“Hooker began to be troubled about what was going on in our front beyond that dense curtain of woods. He sent forward troops, and through an opening in the woods there appeared a column of Rebels marching rapidly from the left to the right.… This movement threatened our right … less disposition had been made against attack there than elsewhere. The whole 11th Corps prolonged the general line parallel to the road. A small brigade thrown back barred this road with two guns, resting on nothing, leaving our extreme right completely in the air.”
Hooker, seeing the movement, instantly divined the obvious. He could see the stream of Jackson’s troops from his own headquarters. Hooker spread his map on his cot and said, half to himself, “It can’t be retreat. Retreat without a fight? That is not Lee. If not retreat, what is it? Lee is trying to flank me.”
A Federal party went forward toward Jackson’s route but was delayed in the thick scrub. This attack managed to take some of Old Jack’s rear guard, five hundred men of the Twenty-seventh Georgia, who surrendered in a body.
Hooker warned his flank commander of the right, General O. O. Howard, but then appeared to forget the danger. By early afternoon, headquarters had concluded that it was retreat, and not attack, that Jackson planned.
A cavalry captain on the Federal flank near General Howard’s command of Germans wrote: “The movement of Jackson’s force … had been noticed by our pickets … the Confederate forces appeared to be moving away from our front, and it was believed … in full retreat on Richmond.…
“About noon General Hooker, superbly mounted, a picture of manly beauty, accompanied by a large staff, had come riding the lines. He was greeted with cheers as he passed, and we were all relieved as we felt that our position has been personally inspected by the commanding general.”
For several hours diligent Federal officers begged superiors to take note of the gathering storm on the right. An Ohio colonel from the front lines took several pickets to brigade headquarters, where they told of seeing the Rebels swarming across their front. The generals were not impressed. The colonel went to division headquarters three times, and on the third was barked at by General Devens, “You are frightened, sir.” The colonel went even further, to corps headquarters, where a bevy of gold-braided officers laughed at him and sent him back to his lines.
A well-known and gallant artilleryman, Captain Hubert Dilger, found the enemy swarming in on his front and tried to see General Howard. He was laughingly refused admittance. Dilger was finally defeated by reading a dispatch from Hooker’s headquarters at 4:10 P.M.: “We know the enemy is fleeing and trying to save his trains.” Dilger went to his post, but he was not reassured. He held his gunners ready, and would not permit his horses to be moved, even for water.
At two forty-five, a major, Owen Rice, had sent a message to the commander of his brigade: “A large body of the enemy is massing in my front. For God’s sake, make disposition to receive him!” The message went up to the one-armed Howard, who laughed and said no men could push through thickets in his area.
Hooker had already made preparations for the chase of Lee’s army on the morrow, in this order: “The Major General commanding desires that you replenish your supplies of forage, provisions and ammunition to be ready to start at an early hour tomorrow.”
Later, the fragment of Union cavalry which Hooker had left himself brought in a few tattered prisoners. The horsemen jeered at the Confederates. One of the prisoners retorted, “You may think you’ve done a great thing just now—but you wait till Old Jack gets around on your right!” The Federals laughed.
Some time before the sun approached the horizon over the dense trees, the smells of cooking supper came from the far right of the Union line.
Through these hours, Jackson rode with a growing impatience, almost as if he were unconscious of the enemy’s weak and belated sallies toward his line of march. Dr. Hunter McGuire recalled: “Never can I forget the eagerness and intensity of Jackson on that march.… His face was pale, his eyes flashing. Out from his thin compressed lips came the terse command: ‘Press forward! Press forward!’ In his eagerness as he rode, he leaned over on the neck of his horse, as if in that way the march might be hurried. ‘See that the column is kept closed, and there is no straggling,’ he more than once ordered; and ‘Press on, press on!’ was repeated again and again.”
Jackson had placed officers behind each regiment with a guard of bayonets and orders to spear stragglers. Even so, men fell out of the ranks. A Georgia colonel wrote: “Many fell … exhausted, some fainting and having spasms; only a few had eaten anything since the morning before.”
