Chapter 14

CHANCELLORSVILLE AND GETTYSBURG

I.

ADVANCE OF GENERAL HOOKER.

Lee remained throughout the winter at his headquarters in the woods south of Fredericksburg, watching the Northern army, which continued to occupy the country north of the city, with the Potomac River as their base of supplies.

With the coming of spring, it was obviously the intention of the Federal authorities to again essay the crossing of the Rappahannock at some point either above or below Fredericksburg; and as the movement above was less difficult, and promised more decisive results, it was seen by General Lee that this would probably be the quarter from which he might expect an attack. General Stuart, a soldier of sound judgment, said, during the winter, "The next battle will take place at Chancellorsville," and the position of Lee's troops seemed to indicate that this was also his own opinion. His right remained still "opposite Fredericksburg," barring the direct approach to Richmond, but his left extended up the Rappahannock beyond Chancellorsville, and all the fords were vigilantly guarded to prevent a sudden flank movement by the enemy in that direction. As will be seen, the anticipations of Lee were to be fully realized. The heavy blow aimed at him, in the first days of spring, was to come from the quarter in which he had expected it.

The Federal army was now under command of General Joseph Hooker, an officer of dash, energy, excellent administrative capacity, and, Northern writers add, extremely prone to "self-assertion." General Hooker had harshly criticised the military operations both of General McClellan on the Chickahominy, and of General Burnside at Fredericksburg, and so strong an impression had these strictures made upon the minds of the authorities, that they came to the determination of intrusting the command of the army to the officer who made them, doubtless concluding that his own success would prove greater than that of his predecessors. This opinion seemed borne out by the first proceedings of General Hooker. He set to work energetically to reorganize and increase the efficiency of the army, did away with General Burnside's defective "grand division" arrangement, consolidated the cavalry into an effective corps, enforced strict discipline among officers and men alike, and at the beginning of spring had brought his army to a high state of efficiency. His confident tone inspired the men; the depression resulting from the great disaster at Fredericksburg was succeeded by a spirit of buoyant hope, and the army was once more that great war-engine, ready for any undertaking, which it had been under McClellan.

It numbered, according to one Federal statement, one hundred and fifty-nine thousand three hundred men; but according to another, which appears more reliable, one hundred and twenty thousand infantry and artillery, and twelve thousand cavalry; in all, one hundred and thirty-two thousand troops. The army of General Lee was considerably smaller. Two divisions of Longstreet's corps had been sent to Suffolk, south of James River, to obtain supplies in that region, and this force was not present at the battle of Chancellorsville. The actual numbers under Lee's command will appear from the following statement of Colonel Walter H. Taylor, assistant adjutant-general of the army:

Our strength at Chancellorsville: Anderson and McLaws........................... 13,000 Jackson (Hill, Rodes, and Trimble)............ 21,000 Early (Fredericksburg)........................ 6,000 _______ 40,000 Cavalry and artillery......................... 7,000 _______ Total of all arms............................. 47,000

As the Federal infantry numbered one hundred and twenty thousand, according to the smallest estimate of Federal authorities, and Lee's infantry forty thousand, the Northern force was precisely three times as large as the Southern.

General Hooker had already proved himself an excellent administrative officer, and his plan of campaign against Lee seemed to show that he also possessed generalship of a high order. He had determined to pass the Rappahannock above Fredericksburg, turn Lee's flank, and thus force him to deliver battle under this disadvantage, or retire upon Richmond. The safe passage of the stream was the first great object, and General Hooker's dispositions to effect this were highly judicious. A force of about twenty thousand men was to pass the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg, and thus produce upon Lee the impression that the Federal army was about to renew the attempt in which they had failed under General Burnside. While General Lee's attention was engaged by the force thus threatening his right, the main body of the Northern army was to cross the Rappahannock and Rapidan above Chancellorsville, and, sweeping down rapidly upon the Confederate left flank, take up a strong position between Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg. The column which had crossed at the latter point to engage the attention of the Confederate commander, was then to recross to the northern bank, move rapidly to the upper fords, which the advance of the main body would by that time have uncovered; and, a second time crossing to the southern bank, unite with the rest. Thus the whole Federal army would be concentrated on the southern bank of the Rappahannock, and General Lee would be compelled to leave his camps on the hills of the Massaponnax, and fight upon ground dictated by his adversary. If he did not thus accept battle, but one other course was left. He must fall back in the direction of Richmond, to prevent his adversary from attacking his rear, and capturing or destroying his army.

In order to insure the success of this promising plan of attack, a strong column of well-mounted cavalry was to cross in advance of the army and strike for the railroads in Lee's rear, connecting him with Richmond and the Southwest. Thus flanked or cut off, and with all his communications destroyed, it seemed probable that General Lee would suffer decisive defeat, and that the Federal army would march in triumph to the capture of the Confederate capital.

This plan was certainly excellent, and seemed sure to succeed. It was, however, open to some criticism, as the event showed. General Hooker was detaching, in the beginning of the movement, his whole cavalry force for a distant operation, and dividing his army by the _ruse_ at Fredericksburg, in face of an adversary not likely to permit that great error to escape him. While advancing thus, apparently to the certain destruction of Lee, General Hooker was leaving a vulnerable point in his own armor. Lee would probably discover that point, and aim to pierce his opponent there. At most, General Hooker was wrapping in huge folds the sword of Lee, not remembering that there was danger to the _cordon_ as well as to the weapon.

Such was the plan which General Hooker had devised to bring back that success of the Federal arms in the spring of 1863 which had attended them in the early spring of 1862. At this latter period a heavy cloud rested upon the Confederate cause. Donaldson and Roanoke Island, Fort Macon, and the city of New Orleans, had then fallen; at Elkhorn, Kernstown, Newbern, and other places, the Federal forces had achieved important successes. These had been followed, however, by the Southern victories on the Chickahominy, at Manassas, and at Fredericksburg. Near this last-named spot now, where the year had wound up with so mortifying a Federal failure, General Hooker hoped to reverse events, and recover the Federal glories of the preceding spring.

Operations began as early as the middle of March, when General Averill, with about three thousand cavalry, crossed the Rappahannock at Kelly's Ford, above its junction with the Rapidan, and made a determined attack upon nearly eight hundred horsemen there, under General Fitz Lee, with the view of passing through Culpepper, crossing the Rapidan, and cutting Lee's communications in the direction of Gordonsville. The obstinate stand of General Fitz Lee's small force, however, defeated this object, and General Averill was forced to retreat beyond the Rappahannock again with considerable loss, and abandon his expedition. In this engagement fell Major John Pelham, who had been styled in Lee's first report of the battle of Fredericksburg "the gallant Pelham," and whose brave stand on the Port Royal road had drawn from Lee the exclamation, "It is glorious to see such courage in one so young." Pelham was, in spite of his youth, an artillerist of the first order of excellence, and his loss was a serious one, in spite of his inferior rank.

