SECOND LINE OP UNION DEFENSE AT THE JUNCTION OF THE ROADS TO ELY’S AND
UNITED STATES FORDS.
UNION TROOPS CROSSING THE EAPIDAN AT ELY’S FORD.
ens, afterward attorney-general in the cabinet of President Hayes. Devens and I together had carefully reconnoitered both the Orange Plank road and the old turnpike for at least three miles toward the west. After this reeonnoissance he established his division,—the Second Brigade, under McLean, next to Schurz’s first, and then pushing out on the pike for half a mile he deployed the other, Gilsa’s, at right angles facing west, connecting his two parts by a thin skirmish-line. Colonel Gilsa’s brigade was afterward drawn back, still facing west at right angles to the line, so as to make a more solid connection, and so that, constituting, as it did, the main right flank, the reserves of the corps could be brought more promptly to its support, by extending its right to the north, should an enemy by any possible contingency get so far around. A section of Dieckmann’s battery which looked to the west along the old pike was located at the angle.
The reserve batteries, twelve guns, were put upon a ridge abreast of the little church and pointed toward the northwest, with a view to sweep all approaches to the north of Gilsa, firing up a gradually ascending slope. This ridge, where I stood during the battle, was central, and, besides, enabled the artillerymen to enfilade either roadway, or meet an attack from south, west, or north. Here epaulments for the batteries were constructed, and cross-in-trenchments for the battery supports were dug, extending from the little church across all the open ground that stretched away from the tavern to the right of Devens’s line.
To my great comfort, General Sickles’s corps came up on Friday, May 1st, and took from our left Steinwehr’s three-quarters of a mile of the Plank road. Thus he relieved from the front line Barlow’s large brigade, giving me, besides the several
the map marked “ Mill ” near there, on a branch of Hunting Bun, and said, "Establish your right there.” General Slocum promised, with the Twelfth Corps, to occupy the space between his headquarters and Dowdall’s clearing; but, finding the distance too great, one of his division commanders sent me word that I must cover the last three-quarters of a mile of the Plank road. This was done by a brigade of General Steinwehr, the commander of my left division, though with regret on our part, because it required all the corps reserves to fill up that gap.
The so-called Dowdall’s Tavern was at that time the home of Melzi Chancellor. He had a large family, including several grown people. I placed my headquarters at his house. In front of me, facing south along a curving ridge, the right of Steinwehr’s division was located. He had but two brigades, Barlow on the Plank road and Buschbeck on his right. With them Steinwehr covered a mile, leaving but two regiments for reserve. These he put some two hundred yards to his rear, near the little “Wilderness Church.”
Next to Steinwehr, toward our right, came General Carl Schurz’s division. First was Captain Dil-ger’s battery. Dilger was one of those handsome, hearty, active young men that everybody liked to have near. Plis guns pointed to the southwest and west, along the Orange Plank road. Next was Krzyzanowski’s brigade, about half on the front and half in reserve. Schurz’s right brigade was that of Schimmelfennig, disposed in the same manner, a part deployed and the remainder kept a few hundred yards back for a reserve. Sehurz’s front line of infantry extended along the old turnpike and faced to the southwest. The right division of the corps was commanded by General Charles Dev-
of Meade, Slocum, Couch, Sickles, and Howard, were deployed. The face was’toward the south, and the ranks mainly occupied a ridge nearly parallel with the Bapidan. . . .
Our opponents, under General Bobert E. Lee, the evening before, were about two miles distant toward Fredericksburg, and thus between us and Sedgwick. Lee had immediately with him the division s of McLaws, Anderson, Bodes, Colston, and A. P. Hill, besides some cavalry under Stuart. He held, for his line of battle, a comparatively short front between the Bappahannock and the Catherine Furnace, not exceeding two miles and a half in extent. His right wing, not far from the river, was behind Mott’s Bun, which flows due east, and his left was deployed along the Catherine Furnace road.
Could Hooker, on the first day of May, have known Lee’s exact location, he never could have had a better opportunity for taking the offensive. But he did not know, and after the few troops advancing toward Fredericksburg had met the approaching enemy he ordered all back to the “ old position,” the Chancellorsville line. . . .
On the preceding Thursday, the last of April, the three corps that constituted the right wing of the army, Meade’s, Slocum’s, and mine, had crossed from the north to the south side of the Bapidan, and by 4 o’clock in the afternoon had reached the vicinity of Chancellorsville, where Slocum, who was the senior commander present, established his headquarters. I, approaching from Germanna Ford, halted my divisions at Dowdall’s Tavern and encamped them there. Then I rode along the Plank road through the almost continuous forest to the Chancellorsville House. There I reported to Slocum. He said that the orders were for me to cover the right of the general line, posting my command near Dowdall’s Tavern. He pointed to a place on
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but the unfortunate circumstances that contracted the lines of our army enabled the enemy to inflict the severest punishment upon all the troops that were engaged. In fact, the greatest injury was inflicted on the 3d of May, while the army had no commander. Had the First Corps, which had not been engaged, and the Fifth Corps, still fresh, been thrown into the action in the afternoon of Sunday, the 3d of May, when Lee’s troops were exhausted from the struggle, they would certainly have made Chancellorsville what it should have been,—a complete success. These two corps mustered from 25,-000 to 30,000 men. There was no one to order them into the fight, and a second golden opportunity was lost. The army recrossed the Bappahannock Biver on the night of May 5th, and took up again the position at Falmouth which they had occupied before the campaign.
THE ELEVENTH COBPS AT CHAN-CELLOBSVILLE.
BY OLIVER O. HOWARD, MAJOR-GENERAL, U. B. A.
Commander of the Eleventh Corps.
THE country around Chancellorsville for the most part is a wilderness, with but here and there an opening. If we consult the recent maps (no good ones existed before the battle), we notice that the two famous rivers, the Bapidan and the Bappahannock, join at a point due north of Chancellorsville; thence the Bappahannock runs easterly for two miles, till suddenly at the United States Ford it turns and flows south for a mile and a half, and then, turning again, completes a horseshoe bend. Here, on the south shore, was General Hooker’s battle-line on the morning of the 2d of May, 1863. Here his five army corps, those