CHANCELLORSVILLE.
On the 28th of April the Third Corps, to which the sharp shooters were
now attached, moved down the river to a point some five miles below
Falmouth to support Sedgwick's command which was ordered to cross the
Rappahannock at or near the point at which Gen. Franklin had crossed his
Grand Division at the battle of Fredericksburgh.
Some days prior to this all surplus clothing and baggage had been turned
in. Eight days rations and sixty rounds of ammunition were now issued,
and the "finest army on the planet" was foot loose once more. Sedgwick's
crossing was made, however, without serious opposition, and on the
thirtieth the Third Corps, making a wide detour to the rear to avoid the
notice of the watchful enemy, turned northward and on the next day
crossed the river at United States ford and took its place in the lines
of Chancellorsville with the rest of the army. This great battle has
been so often described and in such minute detail that it is not
necessary for us to attempt a detailed description of the movements of
the different corps engaged, or indeed proper, since this purports to be
a history of the marches and battles of only one small company out of
the thousands there engaged. It will be remembered that the regiment was
now attached to the Third Corps, commanded by Gen. Sickles, the First
Division under Gen. Whipple and the Third Brigade, Gen. De Trobriand.
At eleven o'clock A. M. on this day, being the first of May, the battle
proper commenced, although severe and continuous skirmishing had been
going on ever since the first troops crossed the river on the 29th of
April. The Third Corps was held in reserve in rear of the Chancellorsville
house, having arrived at that point at about the time that the assaulting
columns moved forward to the attack. Almost instantly the fighting became
furious and deadly. The country was covered with dense undergrowth of
stunted cedars, among and over which grew heavy masses of the trailing
vines which grow so luxuriantly in that portion of Virginia, and which
renders the orderly passage of troops well nigh impossible. To add to
the difficulties which beset the attacking forces, it was impossible to
see what was in front of them; hence the first notice of the presence of
a rebel line of battle was a volley delivered at short range directly in
the faces of the Union soldiers, whose presence and movements were
unavoidably made plain to the concealed enemy by the noise made in
forcing a passage through the tangled forest. Notwithstanding these
disadvantages the Fifth Corps, with which the sharp shooters had so
recently parted, struck the enemy at about a mile distant from the
position now held by the Third Corps, and drove them steadily back for a
long distance until, having passed far to the front of the general line,
Meade found his flank suddenly attacked and was forced to retire. Other
columns also met the enemy at about the same distance to the front and
met with a like experience, gaining, however, on the whole, substantial
ground during the afternoon; and so night closed down on the first day
of the battle.
On the morning of the 2d of May a division of the Third Corps was
detached to hold a gap in the lines between the Eleventh and Twelfth
Corps which Gen. Hooker thought too weak. The sharp shooters, however,
remained with the main column near the Chancellorsville house. Early on
this day the Confederate Gen. Jackson commenced that wonderful flank
march which resulted in the disaster to the Eleventh Corps on the right,
later in the day. This march, carefully masked as it was, was,
nevertheless, observed by Hooker, who at first supposed it the
commencement of a retreat on the part of Lee to Gordonsville, and Gen.
Sickles was ordered with the two remaining divisions of his corps to
demonstrate in that direction and act as circumstances should determine.
In this movement Birney's division had the advance, the first division,
under Whipple, being in support of Birney's left flank. The sharp
shooters were, however, ordered to report to Gen. Birney, and were by
him placed in the front line as skirmishers, although their deployment
was at such short intervals that it was more like a single rank line of
battle than a line of skirmishers. Sickles started on his advance at
about one o'clock P. M., his formation being as above described. Rapidly
pressing forward, the sharp shooters passed out of the dense thickets
into a comparatively open country, where they could at least breathe
more freely and see a little of what was before them. They soon struck a
line of rebels in position on the crest of a slight elevation, and brisk
firing commenced; the advance, however, not being checked, they soon
cleared the hill of the enemy and occupied it themselves. Changing front
to the left, the regiment moved from this position obliquely to the
southeast, and soon found themselves opposed to a line which had
evidently come to stay. The fighting here was very severe and lasted for
a considerable time. The rebels seemed to have a desire to stay the
advance of the Union troops at that particular point, and for some
particular reason, which was afterwards made apparent.