After this action every thing remained quiet until toward the end of April--General Lee continuing to hold the same position with his right at Fredericksburg, his left at the fords near Chancellorsville, and his cavalry, under Stuart, guarding the banks of the Rappahannock in Culpepper. On the 27th of April, General Hooker began his forward movement, by advancing three corps of his army--the Fifth, Eleventh, and Twelfth--to the banks of the river, near Kelly's Ford; and, on the next day, this force was joined by three additional corps--the First, Third, and Sixth--and the whole, on Wednesday (the 29th), crossed the river without difficulty. That this movement was a surprise to Lee, as has been supposed by some persons, is a mistake. Stuart was an extremely vigilant picket-officer, and both he and General Lee were in the habit of sending accomplished scouts to watch any movements in the Federal camps. As soon as these movements--which, in a large army, cannot be concealed--took place, information was always promptly brought, and it was not possible that General Hooker could move three large army corps toward the Rappahannock, as he did on April 27th, without early knowledge on the part of his adversary of so important a circumstance.

As the Federal infantry thus advanced, the large cavalry force began also to move through Culpepper toward the Central Railroad in Lee's rear. This column was commanded by General Stoneman, formerly a subordinate officer in Lee's old cavalry regiment in the United States Army; and, as General Stoneman's operations were entirely separate from those of the infantry, and not of much importance, we shall here dismiss them in a few words. He proceeded rapidly across Culpepper, harassed in his march by a small body of horse, under General William H.F. Lee; reached the Central Railroad at Trevillian's, below Gordonsville, and tore up a portion of it; passed on to James River, ravaging the country, and attempted the destruction of the Columbia Aqueduct, but did not succeed in so doing; when, hearing probably of the unforeseen result at Chancellorsville, he hastened back to the Rapidan, pursued and harassed as in his advance, and, crossing, regained the Federal lines beyond the Rappahannock.

To return to the movements of the main Federal force, under the personal command of General Hooker. This advanced rapidly across the angle between the two rivers, with no obstruction but that offered by the cavalry under Stuart, and on Thursday, April 30th, had crossed the Rapidan at Germanna and Ely's Fords, and was steadily concentrating around Chancellorsville. At the same time the Second Corps, under General Couch, was preparing to cross at United States Ford, a few miles distant; and General Sedgwick, commanding the detached force at Fredericksburg, having crossed and threatened Lee, in obedience to orders, now began passing back to the northern bank again, in order to march up and join the main body. Thus all things seemed in train to succeed on the side of the Federal army. General Hooker was over with about one hundred thousand men--twenty thousand additional troops would soon join him. Lee's army seemed scattered, and not "in hand" to oppose him; and there was some ground for the ebullition of joy attributed to General Hooker, as he saw his great force massing steadily in the vicinity of Chancellorsville. To those around him he exclaimed: "The rebel army is now the legitimate property of the Army of the Potomac. They may as well pack up their haversacks and make for Richmond, and I shall be after them!"

In a congratulatory order to his troops, he declared that they occupied now a position so strong that "the enemy must either ingloriously fly, or come out from behind his defences and give us battle on our own ground, where certain destruction awaits him."

Such were the joyful anticipations of General Hooker, who seems to have regarded the campaign as virtually ended by the successful passage of the river. His expressions and his general order would seem to indicate an irrepressible joy, but it is doubtful if the skilful soldiers under him shared this somewhat juvenile enthusiasm. The gray cavalier at Fredericksburg was not reported to be retiring, as was expected. On the contrary, the Southern troops seemed to be moving forward with the design of accepting battle.

Lee had determined promptly upon that course as soon as Stuart sent him information of the enemy's movements. Chancellorsville was at once seen to be the point for which General Hooker was aiming, and Lee's dispositions were made for confronting him there and fighting a pitched battle. The brigades of Posey and Mahone, of Anderson's Division, had been in front of Banks's and Ely's Fords, and this force of about eight thousand men was promptly ordered to fall back on Chancellorsville. At the same time Wright's brigade was sent up to reënforce this column; but the enemy continuing to advance in great force, General Anderson, commanding the whole, fell back from Chancellorsville to Tabernacle Church, on the road to Fredericksburg, where he was joined on the next day by Jackson, whom Lee had sent forward to his assistance.

The _ruse_ at Fredericksburg had not long deceived the Confederate commander. General Sedgwick, with three corps, in all about twenty-two thousand men, had crossed just below Fredericksburg on the 29th, and Lee had promptly directed General Jackson to oppose him there. Line of battle was accordingly formed in the enemy's front beyond Hamilton's Crossing; but as, neither on that day nor the next, any further advance was made by General Sedgwick, the whole movement was seen to be a feint to cover the real operations above. Lee accordingly turned his attention in the direction of Chancellorsville. Jackson, as we have related, was sent up to reënforce General Anderson, and Lee followed with the rest of the army, with the exception of about six thousand men, under General Early, whom he left to defend the crossing at Fredericksburg.

Such were the positions of the opposing forces on the 1st day of May. Each commander had displayed excellent generalship in the preliminary movements preceding the actual fighting. At last, however, the opposing lines were facing each other, and the real struggle was about to begin.

II.

THE WILDERNESS.

The "Wilderness," as the region around Chancellorsville is called, is so strange a country, and the character of the ground had so important a bearing upon the result of the great battle fought there, that a brief description of the locality will be here presented.

The region is a nearly unbroken expanse of dense thicket pierced only by narrow and winding roads, over which the traveller rides, mile after mile, without seeing a single human habitation. It would seem, indeed, that the whole barren and melancholy tract had been given up to the owl, the whippoorwill, and the moccasin, its original tenants. The plaintive cries of the night-birds alone break the gloomy silence of the desolate region, and the shadowy thicket stretching in every direction produces a depressing effect upon the feelings. Chancellorsville is in the centre of this singular territory, on the main road, or rather roads, running from Orange Court-House to Fredericksburg, from which latter place it is distant about ten miles. In spite of its imposing name, Chancellorsville was simply a large country-house, originally inhabited by a private family, but afterward used as a roadside inn. A little to the westward the "Old Turnpike" and Orange Plank-road unite as they approach the spot, where they again divide, to unite a second time a few miles to the east, where they form the main highway to Fredericksburg. From the north come in roads from United States and Ely's Fords; Germanna Ford is northwest; from the south runs the "Brock Road" in the direction of the Rapidan, passing a mile or two west of the place.

The whole country, the roads, the chance houses, the silence, the unending thicket, in this dreary wilderness, produce a sombre effect. A writer, familiar with it, says: "There all is wild, desolate, and lugubrious. Thicket, undergrowth, and jungle, stretch for miles, impenetrable and untouched. Narrow roads wind on forever between melancholy masses of stunted and gnarled oak. Little sunlight shines there. The face of Nature is dreary and sad. It was so before the battle; it is not more cheerful to-day, when, as you ride along, you see fragments of shell, rotting knapsacks, rusty gun-barrels, bleached bones, and grinning skulls.... Into this jungle," continues the same writer, "General Hooker penetrated. It was the wolf in his den, ready to tear any one who approached. A battle there seemed impossible. Neither side could see its antagonist. Artillery could not move; cavalry could not operate; the very infantry had to flatten their bodies to glide between the stunted trees. That an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men should have chosen that spot to fight forty thousand, and not only chosen it, but made it a hundred times more impenetrable by felling trees, erecting breastworks, disposing artillery _en masse_ to sweep every road and bridle-path which led to Chancellorsville--this fact seemed incredible."

