitating the mournful notes. The rebels gave a yell as soon as they
were beyond the range of Union bullets, and repeated it in tones which
grew more distinct when they had retreated a great distance and
considered themselves safe. The abatis upon the extreme left was set
on fire in this prolonged struggle; and a gallant sergeant--who fell
at Gettysburg--sprang over the work, and averted the most serious
results by pouring water from the canteens of his comrades until the
flames were extinguished. The skirmishers began to exchange shots at
daybreak upon May 3d, and a bullet penetrated the head of a lieutenant
who was asleep in the adjoining company, and he never moved. There was
a ceaseless roll of musketry; at half-past five A.M. the batteries
emitted destructive charges of canister, and most of the men in the
ranks of the support crouched upon the ground while the balls passed
over them. For two hours the hordes of Jackson, encouraged by their
easy victory upon May 2d, screamed like fiends, assailed the troops
that defended the plank road, and succeeded in turning their left, and
compelling them to retire through the forest, and re-form their
shattered lines. There was no running: the soldiers fell back slowly,
company after company, and wished for some directing mind to select a
new position. Unfortunately the National cause had lost General Berry,
the brave commander of the division; the ranking brigadier, General
Mott, was wounded; another brigadier was an arrant coward; and the
largest part of nine regiments were marched three miles to the rear by
one of the generals without any orders. The regiments of the brigade,
under the supervision of their field and line officers, rallied in the
open field near the Chancellor house, which was the focus upon which
Lee concentrated his batteries, until the shells ignited it; and the
flames consumed some of the wounded who were helpless, and three women
that remained in the cellar for safety barely escaped from the ruins.
The brigade was aligned upon the road to the United States ford at
nine A.M., and the men recovered their knapsacks in the midst of a
heavy cannonading which still continued. No symptoms of fear were
manifested, although the artillery was planted upon the left, in the
rear and the front, from which point most of the shells were hurled;
and the force was threatened with capture. A rebel and a member of the
brigade rested together near an oak, and mutually assisted each other
to fight the fire in the forest, that began raging while the battle
was in progress; and joyfully clasped their scorched and aching hands
in friendship when it was quelled. Colors were captured, and hundreds
of the foe threw down their arms and retreated with the Union forces;
and happy squads without any guard were walking upon the road, and
inquiring the way to the rear. Three batteries lost most of their
horses, and a large proportion of their men, by the concentration of
Lee's artillery, and the bullets of the sharp-shooters, who were
specially instructed to pick off the animals before they shot the
gunners. Several pieces, including one without wheels, which had been
demolished, were drawn from the field by details from the infantry.
Some of those who were slightly injured returned to their commands
after their wounds had been dressed, and fought again. One cannon-ball
killed a cavalryman and his horse; and a shell tore the clothing from
an aid, but inflicted no personal hurt, and he returned, after a brief
absence, to search for his porte-monnaie, which he carried in the
pocket that had been so suddenly wrested from him.
"The corps color was always waving in the front; and General Sickles,
smoking a cigar, stood a few feet from the regiment, in the road up
which the troops had marched from the Chancellor house; and aids and
orderlies were riding to and fro, one of whom reported that his steed
had been killed. 'Captain, the Government will furnish you with
another horse,' he complacently replied.
"A rebel officer of high rank, who had been captured, stopped {247}
near the general, and sought to open a conversation, with the
following result:
"'General, I have met you in New York.'
"'Move forward that battery.'
"'General, I have seen you before.'
"'The brigade must advance to the woods.'
"'General, don't you remember'--
"'Go to the rear, sir; my troops are now in position.'
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL J. H. VAN ALLEN. (Aide-de-Camp to
General Hooker.)]
"There were few, if any, stretcher bearers at the front, and wounded
men that had lost a leg or an arm dragged themselves to the
field-hospital; and the surgeons of some regiments which had not been
engaged in the battle sat upon a log in idleness, and refused, with a
great display of dignity, to assist the suffering who were brought to
them, because they did not belong to their commands. This shameful
conduct, which I often witnessed, exasperated the officers and
soldiers; and they compelled the surgeons to discharge their duty in a
number of cases by threatening to shoot them. The heat was very
severe; many cannoneers divested themselves of their uniforms while
they were working; and a number of the skirmishers, who were posted in
the open field, and obliged to lie low without any shelter, were
sometimes afflicted by sunstroke. 'I will win a star or a coffin in
this battle,' remarked a colonel as he was riding to the scene of
conflict in which a bullet checked his noble military aspirations. 'To
take a soldier without ambition is to pull off his spurs.' 'I have got
my leave of absence now,' gladly said an officer, whose application
had always been refused at headquarters, when he left the regiment to
go to the hospital. The appearance of a rabbit causes an excitement
and a chase upon all occasions, and one ran in front of the line as
the action commenced; and the birds were flying wildly among the
trees, as if they anticipated a storm; and a soldier shouted, 'Stop
him, stop him! I could make a good meal if I had him.' 'This is
English neutrality,' an intelligent metal moulder remarked, in
examining the fragment of a shell, and explaining the process of its
manufacture to the company; while the rebel batteries every minute
added some specimens to his collection. The officials in Richmond
published at this time an order, directing that the clothing should be
taken from the bodies of their dead and issued to the living. They
always stripped the dead and the dying upon every field; and I noticed
that one man who had been stunned, and afterward effected his escape,
wore merely a shirt and hat when he entered the lines. An officer who
was going the rounds in the night was surprised to find one of his
most faithful men who returned no answer to his inquiries; and
supposing that he had been overcome by fatigue, and fallen asleep,
grasped his hands to awaken him: but they were cold with death. The
soldier, killed upon his post of duty, rested in the extreme front,
with his musket by his side, and face toward the enemies of his
country. General Whipple, the able commander of the third division of
the corps, was mortally wounded by a sharp-shooter who was one-third
of a mile from him; and a priest administered the last rites of the
Roman Catholic Church upon the spot where he fell, in the presence of
his weeping staff and soldiers, by whom he was greatly beloved. A
brigade made a reconnoissance in the forest at one P.M., and captured
forty sharp-shooters who were perched upon the limbs of lofty oaks,
and could not descend and escape before this force advanced.
"The rebels ascertained the location of the trains upon the north bank
of the Rappahannock, opened a battery upon them, and a squad of three
hundred prisoners uttered a yell of joy when they saw a cannon-ball
enter a large tent which was crowded with the dying and disabled. The
direction of the firing was changed, and caused utter dismay when some
of the number were killed by the missiles that were hurled by their
comrades in the army of Lee."
[Illustration: OFFICERS SETTING OUT TO MAKE CALLS OF CEREMONY ON THEIR
GENERALS.]
{248} [Illustration: BATTLE FIELDS OF THE GREAT CIVIL WAR.]
{249}