After some minutes of brisk firing, the sharp shooters, by a sudden rush
on their flank, succeeded in compelling the surrender of the entire
force, which was found to consist of the Twenty-third Georgia regiment,
consisting of three hundred and sixty officers and men, which had been
charged by Jackson with the duty of preventing any advance of the Union
troops at this point which might discover his march towards Hooker's
right, hence the tenacity with which they clung to the position.
In this affair Co. F lost Edward Trask and A. D. Griffin, wounded.
The obstruction having been thus removed, the Third Corps, led by the
sharp shooters, pressed rapidly forward to the southward as far as
Hazel Grove, or the old furnace, some two miles from the place of
starting, and far beyond any supporting column which could be depended
on for early assistance should such be needed. It had now become
apparent to all that Jackson, instead of being in full retreat as had
been supposed, was in the full tide of one of the most violent
offensives on record; and at five o'clock P. M. Sickles was ordered to
attack his right flank and thus check his advance on the exposed right
of the army. But at about the same time Sickles found that he was
himself substantially cut off from the army, and that it would require
the most strenuous efforts to prevent the capture or destruction of his
own command. Furthermore, before he could make his dispositions and
march over the ground necessary to be traversed before he could reach
Jackson's right, that officer had struck his objective point, and the
rout of the Eleventh Corps was complete. The most that Sickles could now
do, under the circumstances, was to fight his own way back to his
supports, and to choose, if possible, such a route as would place him,
on his arrival, in a position to check Jackson's further advance and
afford the broken right wing an opportunity to rally and regain their
organization, which was hopelessly, as it appeared, lost. In the
darkness and gloom of the falling night, with unloaded muskets (for in
this desperate attempt the bayonet only was to be depended upon), the
two divisions of the Third Corps set their faces northwardly, and
pressed their way through the tangled undergrowth to the rescue of the
endangered right wing.
As usual, the sharp shooters had the advance, and received the first
volley from the concealed enemy. They had received no especial orders
concerning the use, solely, of the bayonet, and were at once engaged in
a close conflict under circumstances in which their only superiority
over troops of the line consisted in the advantage of the rapidity of
fire afforded by their breech loaders over the muzzle loading rifles
opposed to them. Closely supported by the line of Birney's division, and
firing as they advanced at the flashes of the opposing guns (for they
could see no more), they pushed on until they were fairly intermingled
with the rebels, and in many individual instances, a long distance
inside the enemy's line, every man fighting for himself--for in this
confused melee, in the dense jungle and in the intense darkness of the
night, no supervision could be exercised by officers and many shots were
fired at distances no greater than a few feet. So they struggled on
until, with a hurrah and a grand rush, Birney's gallant men dashed
forward with the bayonet alone, and after ten minutes of hand to hand
fighting, they succeeded in retaking the plank road, and a considerable
portion of the line held by the left of the Eleventh Corps in the early
portion of the day and lost in the tremendous charge of Jackson's corps
in the early evening. Sickles had cut his way out, and more, he was now
in a position to afford the much needed aid to those who so sorely
required it. Both parties had fought to the point of exhaustion, and
were glad to suspend operations for a time for this cause alone, even
had no better reasons offered. But the Union army was no longer in a
position for offense; the extreme left, with which we have had nothing
to do, had been so heavily pressed during the afternoon that it had been
with difficulty that a disaster similar to the one which had overtaken
the right had been prevented on that flank, and in the center, at and
about Hazel Grove and the furnace, which had been held by Sickles, and
from which he had been ordered to the support of the right as we have
seen, an absolute gap existed, covered by no force whatever. This, then,
was the situation, briefly stated.