It was no part of the original plan of the Federal commander to permit himself to be cooped up in this difficult and embarrassing region, where it was impossible to manoeuvre his large army. The selection of the Wilderness around Chancellorsville, as the ground of battle, was dictated by Lee. General Hooker, it seems, endeavored to avoid being thus shut up in the thicket, and hampered in his movements. Finding that the Confederate force, retiring from in front of Ely's and United States Fords, had, on reaching Chancellorsville, continued to fall back in the direction of Fredericksburg, he followed them steadily, passed through the Wilderness, and, emerging into the open country beyond, rapidly began forming line of battle on ground highly favorable to the manoeuvring of his large force in action. A glance at the map will indicate the importance of this movement, and the great advantages secured by it. The left of General Hooker's line, nearest the river, was at least five miles in advance of Chancellorsville, and commanded Banks's Ford, thereby shortening fully one-half the distance of General Sedgwick's march from Fredericksburg, by enabling him to use the ford in question as a place of crossing to the south bank, and uniting his column with the main body. The centre and right of the Federal army had in like manner emerged from the thickets of the Wilderness, and occupied cleared ground, sufficiently elevated to afford them great advantages.

This was in the forenoon of the 1st of May, when there was no force in General Hooker's front, except the eight thousand men of Anderson at Tabernacle Church. Jackson had marched at midnight from the Massaponnax Hills, with a general order from Lee to "attack and repulse the enemy," but had not yet arrived. There was thus no serious obstacle in the path of the Federal commander, who had it in his power, it would seem, to mass his entire army on the commanding ground which his vanguard already occupied. Lee was aware of the importance of the position, and, had he not been delayed by the feint of General Sedgwick, would himself have seized upon it. As it was, General Hooker seemed to have won the prize in the race, and Lee would, apparently, be forced to assail him on his strong ground, or retire in the direction of Richmond.

The movements of the enemy had, however, been so rapid that Lee's dispositions seem to have been made before they were fully developed and accurately known to him. He had sent forward Jackson, and now proceeded to follow in person, leaving only a force of about six thousand men, under Early, to defend the crossing at Fredericksburg. The promptness of these movements of the Confederate commander is noticed by Northern writers. "Lee, with instant perception of the situation," says an able historian, "now seized the masses of his force, and, with the grasp of a Titan, swung them into position, as a giant might fling a mighty stone from a sling." [Footnote: Mr. Swinton, in "Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac." Whether the force under Lee could be justly described as "mighty," however, the reader will form his own opinion.]

Such were the relative positions of the two armies on the 1st of May: General Hooker's forces well in advance of Chancellorsville, and rapidly forming line of battle on a ridge in open country; General Lee's, stretching along the whole distance, from Fredericksburg to Tabernacle Church, and certainly not in any condition to deliver or accept battle. The Federal commander seemed to have clearly outgeneralled his adversary, and, humanly speaking, the movements of the two armies, up to this time, seemed to point to a decisive Federal success.

General Hooker's own act reversed all this brilliant promise. At the very moment when his army was steadily concentrating on the favorable ground in advance of Chancellorsville, the Federal commander, for some reason which has never been divulged, sent a peremptory order that the entire force should fall back into the Wilderness. This order, reversing every thing, is said to have been received "with mingled amazement and incredulity" by his officers, two of whom sent him word that, from the great advantages of the position, it should be "held at all hazards." General Hooker's reply was, "Return at once." The army accordingly fell back to Chancellorsville.

This movement undoubtedly lost General Hooker all the advantages which up to that moment he had secured. What his motive for the order in question was, it is impossible for the present writer to understand, unless the approach of Lee powerfully affected his imagination, and he supposed the thicket around Chancellorsville to be the best ground to receive that assault which the bold advance of his opponent appeared to foretell. Whatever his motive, General Hooker withdrew his lines from the open country, fell back to the vicinity of Chancellorsville, and began to erect elaborate defences, behind which to receive Lee's attack.

In this backward movement he was followed and harassed by the forces of Jackson, the command of Anderson being in front. Jackson's maxim was to always press an enemy when he was retiring; and no sooner had the Federal forces begun to move, than he made a prompt attack. He continued to follow them up toward Chancellorsville until nightfall, when the fighting ceased, the Confederate advance having been pushed to Alrich's house, within about two miles of Chancellorsville. Here the outer line of the Federal works was found, and Jackson paused. He was unwilling at so late an hour to attempt an assault upon them with his small force, and, directing further movements to cease, awaited the arrival of the commander-in-chief.

Lee arrived, and a consultation was held. The question now was, the best manner, with a force of about thirty-five thousand, to drive the Federal army, of about one hundred thousand, beyond the Rappahannock.

III.

LEE'S DETERMINATION.

On this night, of the 1st of May, the situation of affairs was strange indeed.

General Hooker had crossed the Rappahannock with a force of one hundred and twenty thousand infantry, and had, without obstruction, secured a position so strong, he declared, that Lee must either "ingloriously fly," or fight a battle in which "certain destruction awaited him." So absolutely convinced, indeed, was the Federal commander, of the result of the coming encounter, that he had jubilantly described the Southern army as "the legitimate property of the Army of the Potomac," which, in the event of the retreat of the Confederates, would "be after them." There seemed just grounds for this declaration, whatever question may have arisen of the good taste displayed by General Hooker in making it. The force opposed to him was in all about forty-seven thousand men, but, as cavalry take small part in pitched battles, Lee's fighting force was only about forty thousand. To drive back forty thousand with one hundred and twenty thousand would not apparently prove difficult, and it was no doubt this conviction which had occasioned the joyous exclamation of General Hooker.

But his own act, and the nerve of his adversary, had defeated every thing. Instead of retreating with his small force upon Richmond, Lee had advanced to accept or deliver battle. This bold movement, which General Hooker does not seem to have anticipated, paralyzed his energies. He had not only crossed the two rivers without loss, but had taken up a strong position, where he could manoeuvre his army perfectly, when, in consequence of Lee's approach with the evident intent of fighting, he had ceased to advance, hesitated, and ended by retiring. This is a fair summary of events up to the night of the 1st of May. General Hooker had advanced boldly; he was now falling back. He had foretold that his adversary would "ingloriously fly;" and that adversary was pressing him closely. The Army of the Potomac, he had declared, would soon be "after" the Army of Northern Virginia; but, from the appearance of things at the moment, the Army of Northern Virginia seemed "after" the Army of the Potomac. We use General Hooker's own phrases--they are expressive, if not dignified. They are indeed suited to the subject, which contains no little of the grotesque. That anticipations and expressions so confident should have been met with a "commentary of events" so damaging, was sufficient, had the occasion not been so tragic, to cause laughter in the gravest of human beings.

Lee's intent was now unmistakable. Instead of falling back from the Rappahannock to some line of defence nearer Richmond, where the force under Longstreet, at Suffolk, might have rejoined him, with other reënforcements, he had plainly resolved, with the forty or fifty thousand men of his command, to meet General Hooker in open battle, and leave the event to Providence. A design so bold would seem to indicate in Lee a quality which at that time he was not thought to possess--the willingness to risk decisive defeat by military movements depending for their success upon good fortune alone. Such seemed now the only _deus ex machina_ that could extricate the Southern army from disaster; and a crushing defeat at that time would have had terrible results. There was no other force, save the small body under Longstreet and a few local troops, to protect Richmond. Had Lee been disabled and afterward pressed by General Hooker, it is impossible to see that any thing but the fall of the Confederate capital could have been the result.

