by Burke Davis
Some enemy cavalry was sighted about two P.M. but disappeared. Within a few minutes, when the column struck the Plank Road five miles west of Chancellorsville, Fitz Lee made a discovery-Union infantry in camp:
"What a sight! 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."
Fitz went quickly back to Jackson: "Ride with me, General."
Fitz took Stonewall to his hill of observation and watched with enjoyment:
"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."
Fitz pointed out the vulnerability of the enemy line but Jackson did not reply. He moved his lips in silence, took one last look and galloped back to his men, his elbows flapping in his curious graceless way. He issued quick orders for putting the infantry into line across the road, and sent a note to Lee, now far behind him across the quiet Wilderness:
General,
The enemy has made a stand at Chancellor's which is about 2 miles from Chancellorsville. I hope as soon as practicable to attack.
I trust that an ever-kind Providence will bless us with great success.
The leading division is up and the next two appear to be well closed.
It seemed a long time before the attack was ready. Von Borcke had a close look at the unsuspecting enemy, and was surprised by a patrol of bluecoats, who gaped at him in astonishment and fired as he rode away.
The German returned to find Stuart and Jackson and their staffs stretched under an oak, resting while the infantry went into position. When the officers were called to the front about five P.M., Stuart took troopers to the left flank. Bugles sounded, guns roared and Rebel yells startled the enemy. Panic broke on the Union flank, and men who tried to stand in the path of the attack were driven back in the dusk. The Stuart Horse Artillery kept up with the advance.
The road was wide enough for two guns, and Stuart had cleared it for Major Beckham and his crews. The gunners worked in a fury, firing, hitching their teams, advancing, firing again. The cavalry's little guns worked with precision. When two had fired for a few minutes, they pulled aside and the two rear guns went into action. They had driven a mile or so when Jackson passed the artillerymen and leaned down to Beckham with his hand out: "Young man, I congratulate you."
Others saw Jackson in strange poses: "He would stop, raise his hand, and turn his eyes toward Heaven, as if praying for a blessing on our arms ... 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."8
Stonewall disappeared from the cavalry, pressing ahead in The Wilderness with his main body as he sought to cut Hooker's army in two.
Stuart had found no way to use his troopers in the brush, and asked Jackson to give him some infantrymen to seize the important river road to Ely's Ford. Jackson had sent him off with the 16th North Carolina. On their way these men stumbled through a Federal camp. Von Borcke wrote: "Entire regiments had thrown down their arms, which were lying in regular lines on the ground, as if for inspection; suppers just prepared had been abandoned. Tents, baggage, wagons, cannon, half-slaughtered oxen, in chaotic confusion, while in the background many thousand Yankees were scampering for their lives." Confederates took them by hundreds.
Soon after dark, however, a great cannonade swept the woods, and the infantry tide halted; the graycoats milled about. Stuart worked to barricade the Ely's Ford road. Jackson planned more attacks in the dark.
Van Borcke was riding with Stuart when they saw firelight in the woods ahead. They crept near enough to see Federals in camp. Stuart could not resist. He ordered about 1,000 of the infantry to make ready for attack.
Jeb was busy at this when two couriers came from A. P. Hill.
"You'll have to come, General. Quick! General Jackson's shot."
Jeb did not hesitate. He called the commander of the 16th North Carolina: "Have your men fire three rounds into that camp and fall back to their regiment."
He galloped off in the bright moonlight.
Von Borcke was soon riding after his chief, making his way by moonlight and the glare of brush fires. He rode for almost an hour before he found Stuart seated at a roadside, writing dispatches by lantern light. Jeb must now become an infantry commander, with a scattered corps to prepare for battle before morning.
Jackson had been shot by his own men, they said, somewhere on the front where he was scouting. He had been carried to the rear painfully hurt, leaving command to A. P. Hill, until he, too, had been wounded.
Captain W. F. Randolph of Jackson's staff brought the depressing news to the cavalry. Jackson had been riding with a few officers, seeking a road to the river, when they passed a Confederate regiment, its men firing nervously at shadows. Jackson sent Randolph to find their officers and stop the fire:
"I rode up and down the line and gave the order, telling them also that they were endangering the lives of General Jackson and his escort, but it was in vain. Those immediately in my front would cease as I gave the order, but the firing would break out above or below me. ... I rode back to Jackson and said: 'General, it is impossible to stop these men. I think we had best pass through their line and get into the woods behind them.' 'Very well said,' was the reply. So, making a half whirl to the left... our little company com- menced to pass through the line A few more seconds would have
placed us in safety, for we were not over three seconds from the line, but as we turned, looking up and down as far as my eye could reach,
I saw that long line of shining bayonets rise and concentrate upon us. I felt what was coming, and driving my spurs into my horse . .. he rose high in the air and as we passed over the line the thunder crash from hundreds of rifles burst in full in our very faces
"Then sick at heart I dashed back to the road, and there the saddest tragedy of the war was revealed in its fullest horror. I saw the General's horse standing close to the edge of the road, with a stream of blood running from a wound in his neck... and the General himself lying in the edge of the woods. He seemed to be dead I threw
myself on the ground by his side and raised his head and shoulders on my arm. He groaned.