The left was barely able to hold its own, the center was absolutely
abandoned, and the right had been utterly routed. In this state of
affairs the Union commander was in no mood for a further offense at that
time. On the other hand, the controlling mind that had conceived, and
thus far had successfully carried out this wonderful attack which had
been so disastrous to the Union army, and which bade fair to make the
Southern Confederacy a fact among the nations, had been stricken down in
the full tide of its success. Stonewall Jackson had been wounded at
about nine o'clock by the fire of his own men. He had passed beyond the
lines of his pickets to reconnoiter the Union position, and on his
return with his staff they were mistaken by his soldiers for a body of
federal cavalry and he received three wounds from the effects of which
he died about a week later. So fell a man who was perhaps as fine a type
of stout American soldiership as any produced on either side during the
war.
The sharp shooters, with the remnant of the Third Corps, passed the
remainder of the night on the plank road near Dowdall's tavern. Co. F
had left their knapsacks and blankets under guard near the
Chancellorsville house when they advanced from that point in the
morning, as had the rest of the regiment. Under these circumstances
little sleep or rest could be expected even had the enemy been in less
close proximity. But with the rebel pickets hardly thirty yards distant,
and firing at every thing they saw or heard, sleep was out of the
question. So passed the weary night of the disastrous 2d of May at
Chancellorsville.
During the night Gen. Hooker, no longer on the offensive, had been
busily engaged in laying out and fortifying a new line on which he might
hope more successfully to resist the attack which all knew must come at
an early hour on the morning of the third. On the extreme left the
troops were withdrawn from their advanced positions to a more compact
and shorter line in front of, and to the south and east of the
Chancellorsville house. The center, which at sunset was unoccupied by
any considerable body of Union troops, was made secure; and at daylight
Sickles, with the Third Corps, was ordered to withdraw to a position
indicated immediately in front of Fairview, a commanding height of land
now strongly occupied by the Union artillery. It was not possible,
however, to withdraw so large a body of troops from their advanced
position, in the face of so watchful an enemy, without interruption. In
fact, even before the movement had commenced, the enemy took the
initiative and commenced the battle of that day by a furious attack upon
the heights of Hazel Grove, the position so handsomely won by the Third
Corps on the previous day and from which they were ordered to the relief
of the Eleventh Corps at five o'clock on the preceding afternoon, as we
have seen. This height of land commanded almost every portion of the
field occupied by the Union army, and from it Sickles' line, as it stood
at daybreak, could be completely enfiladed. This position was held by an
inadequate force for its defense; indeed, as it was far in advance of
the new line of battle it may be supposed that observation, rather than
defense, was the duty of its occupants. They made a gallant fight,
however, but were soon compelled to retire with the loss of four guns.
The rebel commander, quick to see the great importance of the position,
crowned the hill with thirty guns which, with the four taken from the
Unionists, poured a heavy fire on all parts of the line, devoting
particular attention to Sickles' exposed left and rear.
At almost the same period of time the rebels in Sickles' front made a
savage attack on his line. The men of the Third Corps fought, as they
always fought, stubbornly and well, but, with a force more than equal to
their own in point of numbers, flushed with their success of the
previous afternoon and burning to avenge the fall of Jackson, in their
front, and this enormous concentration of artillery hammering away on
their defenseless left, they were at last forced back to the new line in
front of Fairview.
In preparation for the withdrawal contemplated, and before the rebel
attack developed itself, the sharp shooters had been deployed to the
front and formed a skirmish line to the north of the plank road with
their left on that highway, and thus received the first of the rebel
attack. They succeeded in repulsing the advance of the first line and
for half an hour held their ground against repeated attempts of the
rebel skirmishers to dislodge them. The position they held was one of
the utmost importance since it commanded the plank road which must be
the main line of the rebel approach to Fairview, the key to the new
Union line, and aware of this the men fought on with a courage and
determination seldom witnessed even in the ranks of that gallant
regiment. After half an hour of this perilous work, the regiment on
their right having given way, the sharp shooters were ordered to move by
the right flank to cover the interval thus exposed, their own place
being taken by still another body of infantry. Steadily and coolly the
men faced to the right at the sound of the bugle, and commenced their
march, still firing as they advanced. Necessarily, however, the men had
to expose themselves greatly in this movement, and as necessarily their
own fire was less effective than when delivered coolly from the shelter
of some friendly tree, log or bank which skirmishers are so prone to
seek and so loath to leave. Still the march was made in good order and
in good time, for the sharp shooters had only just time to fill the gap
when the rebels came on for a final trial for the mastery. For a long
time the green coated riflemen clung to their ground and gave, certainly
as good, as they received. But the end of the long struggle was at hand;
the regiment which had taken the position just vacated by the sharp
shooters was driven in confusion, and to cap the climax of misfortune,
the Union artillery, observing the withdrawal of other troops, and
supposing that all had been retired, opened a furious fire of canister
into the woods. The sharp shooters were now in a sad case--before them a
furious crowd of angry enemies, on the left the rebel artillery at Hazel
Grove sweeping their lines from left to right at every discharge, while,
worst of all, from the rear came the equally dangerous fire of their own
friends. To retreat was as bad as to advance. The ground to their right
was an unknown mystery and no hopeful sign came from the left; so taking
counsel from their very desperation they concluded to remain just there,
at least until some reasonable prospect of escape should present itself.