From these speculations and comments we pass to the narrative of actual events. General Hooker had abandoned the strong position in advance of Chancellorsville, and retired to the fastnesses around that place, to receive the Southern attack. His further proceedings indicated that he anticipated an assault from Lee. The Federal troops had no sooner regained the thicket from which they had advanced in the morning, than they were ordered to erect elaborate works for the protection of infantry and artillery. This was promptly begun, and by the next morning heavy defences had sprung up as if by magic. Trees had been felled, and the trunks interwoven so as to present a formidable obstacle to the Southern attack. In front of these works the forest had been levelled, and the fallen trunks were left lying where they fell, forming thus an _abatis_ sufficient to seriously delay an assaulting force, which would thus be, at every step of the necessarily slow advance, under fire. On the roads piercing the thicket in the direction of the Confederates, cannon were posted, to rake the approaches to the Federal position. Having thus made his preparations to receive Lee's attack, General Hooker awaited that attack, no doubt confident of his ability to repulse it.

His line resembled in some degree the two sides of an oblong square--the longer side extending east and west in front, that is to say, south of Chancellorsville, and the shorter side north and south nearly, east of the place. His right, in the direction of Wilderness Tavern, was comparatively undefended, as it was not expected that Lee would venture upon a movement against that remote point. This line, it would appear, was formed with a view to the possible necessity of falling back toward the Rappahannock. A commander determined to risk everything would, it seems, have fronted Lee boldly, with a line running north and south, east of Chancellorsville. General Hooker's main front was nearly east and west, whatever may have been his object in so establishing it.

On the night of the 1st of May, as we have said, Lee and Jackson held a consultation to determine the best method of attacking the Federal forces on the next day. All the information which they had been able to obtain of the Federal positions east and south of Chancellorsville, indicated that the defences in both these quarters were such as to render an assault injudicious. Jackson had found his advance obstructed by strong works near Alrich's house, on the road running eastward from the enemy's camps; and General Stuart and General Wright, who had moved to the left, and advanced upon the enemy's front near the point called "The Furnace," had discovered the existence of powerful defences in that quarter also. They had been met by a fierce and sudden artillery-fire from Federal epaulements; and here, as to the east of Chancellorsville, the enemy had evidently fortified their position.

Under these circumstances, it was necessary to discover, if possible, some more favorable opening for an attack. There remained but one other--General Hooker's right, west of Chancellorsville; but to divide the army, as would be necessary in order to attack in that quarter, seemed an undertaking too hazardous to be thought of. To execute such a plan of assault with any thing like a hope of success, General Lee would be compelled to detach considerably more than half of his entire force. This would leave in General Hooker's front a body of troops too inconsiderable to make any resistance if he advanced his lines, and thus the movement promised to result in the certain destruction of one portion of the army, to be followed by a triumphant march of the Federal forces upon Richmond. In the council of war between Lee and Jackson, on the night of the 1st of May, these considerations were duly weighed, and the whole situation discussed. In the end, the hazardous movement against General Hooker's right, beyond Chancellorsville, was determined upon. This was first suggested, it is said, by Jackson--others have attributed the suggestion to Lee. The point is not material. The plan was adopted, and Lee determined to detach a column of about twenty-one thousand men, under Jackson, to make the attack on the next day. His plan was to await the arrival of Jackson at the point selected for attack, meanwhile engaging the enemy's attention by demonstrations in their front. When Jackson's guns gave the signal that he was engaged, the force in front of the enemy was to advance and participate in the assault; and thus, struck in front and flank at once. General Hooker, it was hoped, would be defeated and driven back across the Rappahannock.

There was another possible result, the defeat of Lee and Jackson by General Hooker. But the desperate character of the situation rendered it necessary to disregard this risk.

By midnight this plan had been determined upon, and at dawn Jackson began to move.

JACKSON'S ATTACK AND FALL.

On the morning of the 2d of May, General Lee was early in the saddle, and rode to the front, where he remained in personal command of the force facing the enemy's main line of battle throughout the day.

This force consisted of the divisions of Anderson and McLaws, and amounted to thirteen thousand men. That left at Fredericksburg, as we have said, under General Early, numbered six thousand men; and the twenty-one thousand which Jackson had taken with him, to strike at the enemy's right, made up the full body of troops under Lee, that is to say, a little over forty thousand, artillerymen included. The cavalry, numbering four or five thousand, were, like the absent Federal cavalry, not actually engaged.

In accordance with the plan agreed upon between Lee and Jackson, the force left in the enemy's front proceeded to engage their attention, and desultory fighting continued throughout the day. General Lee meanwhile awaited the sound of Jackson's guns west of Chancellorsville, and must have experienced great anxiety at this trying moment, although, with his accustomed self-control, he displayed little or none. We shall now leave this comparatively interesting portion of the field, and invite the attention of the reader to the movements of General Jackson, who was about to strike his last great blow, and lose his own life in the moment of victory.

Jackson set out at early dawn, having under him three divisions, commanded by Rhodes and Trimble, in all about twenty-one thousand men, and directed his march over the Old Mine road toward "The Furnace," about a mile or so from and in front of the enemy's main line. Stuart moved with his cavalry on the flank of the column, with the view of masking it from observation; and it reached and passed "The Furnace," where a regiment with artillery was left to guard the road leading thence to Chancellorsville, and repel any attack which might be made upon the rear of the column. Just as the rear-guard passed on, the anticipated attack took place, and the regiment thus left, the Twenty-third Georgia, was suddenly surrounded and the whole force captured. The Confederate artillery, however, opened promptly upon the assailing force, drove it back toward Chancellorsville, and Jackson proceeded on his march without further interruption. He had thus been seen, but it seems that the whole movement was regarded by General Hooker as a retreat of the Confederates southward, a bend in the road at this point toward the south leading to that supposition.

"We know the enemy is flying," General Hooker wrote, on the afternoon of this day, to General Sedgwick, "trying to save his trains; two of Sickles's divisions are among them."

Soon after leaving "The Furnace," however, Jackson, following the same wood-road, turned westward, and, marching rapidly between the walls of thicket, struck into the Brock road, which runs in a direction nearly northwest toward Germanna and Ely's Fords. This would enable him to reach, without discovery, the Orange Plank-road, or Old Turnpike, west of Chancellorsville, as the woods through which the narrow highway ran completely barred him from observation. Unless Federal spies were lurking in the covert, or their scouting-parties of cavalry came in sight of the column, it would move as secure from discovery as though it were a hundred miles distant from the enemy; and against the latter danger of cavalry-scouts, Stuart's presence with his horsemen provided. The movement was thus made without alarming the enemy, and the head of Jackson's column reached the Orange Plank-road, near which point General Fitz Lee invited Jackson to ride up to a slight elevation, from which the defences of the enemy were visible. Jackson did so, and a glance showed him that he was not yet sufficiently upon the enemy's flank. He accordingly turned to an aide and said, pointing to the Orange Plank-road: "Tell my column to cross that road."

The column did so, continuing to advance toward the Rapidan until it reached the Old Turnpike running from the "Old Wilderness Tavern" toward Chancellorsville. At this point, Jackson found himself full on the right flank of General Hooker, and, halting his troops, proceeded promptly to form line of battle for the attack. It was now past four in the afternoon, and the declining sun warned the Confederates to lose no time. The character of the ground was, however, such as to dismay any but the most resolute, and it seemed impossible to execute the intended movement with any thing like rapidity in such a jungle. On both sides of the Old Turnpike rose a wall of thicket, through which it was impossible to move a regular line of battle. All the rules of war must be reversed in face of this obstacle, and the assault on General Hooker's works seemed destined to be made in column of infantry companies, and with the artillery moving in column of pieces.