Far in the rear, Lee waited. In the late morning he wrote to President Davis:
“I find the enemy in a strong position at Chancellorsville and in large force.… He seems determined to make the fight here.… It is plain that if the enemy is too strong for me here, I shall have to fall back and Fredericksburg must be abandoned.…
“I am now swinging around to my left to come up in his [the enemy’s] rear.…
“If I had with me all my command, and could keep it supplied with provisions and forage, I should feel easy, but as far as I can judge the advantage of numbers and position is greatly in favor of the enemy.”
Lee had yet no informative report from Jackson.
Old Jack pushed on. When his vanguard came in sight of the Plank Road at about 1 P.M., the main force had not seen a Federal. A few enemy cavalrymen fled as the Rebels advanced, and Virginia troopers gave chase.
Jackson and General Fitz Lee went to the Burton Farm in the neighborhood, and looked down on the enemy. An account was left by Fitz Lee:
“Upon reaching the Plank Road some five miles west of Chancellorsville, while waiting for Stonewall to come up, I made a personal reconnaissance. What a sight presented itself to me! The soldiers were in groups, laughing, chatting, smoking … feeling safe and comfortable. In the rear of them were other parties driving up and slaughtering beeves.
“So impressed was I with my discovery that I rode rapidly back to the point on the Plank Road where I met Stonewall himself. ‘General,’ I said, ‘ride with me.’ He assented, and I rapidly conducted him to the point of observation. There had been no change in the picture. It was then about 2 P.M. I watched him closely. His eyes burned with a brilliant glow, lighting up a sad face; his expression was one of intense interest; his face was colored slightly … and radiant at the success of his flank movement.
“To my remarks he did not reply once during the five minutes he was on the hill; and yet his lips were moving.
“One more look on the Federal lines, and then he rode rapidly down the hill, his arms flapping to the motions of his horse, over whose head it seemed, good rider as he was, he would certainly go.
“Alas! I had looked on him for the last time.”
Jackson soon arrived on the old turnpike. He was disappointed to find that he had not passed the enemy flank and come into the rear of the blue lines. He gave quick orders: “Tell General Rodes to move across the Plank Road; halt when he gets to the old turnpike, and I will join him there.”
Fitz Lee was a bit chagrined to see Jackson leave with no word of praise for his discovery: “I expected to be told I had made a valuable personal reconnaissance—saving the lives of many soldiers—and that Jackson was indebted to me to that amount at least.”
But Old Jack was in a hurry now. He gave Colonel Mumford orders to ride on the left of the column and take the road leading to Ely’s Ford on the Rapidan, if possible. He added gaily, “The Virginia Military Institute will be heard from today!”
Jackson turned to the roadside; and sitting on a stump, either hurry or excitement making his handwriting shakier than usual, he wrote his last dispatch:
Near 3 P.M., May 2, 1863
General,
The enemy has made a stand at Chancellor’s which is about miles from Chancellorsville. I hope as soon as practicable to attack.
I trust that an ever kind Providence will bless us
with great success.
Respectfully,
T. J. Jackson.
Gen’l R. E. Lee
The leading division is up and the next two appear to be well closed.
He read over the message and saw that he had omitted the mileage figure in the second line, and with a swift pen he inserted the digit “2.”
Within an hour his pickets had exchanged fire with the enemy, but skirmishing was light and the Federals did not take alarm. Jackson gave specific orders to General Rodes, who commanded the vanguard. Under cover of a ridge the men were brought up and spread in battle formation. Other regiments came behind them, slowly now, taking precious time to crowd into heavy files. The front now lay perpendicular to the turnpike and reached for about a mile on either side of it. At the sound of bugles, the ranks were to drive ahead at full speed.
It was getting late. Perhaps too late. At his distant position Lee had begun to lose hope.
The Federals who were within sight of Jackson’s column were cooking supper.