Taking such cover as they could get, some from the fire of our own guns
and some from those of the rebels, shifting from side to side of the
logs and trees as the fire came hotter from the one side or from the
other, but always keeping up their own fire in the direction of the
enemy, they maintained the unequal fight until an officer, sent for the
purpose, succeeded in stopping the fire of our own guns, and the sharp
shooters willingly withdrew from a position such as they had never found
themselves in before, and from a scene which no man present will ever
forget.
They were sharply pressed by the advancing enemy, but now, being out of
the line of the enfilading fire from Hazel Grove, and no longer subject
to the fire of their own friends, the withdrawal was made in perfect
order, the line halting at intervals at the sound of the bugle and
delivering well aimed volleys at the enemy, now fully exposed, and even
at times making countercharges to check their too rapid advance.
In one of these rallies there fell a man from another company whose
death as well deserves to be remembered in song as that of the "Sleeping
Sentinel." He had been condemned to death by the sentence of a court
martial, and was in confinement awaiting the execution of the sentence
when the army left camp at Falmouth at the outset of the campaign. In
some manner he managed to escape from his guards, and joined his company
on the evening of the second day's light. Of course it was irregular,
and no precedent for it could possibly be found in the army regulations,
but men were more valuable on that field than in the guard house;
perhaps, too, his captain hoped that he might, in the furor of the
battle, realize his own expressed wish that he might meet his fate there
instead of at the hands of a firing party of the provost guard, and
thus, by an honorable death on the battle field, efface to some extent
the stain on his character. However it was, a rifle was soon found for
him (rifles without owners were plenty on that field), and he took his
place in the ranks. During all of that long forenoon's fighting he was a
marked man. All knew his history, and all watched to see him fall; for
while others carefully availed themselves of such shelter as the field
afforded, he alone stood erect and in full view of the enemy. Many times
he exhausted the cartridges in his box, each time replenishing it from
the boxes of his dead or wounded companions. He seemed to bear a charmed
life; for, while death and wounds came to many who would have avoided
either, the bullets passed him harmless by. At last, however, in one of
the savage conflicts when the sharp shooters turned on the too closely
following enemy, this gallant soldier, with two or three of his
companions, came suddenly upon a small party of rebels who had
outstripped their fellows in the ardor of the pursuit; he, being in the
advance, rushed upon them, demanding their surrender. "Yes," said one,
"we surrender," but at the same time, as ---- lowered his gun, the
treacherous rebel raised his, and the sharp shooter fell, shot through
the heart. He spoke no word, but those who caught the last glimpse of
his face, as they left him lying where he fell, knew that he had
realized his highest hope and wish, and that he died content. The sequel
to this sad personal history brings into tender recollection the memory
of that last and noblest martyr to the cause of the Union, President
Lincoln. The case was brought to his notice by those who felt that the
stain upon the memory of this gallant, true hearted soldier was not
fully effaced, even by his noble self-sacrifice, and would not be while
the records on the books stood so black against him. The President was
never appealed to in vain when it was possible for him to be merciful,
and, sitting down, he wrote with his own hand a full and free pardon,
dating it as of the morning of that eventful 3d of May, and sent it to
the widow of the dead soldier in a distant state. It was such acts as
this that made Abraham Lincoln so loved by the soldiers of the Union.