Despite these serious obstacles, Jackson hastened to form such order of battle as was possible, and with Rodes's division in front, followed by Colston (Trimble) and Hill, advanced steadily down the Old Turnpike, toward Chancellorsville. He had determined, not only to strike the enemy's right flank, but to execute, if possible, a still more important movement. This was, to extend his lines steadily to the left, swing round his left wing, and so interpose himself between General Hooker and the Rapidan. This design of unsurpassed boldness continued to burn in Jackson's brain until he fell, and almost his last words were an allusion to it.

The Federal line of works, which the Confederates thus advanced to assault, extended across the Old Turnpike near the house of Melzi Chancellor, and behind was a second line, which was covered by the Federal artillery in the earthworks near Chancellorsville. The Eleventh Corps, under General Howard, was that destined to receive Jackson's assault. This was made at a few minutes past five in the evening, and proved decisive. The Federal troops were surprised at their suppers, and were wholly unprepared. They had scarcely time to run to their muskets, which were stacked[1] near at hand, when Rodes burst upon them, stormed their works, over which the troops marched almost unresisted, and in a few minutes the entire corps holding the Federal right was in hopeless disorder. Rodes pressed on, followed by the division in his rear, and the affair became rather a hunt than a battle. The Confederates pursued with yells, killing or capturing all with whom they could come up; the Federal artillery rushed off at a gallop, striking against tree-trunks and overturning, and the army of General Hooker seemed about to be hopelessly routed. This is the account given by Northern writers, who represent the effect of Jackson's sudden attack as indescribable. It had a serious effect, as will be subsequently shown, on the _morale_ both of General Hooker and his army. While opposing the heavy demonstrations of General Lee's forces on their left and in front, this storm had burst upon them from a quarter in which no one expected it; they were thus caught between two fires, and, ignorant as they were of the small number of the Confederates, must have regarded the army as seriously imperilled.

[Footnote 1: "Their arms were stacked, and the men were away from them and scattered about for the purpose of cooking their suppers."--_General Hooker_.]

Jackson continued to pursue the enemy on the road to Chancellorsville, intent now upon making his blow decisive by swinging round his left and cutting off the Federal army from the Rappahannock. It was impossible, however, to execute so important a movement until his troops were well in hand, and the two divisions which had made the attack had become mixed up in a very confused manner. They were accordingly directed to halt, and General A.P. Hill, whose division had not been engaged, was sent for and ordered to advance to the front, thus affording the disordered divisions an opportunity to reform their broken lines.

Soon after dispatching this order, Jackson rode out in front of his line, on the Chancellorsville road, in order to reconnoitre in person, and ascertain, if possible, the position and movements of the enemy, then within a few hundred yards of him. It was now between nine and ten o'clock at night. The fighting had temporarily ceased, and the moon, half-seen through misty clouds, lit up the dreary thickets, in which no sound was heard but the incessant and melancholy cries of the whippoorwills. Jackson had ridden forward about a hundred yards in advance of his line, on the turnpike, accompanied by a few officers, and had checked his horse to listen for any sound coming from the direction of Chancellorsville, when suddenly a volley was fired by his own infantry on the right of the road, apparently directed at him and his companions, under the impression that they were a Federal reconnoitring-party. Several of the party fell from their horses, and, wheeling to the left, Jackson galloped into the wood to escape a renewal of the fire. The result was melancholy. He passed directly in front of his men, who had been warned to guard against an attack of cavalry. In their excited state, so near the enemy, and surrounded by darkness, Jackson was supposed to be a Federal cavalryman. The men accordingly fired upon him, at not more than twenty paces, and wounded him in three places--twice in the left arm, and once in the right hand. At the instant when he was struck he was holding his bridle with his left hand, and had his right hand raised, either to protect his face from boughs, or in the strange gesture habitual to him in battle. As the bullets passed through his arm he dropped the bridle of his horse from his left hand, but seized it again with the bleeding fingers of his right hand, when the animal, wheeling suddenly, darted toward Chancellorsville. In doing so he passed beneath the limb of a pine-tree, which struck the wounded man in the face, tore off his cap, and threw him back on his horse, nearly dismounting him. He succeeded, however, in retaining his seat, and regained the road, where he was received in the arms of Captain Wilbourn, one of his staff-officers, and laid at the foot of a tree.

The fire had suddenly ceased, and all was again still. Only Captain Wilbourn and a courier were with Jackson, but a shadowy figure on horseback was seen in the edge of the wood near, silent and motionless. When Captain Wilbourn called to this person, and directed him to ride back and see what troops had thus fired upon them, the silent figure disappeared, and did not return. Who this could have been was long a mystery, but it appears, from a recent statement of General Revere, of the Federal army, that it was himself. He had advanced to the front to reconnoitre, had come on the group at the foot of the tree, and, receiving the order above mentioned, had thought it prudent not to reveal his real character. He accordingly rode into the wood, and regained his own lines.

A few words will terminate our account of this melancholy event in the history of the war--the fall of Jackson. He was supported to the rear by his officers, and during this painful progress gave his last order. General Pender recognized him, and stated that he feared he could not hold his position. Jackson's eye flashed, and he replied with animation, "You must hold your ground, General Pender! You must hold your ground, sir!"

He was now so weak as to be unable to walk, even leaning on the shoulders of his officers. He was accordingly placed on a litter, and borne toward the rear. Before the litter had gone far a furious artillery-fire swept the road from the direction of Chancellorsville, and the bearers lowered it to the earth and lay down beside it. The fire relaxing, they again moved, but one of the bearers stumbled over a root and let the litter fall. Jackson groaned, and as the moonlight fell upon his face it was seen to be so pale that he appeared to be about to die. When asked if he was much hurt, he opened his eyes, however, and said, "No, my friend, don't trouble yourself about me."

He was then borne to the rear, placed in an ambulance, and carried to the hospital at the Old Wilderness Tavern, where he remained until he was taken to Guinea's station, where he died.

Such was the fate of Lee's great lieutenant--the man whom he spoke of as his "right arm"--whose death struck a chill to the hearts of the Southern people from which they never recovered.

V.

THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE.

General Lee was not informed of the misfortune which had befallen his great lieutenant until toward daybreak on the next morning.

This fact was doubtless attributable to the difficult character of the country; the interposition of the Federal army between the two Confederate wings, which rendered a long détour necessary in reaching Lee; and the general confusion and dismay attending Jackson's fall. It would be difficult, indeed, to form an exaggerated estimate of the condition of Jackson's corps at this time. The troops had been thrown into what seemed inextricable disorder, in consequence of the darkness and the headlong advance of the Second (Calston's) Division upon the heels of Rhodes, which had resulted in a complete intermingling of the two commands; and, to make matters worse, General A.P. Hill, the second in command, had been wounded and disabled, nearly at the same moment with Jackson, by the artillery-fire of the enemy. This transferred the command, of military right, to the brave and skilful General Rhodes, the ranking officer after Hill; but Rhodes was only a brigadier-general, and had, for that reason, never come into personal contact with the whole corps, who knew little of him, and was not aware of Jackson's plans, and distrusted, under these circumstances, his ability to conduct to a successful issue so vitally important an operation as that intrusted to this great wing of the Southern army. Stuart, who had gone with his cavalry toward Ely's Ford to make a demonstration on the Federal rear, was therefore sent for, and rode as rapidly as possible to the scene of action, and the command was formally relinquished to him by General Rhodes. Jackson sent Stuart word from Wilderness Tavern to "act upon his own judgment, and do what he thought best, as he had implicit confidence in him;" but, in consequence of the darkness and confusion, it was impossible for Stuart to promptly reform the lines, and thus all things remained entangled and confused.

