HOOKER’S LEFT WING AT CHANCEL-LORSVILLE AND THE STORMING OF FREDERICKSBURG HEIGHTS
BY HUNTINGTON W. JACKSON, BREVET LIEUTENANT-COLONEL, U. S. V.
Aide-tie-camp to General John Newton in the Assault on Marye’s Heights.
. . . During the evening of the 2d of May Hooker sent word to Sedgwick “to take up his line on the Chaneellorsville road and attack and destroy any forces he might meet.” He also added that “he (Sedgwick) would probably fall upon the rear of Lee’s forces, and between them they would use Lee up.” If Hooker thought an insignificant force was in Sedgwick’s front, the engagement soon to take place showed how mistaken he was. Sedgwick received the order about 11 o’clock at night. He at once advanced his command to the Bowling Green road and then marched by the right flank toward Fredericksburg. Newton’s division was in the advance. The night was dark and the road made darker by the foliage of the trees on either side. The progress was necessarily slow. Frequent short halts were made while the skirmishers were feeling their way. Once, when the halt was prolonged and nothing broke the deep silence of the night except an occasional shot followed by the never-to-be-for-gotten ping of the Minié ball, General Newton, who was riding with the third or fourth regiment from the advance, called out: “ Is any one of my staff here 1 ” Those present promptly responded, and I was directed to “ride ahead and tell Colonel Shaler to brush away the enemy’s pickets.” The road was filled with soldiers, some lying down, others resting on their guns, but a passage was quickly cleared. At Hazel Run Colonel Shaler and Colonel Hamblin were found standing together. Here the enemy made a determined resistance. Their pickets were but a few yards distant. On the other side of the creek the road made a sharp ascent and curved to the right. In a subdued tone Colonel Shaler said : “ Colonel Hamblin, you have heard the order from General Newton? ” At once Colonel Hamblin left. In a moment there was the noise of hurrying feet, the troops quickly disappeared in the dark; a shout, a bright, sudden flash, a roll of musketry followed, and the road was open.
It was the gray of morning when the advance reached the rear and left of Fredericksburg. A negro who came into the lines reported the heights occupied and that the enemy were cutting the canal to flood the roads. To ascertain whether this was true, another delay was caused. No one in the command was acquainted with the topography of the country, and the advance was compelled to move with great caution through the streets and in the outskirts of the town. As the mornipg dawned, Marye’s Heights, the scene of the fierce attacks under Burnside in the previous December, were presented to our view. Several regiments were speedily moved along the open ground in the rear of the town toward the heights, and this movement discovered the enemy in force behind the famous stone wall at the base of the hill. Lee had left Early with his division and Barksdale’s brigade, a force of about ten thousand men, to hold Freder-
crest facing to the rear, and as soon as Steinwehr’s troops had cleared the way these guns began a terrible cannonade and continued it into the night. They fired into the forest, now full of Confederates, all disorganized by their exciting chase, and every effort of the enemy to advance in that direction in the face of the fire was effectually barred by the
batteries, except four pieces, were drawn off and hurried to the rear. The stand at the edge of the forest was necessarily a short one.
General Steinwelir, being now exposed from flank and rear, having held his place for over an hour, drew off his small remnants and all moved rapidly through openings and woods, through low ground and swamps, the two miles to the first high land south of Hooker’s headquarters.
Captain Hubert Dil-ger with his battery sturdily kept along the Plank road, firing constantly as he retired.
The Confederate masses rushed after us in the forest and along all paths and roads with triumphant shouts and
GENERAL HOWARD STRIVING TO RALLY HIS TROOPS.
artillery and supporting troops. Stonewall Jackson fell that evening from bullet-wounds, in the forest in front of Berry’s position. And here, on the forenoon of the next day, May 3d, the gallant General Berry met his death. It was here, too, that officers of the Eleventh Corps, though mortified by defeat, successfully rallied the scattered brigades and divisions, and, after shielding the batteries, went during the night to replace the men of the Fifth Corps and thereafter defend the left of the general line. . . . Jackson was victorious. Even his enemies praise him; but, providentially for us, it was the last battle that he waged against the American Union. . . .
redoubled firing, and so secured much plunder and many prisoners.
It was after sundown and growing dark when I met General Hiram G. Berry, commanding a division of the Third Corps, as I was ascending the high ground above named. “ Well, General, where now? ” he asked. “ You take the right of this road and I will take the left and try to defend it,” I replied.
Our batteries, with many others, were on the
who led the enemy’s attack. He states that, after his first successful charge, “ the command moved forward at the double-quick to assault the enemy, who had taken up a strong position on the crest of a hill in the open field.” This position was the one on Hawkins’s farm where Devens’s and Scliurz’s reserves began their fight. But wave after wave of Confederate infantry came upon them, and even their left flank was unprotected the instant the runaways had passed it. To our sorrow, we, who had eagerly observed their bravery, saw these reserves also give way, and the hill and crest on Hawkins’s farm were quickly in the hands of the men in gray.
Doles, who must have been a cool man to see so clearly amid the screeching shells and all the hot excitement of battle, says again: “ He ” (meaning our forces from Schimmelfennig’s and Buschbeek’s brigades, and perhaps part of McLean’s, who had faced about and had not yet given way) “made a stubborn resistance from behind a wattling fence on a hill covered thickly with pines.”
Among the stubborn fighters at this place was Major Jeremiah Williams. The enemy was drawing near him. His men fired with coolness and deliberation. His right rested among scrubby bushes and saplings, while his left was in comparatively open ground. The fire of the approaching enemy was murderous, and almost whole platoons of our men were falling; yet they held their ground. Williams waited, rapidly firing, till not more than thirty paces intervened, and then ordered the retreat. Out of 333 men and 10 commissioned officers in the regiment (the 25tli Ohio), 130, including 5 officers, were killed or wounded. Major Williams brought a part of the living to the breastworks near me ; the remainder, he says, were carried off to the rear by another regimental commander.
During the delays wo had thus far caused to the first division, of our enemy, all his rear lines had closed up, and the broad mass began to appear even below me on my left front to the south of Steinwehr’s knoll. Then it was, after we had been fighting an hour, that Sickles’s and Pleasonton’s guns began to be heard, for they had faced about at Hazel Grove obliquely toward the northwest, and were hurrying artillery, cavalry, and infantry into position to do what they could against the attack now reaching them.
I had come to my last practicable stand. The Confederates were slowly advancing, firing as they came. The twelve guns of Schirmer, the corps chief of artillery, increased by a part of Dilger’s battery, fired, at first with rapidity; but the battery men kept falling from death and wounds. Suddenly, as if by an order, when a sheet of the enemy’s fire reached them, a large number of the men in the supporting trenches vacated their positions and went off.
No officers ever made more strenuous exertions than those that my staff and myself put forth to stem the tide of retreat and refill those trenches, but the panic was too great. Then our artillery fire became weaker and weaker.
I next ordered a retreat to the edge of the forest toward Chaneellorsville, so as to uncover Steinwehr’s knoll, the only spot yet firmly held. The
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