They respected the President, but Abraham Lincoln--the man--was _loved_.
Upon the arrival of the retreating riflemen at the new line in front of
Fairview, they found their division, the main portion of which had, of
course, preceded them, in line of battle in rear of the slight defenses
which had been thrown up at that point, where they enjoyed a brief
period of much needed repose, if a short respite from actual personal
encounter could be called repose. They were still under heavy artillery
fire, while musketry was incessant and very heavy only a short distance
away, the air above their heads being alive, at times, with everything
that kills. Yet so great was their fatigue, and so quiet and restful
their position in comparison with what it had been for so long a time,
that, after receiving rations and a fresh supply of ammunition for
their exhausted boxes, officers and men alike lay down on the ground,
and most of them enjoyed an hour of refreshing sleep. So
"Use doth breed a habit in a man."
Their rest was not of long duration, however, for the rebels made a
desperate and savage attack on the line in their front and the Third
Corps soon found itself again engaged. The enemy, under cover of their
artillery on the high ground at Hazel Grove, made an assault on what was
now the front of the Union line, (if it could be said to have a front,)
while the force which the sharp shooters had so long held in check
during the early part of the day made a like attack on that line now the
right of the entire army. So heavy was the attack, and so tenaciously
sustained, that the Union troops were actually forced from their lines
in front and on the flank of Fairview, and the hill was occupied by the
rebels, who captured, and held for a time, all the Union guns on that
eminence. It was at this stage of affairs that the Third Corps was again
called into action, and charging the somewhat disorganized enemy they
retook the hill with the captured guns, and following up the flying
rebels, they drove them to, and beyond the position they had occupied in
the morning. Here, however, meeting with a fresh line of the enemy and
being brought to a check, they were ordered again to retire; for Hooker,
by this time intent only upon getting his army safely back across the
river, had formed still another new line near to, and covering, the
bridges and fords by which alone could he place his forces in a position
of even comparative safety. To this line then the Third Corps, with the
tired and decimated sharp shooters, retired late in the afternoon,
hoping and praying for a respite from their terrible labors. For a
little time it looked, indeed, as if their hopes would be realized, but
as darkness drew on the corps commander, desiring to occupy a wooded
knoll at some little distance from his advanced picket line, and from
which he anticipated danger, ordered Gen. Whipple, to whose division the
sharp shooters had been returned, to send a brigade to occupy it. Gen.
Whipple replied that he had one regiment who were alone equal to the
task and to whom he would entrust it, and ordered the sharp shooters to
attempt it.
Between this wooded hill and the position from which the regiment must
charge was an open field about one hundred yards in width which was to
be crossed under what might prove a destructive fire from troops already
occupying the coveted position. It was a task requiring the most
undaunted courage and desperate endeavor on the part of men who had
already been for two full days and nights in the very face of the enemy,
and they felt that the attempt might fairly have been assigned to a
portion of the forty thousand men who, up to that time, had been held in
reserve by Gen. Hooker for some inscrutable purpose, and who had not
seen the face of an enemy, much less fired a shot at them; but they
formed for the assault with cheerful alacrity. To Co. F was assigned
the lead, and marching out into the open field they deployed as
regularly as though on their old drill ground at camp of instruction.
Corps, brigade and division commanders were looking on, and the men felt
that now, if never before, they must show themselves worthy sons of the
Green Mountain state. Led by their officers, they dashed out into the
plain closely supported by the rest of the regiment. Night was rapidly
coming on, and in the gathering gloom objects could hardly be
distinguished at a distance of a hundred yards. Half the open space was
crossed, and it seemed to the rushing men that their task was to be
accomplished without serious obstructions, when, from the edge of the
woods in front, came a close and severe volley betraying the presence of
a rebel line of battle; how strong could only be judged by the firing,
which was so heavy, however, as to indicate a force much larger than the
attacking party. On went the brave men of Co. F, straight at their work,
and behind them closely followed the supporting force. In this order
they reached the edge of the forest when the enemy, undoubtedly
supposing from the confidence with which the sharp shooters advanced
that the force was much larger than it really was, broke and fled and
the position was won.