It was essential, however, to inform General Lee of the state of affairs, and Jackson's chief-of-staff, Colonel Pendleton, requested Captain Wilbourn, who had witnessed all the details of the painful scene in the wood, to go to General Lee and acquaint him with what had taken place, and receive his orders. From a MS. statement of this meritorious officer, we take these brief details of the interview:

Lee was found lying asleep in a little clump of pines near his front, covered with an oil-cloth to protect him from the dews of the night, and surrounded by the officers of his staff, also asleep. It was not yet daybreak, and the darkness prevented the messenger from distinguishing the commander-in-chief from the rest. He accordingly called for Major Taylor, Lee's adjutant-general, and that officer promptly awoke when he was informed of what had taken place. As the conversation continued, the sound awoke General Lee, who asked, "Who is there?" Major Taylor informed him, and, rising upon his elbow, Lee pointed to his blankets, and said: "Sit down here by me, captain, and tell me all about the fight last evening."

He listened without comment during the recital, but, when it was finished, said with great feeling: "Ah! captain, any victory is dearly bought which deprives us of the services of General Jackson, even for a short time."

From this reply it was evident that he did not regard the wounds received by Jackson as of a serious character--as was natural, from the fact that they were only flesh-wounds in the arm and hand--and believed that the only result would be a temporary absence of his lieutenant from command. As Captain Wilbourn continued to speak of the incident, Lee added with greater emotion than at first: "Ah! don't talk about it; thank God it is no worse!"

He then remained silent, but seeing Captain Wilbourn rise, as if to go, he requested him to remain, as he wished to "talk with him some more," and proceeded to ask a number of questions in reference to the position of the troops, who was in command, etc. When informed that Rhodes was in temporary command, but that Stuart had been sent for, he exclaimed: "Rhodes is a gallant, courageous, and energetic officer;" and asked where Jackson and Stuart could be found, calling for paper and pencil to write to them. Captain Wilbourn added that, from what he had heard Jackson say, he thought he intended to get possession, if possible, of the road to United States Ford in the Federal rear, and so cut them off from the river that night, or early in the morning. At these words, Lee rose quickly and said with animation, "These people must be pressed to-day."

It would seem that at this moment a messenger--probably Captain Hotchkiss, Jackson's skilful engineer--arrived from Wilderness Tavern, bringing a note from the wounded general. Lee read it with much feeling, and dictated the following reply:

GENERAL: I have just received your note informing me that you were wounded. I cannot express my regret at the occurrence. Could I have directed events, I should have chosen, for the good of the country, to have been disabled in your stead.

I congratulate you upon the victory, which is due to your skill and energy. R.E. LEE, _General_.

This was dispatched with a second note to Stuart, directing him to assume command, and press the enemy at dawn. Lee then mounted his horse, and, just as the day began to break, formed line of battle opposite the enemy's front, his line extending on the right to the plank-road running from Chancellorsville in the direction of Fredericksburg. This force, under the personal command of Lee, amounted, as we have said, originally to about thirteen thousand men; and, as their loss had not been very severe in the demonstrations made against the enemy on the preceding days, they were in good condition. The obvious course now was to place the troops in a position which would enable them, in the event of Stuart's success in driving the Federal right, to unite the left of Lee's line with the right of Stuart, and so press the Federal army back on Chancellorsville and the river. We shall now return to the left wing of the army, which, in spite of the absence of the commanding general, was the column of attack, which was looked to for the most important results.

In response to the summons of the preceding night, Stuart had come back from the direction of Ely's Ford, at a swift gallop, burning with ardor at the thought of leading Jackson's great corps into battle. The military ambition of this distinguished commander of Lee's horse was great, and he had often chafed at the jests directed at the cavalry arm, and at himself as "only a cavalry-officer." He had now presented to him an opportunity of showing that he was a trained soldier, competent by his nerve and military ability to lead any arm of the service, and greeted the occasion with delight. The men of Jackson had been accustomed to see that commander pass slowly along their lines on a horse as sedate-looking as himself, a slow-moving figure, with little of the "poetry of war" in his appearance. They now found themselves commanded by a youthful and daring cavalier on a spirited animal, with floating plume, silken sash, and a sabre which gleamed in the moonlight, as its owner galloped to and fro cheering the men and marshalling them for the coming assault As he led the lines afterward with joyous vivacity, his sabre drawn, his plume floating proudly, one of the men compared him to Henry of Navarre at the battle of Ivry. But Stuart's spirit of wild gayety destroyed the romantic dignity of the scene. He led the men of Jackson against General Hooker's breastworks bristling with cannon, singing "Old Joe Hooker, will you come out of the Wilderness!"

This sketch will convey a correct idea of the officer who had now grasped the bâton falling from the hand of the great marshal of Lee. It was probable that the advance of the infantry under such a commander would partake of the rush and rapidity of a cavalry-charge; and the sequel justified this view.

At early dawn the Southern lines began to move. Either in consequence of orders from Lee, or following his own conception, Stuart reversed the movement of Jackson, who had aimed to swing round his left and cut off the enemy. He seemed to have determined to extend his right, with the view of uniting with the left of Anderson's division under Lee, and enclosing the enemy in the angle near Chancellorsville. Lee had moved at the same moment on their front, advancing steadily over all obstacles, and a Northern writer, who witnessed the combined attack, speaks of it in enthusiastic terms: "From the large brick house which gives the name to this vicinity," says the writer, speaking of Chancellorsville, "the enemy could be seen, sweeping slowly but confidently, determinedly and surely, through the clearings which extended in front. Nothing could excite more admiration for the qualities of the veteran soldiers than the manner in which the enemy swept out, as they moved steadily onward, the forces which were opposed to them. We say it reluctantly, and for the first time, that the enemy have shown the finest qualities, and we acknowledge on this occasion their superiority in the open field to our own men. They delivered their fire with precision, and were apparently inflexible and immovable under the storm of bullets and shell which they were constantly receiving. Coming to a piece of timber, which was occupied by a division of our own men, half the number were detailed to clear the woods. It seemed certain that here they would be repulsed, but they marched right through the wood, driving our own soldiers out, who delivered their fire and fell back, halted again, fired, and fell back as before, seeming to concede to the enemy, as a matter of course, the superiority which they evidently felt themselves. Our own men fought well. There was no lack of courage, but an evident feeling that they were destined to be beaten, and the only thing for them to do was to fire and retreat."

This description of the steady advance of the Southern line applies rather to the first portion of the attack, which compelled the front line of the Federal army to retire to the stronger ground in rear. When this was reached, and the troops of Lee saw before them the last citadel, the steady advance became a rush. The divisions of Anderson and McLaws, on the right, made a determined charge upon the great force under Generals Hancock, Slocum, and others, in that quarter, and Stuart closed in on the Federal right, steadily extending his line to join on to Anderson.