Old Jack finally saw a bugler following a group of officers toward him. He looked at his watch: five fifteen. Major Eugene Blackford, coming from the front, said that the lines were ready.
Jackson turned to Rodes.
“Are you ready, General Rodes?”
“Yes, sir.”
Jackson’s voice was slow. “You can go forward then.”
Bugle calls ripped through the quiet, and men rustled into the thickets. Almost at this instant there came a faint sound of distant firing in the forest. A cavalry captain turned to ask Jackson whose guns those were.
“How far do you suppose it is?” Jackson asked.
“Five or six miles.”
“I suppose it is General Lee.”
Before Jackson there was a crash of muskets and men began to run. The Rebel Yell rolled through the woods. Startled Federal batteries fired a few rounds. The Germans of the exposed Union Eleventh Corps looked up in terror to see, beyond the droves of fleeing deer and rabbits, the plunging lines of Confederates. The enemy turned and ran. The flank was rolled up as if made of paper. Jackson’s men met momentary confusions, but overwhelmed resistance and swept everything before them.
General Howard caught his first glimpse of the catastrophe which had befallen him: “It was a terrible gale. The rush, the rattle, the quick lightning from a hundred points at once; the roar redoubled by the echoes through the forest; the panic, the dead and dying in sight, and the wounded straggling along; the frantic efforts of the brave and patriotic to stay the angry storm.”
Jackson had crushed Hooker’s flank, but perhaps, even so, it was too late for victory today. Within an hour, or at a little after 6 P.M., there remained of General Devens’s division only wreckage and tiny pockets of resistance. Jackson’s troops had obliterated Howard’s first line and now held high ground on every hand. Snarls in marching orders and confusion of the swift attack had held back about five thousand men on one flank of the advance, but this did not seem to lessen the power of the charge.
At a little after six o’clock, a second charge ordered by Jackson had carried forward to a place known as Dowdall’s Tavern. By now, Federal resistance had begun to organize. In some quarters there was terrific cannon fire before the Confederates. The skirmishers ran into fortified positions.
General Hooker was sitting on the porch of the house at Chancellorsville, taking his evening toddy. An officer behind him, peering westward with a field glass, shouted, “My God, here they come!” Hooker and his staff mounted and galloped along the Plank Road, where they met flying fugitives, the first of the ambulances, and news of disaster. Hooker’s generals hurriedly formed emergency lines of battle.
Captain Hartwell Osborn of the cavalry, serving with Howard, saw the rout from the Federal ranks:
“Along our front deer and wild game came scurrying … firing increased and soon came nearer. The right was steadily falling back … bullets began to hail down our line from right and rear … It was the most trying experience the command ever endured … the whole clearing became one mass of panic-stricken soldiers flying at the top of their speed … As we passed General Hooker’s headquarters a scene burst upon us which, God grant, may never again be seen in the Federal army of the United States. The 11th Corps had been routed … Aghast and terror-stricken, heads bare and panting for breath, they pleaded like infants at the mother’s breast that we should let them pass to the rear unhindered.”
Captain R. E. Wilbourn, the chief signal officer of Jackson’s staff, kept up with the commander through most of this attack, watching the General as he cheered on his men, leaning far down on Sorrel, pushing outward with his hand as if he would lift them ahead physically, shouting, “Press forward! Press forward!”
Wilbourn wrote of Old Jack as the great attack tore through the forest:
“Frequently … he would stop, raise his hand, and turn his eyes toward Heaven, as if praying for a blessing on our arms. The frequency with which this was done that evening attracted the attention of all with him.
“Our troops made repeated charges, driving the enemy before them every time, which caused loud and long-continued cheering along our entire line … and General Jackson would invariably raise his hand and give thanks to Him who gave the victory. I have never seen him seem so well pleased with the progress and results of a fight as on that occasion.
“On several occasions during this fight, as he passed the bodies of some of our veterans, he halted, raised his hand as if to ask a blessing upon them, and to pray to God to save their souls.”