From prisoners and wounded rebels captured in that night attack it was
learned that the force which had thus been beaten out of a strong
position by this handful of men was a portion of the famous Stonewall
brigade, Jackson's earliest command, and they asserted that it was the
first time in the history of the brigade that it had ever been driven
from a chosen position. The sharp shooters were justly elated at their
success and the more so when Gen. Whipple, riding over to the point so
gallantly won, gave them unstinted praise for their gallant action. In
this affair the regiment lost many gallant officers and men, among whom
were Lieut. Brewer of Co. C and Capt. Chase, killed, and Major Hastings
and Adjt. Horton, wounded. In Co. F Michael Cunningham, J. S. Bailey and
E. M. Hosmer were wounded.
Major Hastings had not been a popular officer with the command. Although
a brave and capable man, he was of a nervous temperament, and in the
small details of camp discipline was apt to be over zealous at times. He
had, therefore, incurred the dislike of many men, who were wont to apply
various opprobrious epithets to him at such times and under such
circumstances as made it extremely unpleasant for him. Such were the
methods adopted by some soldiers to make it comfortable for officers to
whom they had a dislike.
In the case of the Major, however, this was a thing of the past. On this
bloody field the men learned to respect their officer, and he, as he was
borne from the field, freely forgave the boys all the trouble and
annoyance they had caused him, in consideration of their gallant bearing
on that day. Adjt. Horton, also a brave and efficient officer, received
a severe wound--which afterwards cost him his good right arm--while
using the rifle of J. S. Bailey of Co. F, who had been wounded.
Co. F, which, it will be remembered, had been acting as skirmishers,
were pushed forward in advance of the main portion of the regiment to
further observe the movements of the enemy and to guard against a
surprise, and shortly afterwards were moved by the flank some two
hundred yards to the right, and were soon after relieved by a force of
infantry of the line which had been sent up for that purpose. While
retiring toward the position to which they were directed, they passed
nearly over the same ground which they had just vacated when they moved
by the right flank, as previously mentioned, and received from the
concealed rebels, who had reoccupied the line, a severe volley at close
range. Facing to the right, Co. F at once charged this new enemy and
drove them in confusion from the field. Lying down in this advanced
position they passed the remainder of the night in watchful suspense.
At day break on the fourth day of the battle, Co. F was relieved from
its position on the picket line and returned to the regiment, which was
deployed as skirmishers, and led the van of Whipple's division in a
charge to check movements of the enemy which had for their apparent
object the interposition of a rebel force between the right wing of the
army and its bridges. Firing rapidly as they advanced, and supported by
the division close on their heels, they drove the enemy from their rifle
pits, which were occupied by the infantry of the Third Corps, the sharp
shooters being still in front. Here they remained, exchanging occasional
shots with the rebel sharp shooters as occasion offered, for some hours.
Hooker was not minded to force the fighting at Chancellorsville;
preferring to await the result of Sedgwick's battle at Salem Church,
which had raged furiously on the preceding afternoon until darkness put
an end to the strife, and the tell tale guns of which even now gave
notice of further effort.
Lee, however, pugnacious and aggressive, determined to renew his attack
on the right, and, if possible, secure the roads to the fords and
bridges by which alone could the defeated army regain the north bank of
the river. With this view he reenforced Jackson's (now Stuart's) corps,
and organized a powerful attack on the position of the Third Corps. The
force of the first onset fell on the sharp shooters, who fought with
their accustomed gallantry, but were forced by the weight of numbers
back to the main line. Here the fighting was severe and continuous. The
one party fighting for a decisive victory, and the other, alas, only
bent on keeping secure its last and only line of retreat; but the
incentive, poor as it was, was sufficient, and the rebels were unable to
break the line. After four hours of continued effort they abandoned the
assault and quiet once more prevailed. In this fight Gen. Whipple, the
division commander, was killed. He was a gallant and an able soldier,
greatly beloved by his men for the kindliness of his disposition. He had
an especial liking for and confidence in the sharp shooters, which was
fully understood and appreciated by them, and they felt his death as a
personal loss.