The spectacle here was superb. As the troops rushed on, Stuart shouted, "Charge! and remember Jackson!" and this watchword seemed to drive the line forward. With Stuart leading them, and singing, in his joyous voice, "Old Joe Hooker, will you come out of the Wilderness!"--for courage, poetry, and seeming frivolity, were strangely mingled in this great soldier--the troops went headlong at the Federal works, and in a few moments the real struggle of the battle of Chancellorsville had begun.

From this instant, when the lines, respectively commanded in person by Lee and by Stuart, closed in with the enemy, there was little manoeuvring of any description. It was an open attempt of Lee, by hard fighting, to crush in the enemy's front, and force them back upon the river. In this arduous struggle it is due to Stuart to say that his generalship largely decided the event, and the high commendation which he afterward received from General Lee justifies the statement. As his lines went to the attack, his quick military eye discerned an elevated point on his right, from which it appeared an artillery-fire woulden filade the Federal line. About thirty pieces of cannon were at once hastened to this point, and a destructive fire opened on the lines of General Slocum, which threw his troops into great confusion. So serious was this fire that General Slocum sent word to General Hooker that his front was being swept away by it, to which the sullen response was, "I cannot make soldiers or ammunition!"

General Hooker was indeed, it seems, at this moment in no mood to take a hopeful view of affairs. The heavy assault of Jackson appears to have as much demoralized the Federal commander as his troops. During the night he had erected a semicircular line of works, in the form of a redan, in his rear toward the river, behind which new works he no doubt contemplated falling back. He now awaited the result of the Southern attack, leaning against a pillar of the porch at the Chancellorsville House, when a cannon-ball struck the pillar, throwing it down, and so stunning the general as to prevent him from retaining the command, which was delegated to General Couch.

The fate of the day had now been decided. The right wing of the Southern army, under Lee, had gradually extended its left to meet the extension of Stuart's right; and this junction of the two wings having been effected, Lee took personal command of all, and advanced his whole front in a decisive assault. Before this the Federal front gave way, and the disordered troops were huddled back--now only a confused and disorganized mass--upon Chancellorsville. The Southern troops pursued with yells, leaping over the earthworks, and driving all before them. A scene of singular horror ensued. The Chancellorsville House, which had been set on fire by shell, was seen to spout flame from every window, and the adjoining woods had, in like manner, caught fire, and were heard roaring over the dead and wounded of both sides alike. The thicket had become the scene of the cruellest of all agonies for the unfortunates unable to extricate themselves. The whole spectacle in the vicinity of the Chancellorsville House, now in Lee's possession, was frightful. Fire, smoke, blood, confused yells, and dying groans, mingled to form the dark picture.

Lee had ridden to the front of his line, following up the enemy, and as he passed before the troops they greeted him with one prolonged, unbroken cheer, in which those wounded and lying upon the ground united. In that cheer spoke the fierce joy of men whom the hard combat had turned into blood-hounds, arousing all the ferocious instincts of the human soul. Lee sat on his horse, motionless, near the Chancellorsville House, his face and figure lit up by the glare of the burning woods, and gave his first attention, even at this exciting moment, to the unfortunates of both sides, wounded, and in danger of being burned to death. While issuing his orders on this subject, a note was brought to him from Jackson, congratulating him upon his victory. After reading it, with evidences of much emotion, he turned to the officer who had brought it and said: "Say to General Jackson that the victory is his, and that the congratulation is due to him."

The Federal army had fallen back in disorder, by this time, toward their second line. It was about ten o'clock in the morning, and Chancellorsville was in Lee's possession.

FLANK MOVEMENT OF GENERAL SEDGWICK.

Lee hastened to bring the Southern troops into order again, and succeeded in promptly reforming his line of battle, his front extending, unbroken, along the Old Turnpike, facing the river.

His design was to press General Hooker, and reap those rich rewards of victory to which the hard fighting of the men had entitled them. Of the demoralized condition of the Federal forces there can be no doubt, and the obvious course now was to follow up their retreat and endeavor to drive them in disorder beyond the Rappahannock.

The order to advance upon the enemy was about to be given, when a messenger from Fredericksburg arrived at full gallop, and communicated intelligence which arrested the order just as it was on Lee's lips.

A considerable force of the enemy was advancing up the turnpike from Fredericksburg, to fall upon his right flank, and upon his rear in case he moved beyond Chancellorsville. The column was that of General Sedgwick. This officer, it will be remembered, had been detached to make a heavy demonstration at Fredericksburg, and was still at that point, with his troops drawn up on the southern bank, three miles below the city, on Saturday night, while Jackson was fighting. On that morning General Hooker had sent for Reynolds's corps, but, even in the absence of this force, General Sedgwick retained under him about twenty-two thousand men; and this column was now ordered to storm the heights at Fredericksburg, march up the turnpike, and attack Lee in flank.

General Sedgwick received the order at eleven o'clock on Saturday night, about the time when Jackson was carried wounded to the rear. He immediately made his preparations to obey, and at daylight moved up from below the city to storm the ridge at Marye's, and march straight upon Chancellorsville. In the first assaults he failed, suffering considerable loss from the fire of the Southern troops under General Barksdale, commanding the line at that point; but, subsequently forming an assaulting column for a straight rush at the hill, he went forward with impetuosity; drove the Southern advanced line from behind the "stone wall," which Generals Sumner and Hooker had failed in reaching, and, about eleven in the morning, stormed Marye's Hill, and killed, captured, or dispersed, the entire Southern force there. The Confederates fought hand to hand over their guns with the enemy for the possession of the crest, but their numbers were inadequate; the entire surviving force fell back over the Telegraph road southward, and General Sedgwick promptly advanced up the turnpike leading from Fredericksburg to Chancellorsville, to assail General Lee.

It was the intelligence of this threatening movement which now reached Lee, and induced him to defer further attack at the moment upon General Hooker. He determined promptly to send a force against General Sedgwick, and this resolution seems to have been based upon sound military judgment. There was little to be feared now from General Hooker, large as the force still was under that officer. He was paralyzed for the time, and would not probably venture upon any attempt to regain possession of Chancellorsville. With General Sedgwick it was different. His column was comparatively fresh, was flushed with victory, and numbered, even after his loss of one thousand, more than twenty thousand men. Compared with the entire Federal army, this force was merely a detachment, it was true, but it was a detachment numbering as many men, probably, as the effective of Lee's entire army at Chancellorsville. He had carried into that fight about thirty-four thousand men. His losses had been heavy, and the commands were much shaken. To have advanced under these circumstances upon General Hooker, without regard to General Sedgwick's twenty thousand troops, inspired by recent victory, would have resulted probably in disaster.

These comments may detract from that praise of audacity accorded to Lee in making this movement. It seems rather to have been the dictate of common-sense; to have advanced upon General Hooker would have been the audacity.

It was thus necessary to defer the final blow at the main Federal army in his front, and General Lee promptly detached a force of about five brigades to meet General Sedgwick, which, with Early's command, now in rear of the Federal column, would, it was supposed, suffice.

This body moved speedily down the turnpike to check the enemy, and encountered the head of his column about half-way, near Salem Church. General Wilcox, who had been sent by Lee to watch Banks's Ford, had already moved to bar the Federal advance. When the brigades sent by Lee joined him, the whole force formed line of battle: a brisk action ensued, continuing from about four in the afternoon until nightfall, when the fighting ceased, and General Sedgwick made no further attempt to advance on that day.