23
“MY OWN MEN!”
The moon rose. Not a cloud hung in the sky, and the forest lanes glittered with light. But it was pitch dark in the trees, and banks of smoke drifted everywhere. There was a stench of powder, the dead, the lowland creeks. A crazy quilt of fire blazed in the brush, and from burning thickets the wounded called, threshing, whimpering for water. There was a growing lull in the battle, broken by sporadic volleys of musketry; less frequently, when something in the night aroused the guns, the mad landscape was scourged by artillery fire. Already the two armies had strewn the wilderness with almost six thousand dead and wounded.
Men fired at the slightest motion, and the night was full of shadows. No man knew where the front lines now lay, and the forces flailed in the forest, striking fire and explosions when they blundered against each other.
Jackson’s victorious troops, having run like pursuing hounds into the deep tangle, were being overcome—not by the enemy, but by darkness, thickets, the drifting apart of files, loss of officers, rupture of communications. Some companies succumbed to hunger, halting to loot overrun Federal camp sites and abandoned knapsacks, scattering, joining strange outfits. Like a dammed stream the advance broadened, slowed, and halted. The forward waves ceased movement a little after seven o’clock.
Within ten minutes Jackson was aware that his onslaught was no longer. His officers had never seen him so elated, though they had to read the signs in the tones of his voice as he snapped precise answers to messengers coming and going, and in the vigorous impatience with which he went toward the front. He did not hesitate but began to prepare for a night attack in order to restore the momentum of his corps. With an ear cocked toward the happy tumult of calling by his men, he paused in the twilight by Dowdall’s Tavern, beswarmed with couriers and officers.
Word from the front was that the first and second lines had halted. He must now order up the third, the division of A. P. Hill. Good news came from General Rodes, who had gone ahead to reconnoiter: No Federals lay between Jackson’s lines and the vital heights at Fairview.
Someone in the confusion of the roadway saw Jackson at about that moment, there in the thronging passage of a conquering army almost, but not quite, out of control. He had halted in a familiar attitude, his face turned skyward, his right hand raised in prayerful thanksgiving.
An excited colonel, Cobb of the Forty-fourth Virginia, came to report: Confederates,
as ordered, had seized the strong breastworks near Chancellorsville, without the loss of a man.
It was not yet victory, not in Jackson’s mind. He gave his orders with an assurance that made him seem the only man to comprehend this bewildering field. He could not have been unaware that he had launched, and all but completed, one of the most audacious strokes of military history. But he could not rest.
The army, indeed, was in a moment of supreme peril. Its main forces were divided, and now further scattered. If, by some miracle, the Federals could recover to launch an attack, Lee’s army might be destroyed in the night. He must push troops ahead to Chancellorsville itself, and in some strength.
Not even he could know the exact state of confusion among the enemy, where continuing panic had staged indescribable scenes. Far beyond him, in the Yankee-held areas of the forest, the Dutchmen of the broken Eleventh Corps yet fled like wild things, and swept almost all before them. As stout new lines were formed against the disaster by sweating, cursing officers, the tide of Dutch terror burst over them, ripping them apart. From every direction, it seemed, came this stream of wide-eyed, panting men going to the Union rear, among them beef cattle gone mad, plunging guns and their frantic teams, caissons, ambulances, wagons. Hospital stations were overrun, tents trampled, the wounded overturned. A group of doctors, up to bloody elbows in their work, stampeded and ran away with the Germans. The fleeing thousands left behind an endless debris, and where they went, they spread terror. At the least disturbance, other, smaller flights were begun. At the extreme rear, on the river, sutlers and camp followers were busily crossing.
It was a miracle that Jackson, even at his distance, could not hear the chorus of fear croaked by the unfortunate Dutchmen, who beat at their officers and clambered over road blocks. The Dutchmen were already ripping from their caps and shoulders the telltale crescent insignia of their corps, by now a badge of infamy and disgrace.
They Called Him Stonewall Page 44