To add to the horrors of this bloody field, on which lay nearly nine
thousand dead and wounded Union soldiers and nearly or quite as many
rebels, the woods took fire and hundreds of badly wounded men, unable to
help themselves, and hopeless of succor, perished miserably in the
fierce flames. Nothing in the whole history of the war is more horrible
than the recollection of those gallant men, who had been stricken down
by rebel bullets, roasted to death in the very presence of their
comrades, impotent to give them aid in their dire distress and agony.
"Oh, happy _dead_ who early fell."
It was reserved for the _wounded_ to experience the agonies of a
ten-fold death. Hour after hour the conflagration raged, until a
merciful rain quenched it and put an end to the horrible scene. The
Third Corps remained in their position during the night, the sharp
shooters, oddly enough as it seemed to them, with a strong line of
infantry behind works between them and the enemy. Nothing occurred to
break their repose, and for the first time for seven days they enjoyed
eight hours of solid sleep unbroken by rebel alarms.
At day break on the morning of the 5th of May they were aroused by the
usual command of "sharp shooters to the front," and again found
themselves on the picket line confronting the enemy. The day passed,
however, without serious fighting, one or two attacks being made by
rebel skirmishers, more, apparently, to ascertain if the Union troops
were actually there than for any more serious business.
These advances were easily repulsed by the sharp shooters without other
aid, and at nine o'clock P. M., after seventeen hours of
continuous duty without rations--for the eight days rations with which
they started from their camp at Falmouth had long since been exhausted,
and the scanty supply they had received on the afternoon of the third
was barely enough for one meal--they were relieved and retired to the
main line. The company lost on this day but one man, Martin C. Laffie,
shot through the hand. Laffie was permanently disabled by his wound, and
on the 1st of the following August was transferred to the Invalid Corps
and never rejoined the company. Several prisoners were captured by the
men of Co. F on that day, but on the whole it was, as compared with the
days of the preceding week, uneventful. On the 6th the army recrossed
the Rappahannock by the bridges which had been preserved by the stubborn
courage of the Third Corps, and the battle of Chancellorsville passed
into history. The sharp shooters returned to their old camp at Falmouth
as they had returned to the same camp after the disastrous battle of
Fredericksburgh. It seemed as though they were fated never to leave that
ground to fight a successful battle. Only eight days before they had
marched out with buoyant anticipations, full of courage and full of
hope. They returned discouraged and dispirited beyond description.
At Fredericksburgh the army had marched to the attack without hope or
expectation of victory, for their soldiers' instinct told them that that
was impossible. At Chancellorsville, however, they felt that they had
everything to hope for--a magnificent army in full health and high
spirits, an able and gallant commander, for such he had always shown
himself to be, and a fair field. The thickets of the wilderness, it is
true, were dense and well nigh impassable for them, but they were as bad
for the enemy as for themselves, and they had felt that on anything like
a fair field they ought to win. Now they found themselves just where
they started; they had left seventeen thousand of their comrades dead,
or worse than dead, on the field, and fourteen guns remained in the
hands of the rebels as trophies of their victory; guns, too, that were
sure to be turned against the federals in the very next battle. Twenty
thousand stand of small arms were also left on the field to be gathered
up by the victors. It was a disheartening reflection, but soldier-like
the men put it from their thoughts and turned their minds and hands to
the duties and occupations of the present. In this battle Co. F lost
Edward Trask, Jacob S. Bailey, Almon D. Griffin, Martin C. Laffie and
John Monahan, wounded, besides several more whose names do not now occur
to the writer. Bailey had been previously wounded at Malvern Hill and on
this occasion his wound necessitated the amputation of his left arm, and
he was honorably discharged from the service on the twenty-sixth of the
following August. Monahan was transferred to the Invalid Corps and
Griffin returned to his company and remained with it to be honorably
mustered out by reason of expiration of term of service, on the 13th of
September, 1864. Trask returned to his company to serve with it until
the 5th of May, 1864, when he was killed in the battle of the
Wilderness.