" 'Are you much hurt, General?' I asked.
" 'Wild fire, that, sir. Wild fire,' he replied, in his usual rapid way. That was all he said. I found that his left arm was shattered by a bullet just below the elbow, and his right hand was lacerated by a
Minie ball that passed through the palm In a few moments A. P. Hill rode up . . . ordered me to mount my horse and bring an ambulance. 'But don't tell the men that it is General Jackson who is wounded..'
"I met Sandy Pendleton, Jackson's adjutant general, and he ordered me to go and find General Jeb Stuart and tell him to come at once."
Stonewall had gone to the rear in an ambulance.
It was midnight when Stuart arrived at a fireside on the front near the spot where Jackson had fallen. The last echoes of a wild attack by Federals had just died away. His command, more than 25,000 men, lay in disorder in the darkness, no one knew where. Jeb knew only vaguely Jackson's plan of attack, and when he called up Stonewall's commanders, found that they knew no more—it was one of Jackson's secrets.
Since there could be no further orders from Robert Lee tonight, Jeb tried to determine the position of the troops; he learned little: A. P. Hill's division, a part of it thrown forward against the enemy front, was at right angles to the Plank Road. Stuart could not make out the exact positions of Generals Rodes and Colston, since their men had become tangled in the chase, and order had disappeared.
Stuart sent a courier to ask the wounded Jackson for instructions. He returned with a message: Tell General Stuart to act on his own judgment and do what he thinks best. I have implicit confidence in him.
Jeb waited for daylight.9 Few of his s
taff were at hand, and of Jackson's staff only Sandy Pendleton could be found. Von Borcke was willing to help, but spent a sleepless night nursing Lieutenant "Honeybun" Hullihen, who had a shoulder wound.
A night reconnaissance by young E. P. Alexander, Jackson's artilleryman, got the guns into position, and at the first faint gray light Stuart's men moved.
At this hour Jeb got his first order from the distressed General Lee:
It is necessary that the glorious victory thus far achieved be prosecuted with the utmost vigor, and the enemy given no time to rally. As soon, therefore, as it is possible, they must be pressed, so that we may unite the two wings of the army.
Endeavor, therefore, to dispossess them of Chancellorsville, which will permit the union of the whole army.
In brief, Lee's army was so divided in The Wilderness as to be in peril; he would attack. Stuart had thought of nothing else.
Fire broke out at dawn and raged without ceasing until afternoon. Stuart's men drove through woodlands to a bristling Federal line, where infantry regiments faced each other at close range for hours; ranks were decimated. Stuart could move his artillery in but two ways: Down the Plank Road, which was swept by Union cannon; and by a lane in pinewoods half a mile south. The chief target of Jeb's attack was Hazel Grove, a cleared ridge which was the key to Hooker's position. Stuart seemed to feel that he must take the hill personally, for he was in the front of charges and countercharges in the open, waving his hat or sword, urging on the troops. There would be criticism of his bloody frontal assaults, but in the end he led them to storm the ridge. An officer who lay with his men in sight of the Chancellor House watched Stuart in "the bravest act I ever saw. He led in person several batteries down Plank Road, which was swept with the Federal artillery, and planted his guns on an eminence in advance of our infantry line."10
From the new position Alexander's guns dominated the clearing around the Chancellor House, where Hooker had headquarters. They fired as infantry launched three charges near the white-columned dwelling. The last attack carried over a carpet of bodies, and the enemy were swept out of sight.
General James Lane reported Stuart's leading the 28th North Carolina in two charges, and said, "Its colonel, Thomas L. Lowe, was perfectly carried away with Stuart. He heard him singing, 'Old Joe Hooker, come out of the Wilderness!' And he wound up by saying,
'Who would have thought it? Jeb Stuart in command of the 2nd Army Corps!'"
On the Plank Road wagons, guns and ambulances were blown up. "How General Stuart and those few staff officers with him who had to gallop so frequently through this escaped unhurt seems to me quite miraculuous," von Borcke said. Many couriers were wounded; Stuart's horse was shot in the fight.
As Stuart tried to deliver his own orders, he passed the 1st Virginia Artillery and was surprised to see his old friend of St. Louis days, Reid Venable, now captain of a battery. There was a brief reunion.
"Venable," Stuart yelled, "I've sent off my last man. You must take this order to the left. There is no one else. I will take all the responsibility."
"Certainly, sir," Venable said. He rode out of sight.
Venable carried orders for Jeb the rest of the day, and when there was a moment of quiet, told him how he chafed at being in the "bomb-proof" artillery positions, and longed for real action.
Stuart clapped him on the back: "I'll ask for your services today, to be assigned to my staff."
Venable thus began his career as Jeb's assistant adjutant and inspector general, with the rank of major; he would ride with him until the end.11
Robert Lee sent an encouraging message at ten thirty A.M.: The wings of the army had joined. This was the signal for the drive which broke the enemy line.
From near Chancellorsville von Borcke saw: "A magnificent spectacle ... the long lines of our swiftly advancing troops, their red flags fluttering in the breeze, and their arms glittering in the morning sun, and farther on, dense and huddled masses of the Federals flying in utter rout toward United States Ford, whilst high over our heads flew the shells which our artillery were dropping amidst the retreating foe."
The enemy was not through, for in the afternoon General Lee learned that an attack—or a misunderstanding of orders—had led General Early to abandon the Fredericksburg position in the rear, and the army was again exposed. Lee calmly sent men to turn back this threat. Stuart slept near the ruins of the burned Chancellor House, where Lee joined him. Enemy shells ploughed earth around them all night; one burst atop a cherry tree, covering von Borcke with litter. Within a stone's throw a barn full of wounded Federals moaned ceaselessly.
Officers were already marveling over Stuart's performance of the day before. E. P. Alexander said: "I do not think there was a more brilliant thing done in the war than Stuart's extricating that command from the extremely critical position ... as promptly and boldly as he did. We knew that Hooker had at least 80,000 infantry at hand, and that his axemen were entrenching his position all night, and in that thick undergrowth a rabbit could hardly get through. The hard marching and the night fighting had thinned our ranks to less than 20,000. . . . But Stuart never seemed to hesitate or to doubt for one moment that he could just crash his way wherever he chose to strike... unlike many planned attacks that I have seen, this one came off promptly on time, and it never stopped to draw its breath until it had crashed through everything.. ..
"I always thought it an injustice to Stuart and a loss to the army that he was not from that moment continued in command of Jackson's corps. He had won a right to it, I believe he had all of Jackson's genius and dash and originality, without that eccentricity of character which sometimes led to disappointment. . . . Stuart possessed the rare quality of being always equal to himself at his very best."
Monday morning was hot, sultry, with an early misting of rain. There was "an almost insupportable" stench of the dead in the thickets, many of them roasted by fires which had swept The Wilderness. The army marched confusingly through the woods, as Lee tried to trap Hooker with another stroke in his rear. But the offensive was delayed until six P.M. The enemy escaped, and Lee was reduced to shelling the retreat. A severe rainstorm broke early on May sixth. When Lee discovered the failure to crush the enemy he blazed at Dorsey Pender, who brought the news: "Why, General Pender! That is the way you young men always do. You allow those people to get away. I tell you what to do, but you don't do it."
Stuart, however, remained jubilant. He had written one of his officers:
A glorious victory yesterday—I commanded Jackson's Corps. I have directed Gen. Fitz Lee to relieve you. Can you hear which way Stoneman has gone?
He was reported coming down the Plank Road yesterday or last night. Let me hear from you.12
The next day he sent Flora a message:
God has spared me through another bloody battle and given us the victory yesterday and the day before. I commanded Jackson's corps.
On May seventh, with A. P. Hill recovered, Jeb was back in command of the cavalry and was off westward, trying to catch Stoneman, who was returning from his raid near Richmond. The little column was too late; the bluecoats had already passed Raccoon Ford.
Stoneman's thrust had done only minor damage, but General Lee read a danger, and wrote Jefferson Davis of the enemy cavalry:
It is very large and no doubt organized for the very purpose to which it has recently been applied. Every expedition will augment their boldness and increase their means of doing us harm, as they will become better acquainted with the country and more familiar with its roads. . . . You can see, then, how difficult it will be for us to keep up our railroad communications and prevent the inroads of the enemy's cavalry. If I could get two good divisions of cavalry, I should feel as if we ought to resist three of the enemy.
Lee's orders to the army praised Stuart, and to the regiments which left 13,000 casualties around Chancellorsville, he said:
Under trying vicissitudes of heat and storm, you attacked the enemy strongly entrenched in the depth o
f a tangled wilderness, and again on the hills of Fredericksburg 15 miles distant, and by the valor that has triumphed on so many fields, forced him once more to seek safety beyond the Rappahannock.
The Federals had lost 17,000 men in this fighting.
Lee appointed May tenth a day of Thanksgiving, and on that day Jackson died, murmuring: "It's all right, I always wanted to die on Sunday.... Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees." Lee spoke for the Confederacy, saying, "I have lost my right arm."
Stuart learned of Stonewall's death in a dispatch from Lee:
I regret to inform you that the great and good Jackson is no more. . . . May his spirit pervade our whole army; our country will then be secure.
Colonel Rosser told the grieving Stuart: "On his death bed Jackson said that you should succeed him, and command his corps."
"I would rather know that Jackson said that," Stuart said, "than to have the appointment."
But though command of a corps of Lee's infantry seemed much in Jeb's thoughts, he did not seriously consider it, and wrote Flora that "there has been a great deal of talk of my succeeding General Jackson, but I think without foundation in fact." There may have been wistfulness in the remark, but he never declared an ambition to leave his horsemen.