These events took place, as we have said, on Sunday afternoon, the day of the Federal defeat at Chancellorsville. On Monday morning (May 4th), the theatre of action on the southern bank of the Rappahannock presented a very remarkable complication. General Early had been driven from the ridge at Fredericksburg; but no sooner had General Sedgwick marched toward Chancellorsville, than Early returned and seized upon Marye's Heights again. He was thus in General Sedgwick's rear, and ready to prevent him from recrossing the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg. Sedgwick meanwhile was moving to assail Lee's flank and rear, and Lee was ready to attack General Hooker in front. Such was the singular entanglement of the Northern and Southern forces on Monday morning after the battle of Chancellorsville. What the result was to be the hours of that day were now to decide.

Lee resolved first, if possible, to crush General Sedgwick, when it was his design to return and make a decisive assault upon General Hooker. In accordance with this plan, he on Monday morning went in personal command of three brigades of Anderson's division, reached the vicinity of Salem Church, and proceeded to form line of battle with the whole force there. Owing to unforeseen delays, the attack was not begun until late in the afternoon, when the whole line advanced upon General Sedgwick, Lee's aim being to cut him off from the river. In this he failed, the stubborn resistance of the Federal forces enabling them to hold their ground until night. At that time, however, they seemed to waver and lose heart, whether from receiving intelligence of General Hooker's mishap, or from other causes, is not known. They were now pressed by the Southern troops, and finally gave way. General Sedgwick retreated rapidly but in good order to Banks's Ford, where a pontoon had been fortunately laid, and this enabled him to cross his men. The passage was effected under cover of darkness, the Southern cannon firing upon the retreating column; and, with this, ended the movement of General Sedgwick.

On Tuesday morning Lee returned with his men toward Chancellorsville, and during the whole day was busily engaged in preparation for a decisive attack upon General Hooker on the next morning.

When, however, the Southern sharp-shooters felt their way, at daylight, toward the Federal position, it was found that the works were entirely deserted.

General Hooker had recrossed the river, spreading pine-boughs on the pontoon bridge to muffle the sound of his artillery-wheels.

So the great advance ended.

VII.

LEE'S GENERALSHIP AND PERSONAL DEMEANOR DURING THE CAMPAIGN.

The movements of the two armies in the Chancellorsville campaign, as it is generally styled, have been so fully described in the foregoing pages, that little comment upon them is here necessary. The main feature which attracts attention, in surveying the whole series of operations, is the boldness, amounting to apparent recklessness, of Lee; and, first, the excellent generalship, and then the extraordinary tissue of military errors, of General Hooker.

Up to the 1st of May, when he emerged from the Chancellorsville thicket, every thing had succeeded with the Federal commander, and deserved to succeed. He had successfully brought over his great force, which he himself described as the "finest army on the planet," and occupied strong ground east of Chancellorsville, on the road to Fredericksburg. General Sedgwick was absent at the latter place with a strong detachment of the army, but the main body covered Banks's Ford, but twelve miles from the city, and by the afternoon of this day the whole army might have been concentrated. Then the fate of Lee would seem to have been decided. He had not only a very small army, but that army was scattered, and liable to be cut off in detail. General Sedgwick menaced his right at Fredericksburg--General Hooker was in front of his left near Chancellorsville--and to crush one of these wings before the other could come to its assistance seemed a work of no very great difficulty. General Hooker appears, however, to have distrusted his ability to effect this result, and, finding that General Lee was advancing with his main body to attack him, retired, from his strong position in the open country, to the dense thicket around Chancellorsville. That this was a grave military error there can be no doubt, as, by this retrograde movement, General Hooker not only discouraged his troops, who had been elated by his confident and inspiring general orders, but lost the great advantage of the open country, where his large force could be successfully manoeuvred.

Lee took instant advantage of this fault in his adversary, and boldly pressed the force retiring into the Wilderness, where, on the night of the 1st of May, General Hooker was shut up with his army. This unforeseen result presented the adversaries now in an entirely new light. The Federal army, which had been promised by its commander a speedy march upon Richmond in pursuit of Lee, had, instead of advancing, made a backward movement; and Lee, who it had been supposed would retreat, was now following and offering them battle.

The daring resolution of Lee, to divide his army and attack the Federal right, followed. It would seem unjust to General Hooker greatly to blame him for the success of that blow, which could not have been reasonably anticipated. In determining upon this, one of the most extraordinary movements of the war, General Lee proceeded in defiance of military rules, and was only justified in his course by the desperate character of the situation of affairs. It was impossible to make any impression upon General Hooker's front or left, owing to the elaborate defences in both quarters; it was, therefore, necessary either to retire, or attack in a different direction. As a retreat, however, upon Richmond would have surrendered to the enemy a large and fertile tract of country, it was desirable, if possible, to avoid that alternative; and the attack on the Federal right followed. The results of this were truly extraordinary. The force routed and driven back in disorder by General Jackson was but a single corps, and that corps, it is said, not a legitimate part of the old Army of the Potomac; but the disorder seems to have communicated itself to the whole army, and to have especially discouraged General Hooker. In describing the scene in question, we refrained from dwelling upon the full extent of the confusion into which the Federal forces were thrown: some sentences, taken from Northern accounts, may lead to a better understanding of the result. After Jackson's assault, a Northern historian says: "The open plain around Chancellorsville presented such a spectacle as a simoom sweeping over the desert might make. Through the dusk of nightfall a rushing whirlwind of men and artillery and wagons swept down the road, past headquarters, and on toward the fords of the Rappahannock; and it was in vain that the staff opposed their persons and drawn sabres to the panic-stricken fugitives." Another writer, an eye-witness, says the spectacle presented was that of "solid columns of infantry retreating at double-quick; a dense mass of beings flying; hundreds of cavalry-horses, left riderless at the first discharge from the rebels, dashing frantically about in all directions; scores of batteries flying from the field; battery-wagons, ambulances, horses, men, cannon, caissons, all jumbled and tumbled together in one inextricable mass--the stampede universal, the disgrace general."

After all, however, it was but one corps of the Federal army which had been thus thrown into disorder, and General Hooker had no valid grounds for distrusting his ability to defeat Lee in a more decisive action. There are many reasons for coming to the conclusion that he did from that moment distrust his powers. He had courageously hastened to the assailed point, ordering the men to "throw themselves into the breach," and receive Jackson's troops "on the bayonet;" but, after this display of soldierly resolution, General Hooker appears to have lost some of that nerve which should never desert a soldier, and on the same night sent engineers to trace out a new line of defences in his rear, to which, it seems, he already contemplated the probability of being forced to retire. Why he came to take this depressed view of the situation of affairs, it is difficult to say. One of General Sedgwick's corps reached him on this night, and his force at Chancellorsville still amounted to between ninety and one hundred thousand men, about thrice that of Lee. No decisive trial of strength had yet taken place between the two armies; and yet the larger force was constructing defences in rear to protect them from the smaller--a circumstance not tending, it would seem, to greatly encourage the troops whose commander was thus providing for a safe retreat.

The subsequent order to General Sedgwick to march up from Fredericksburg and assail Lee's right was judicious, and really saved the army from a great disaster. Lee was about to follow up the discouraged forces of General Hooker as they fell back toward the river; and, as the Southern army was flushed with victory, the surrender of the great body might have ensued. This possible result was prevented by the flank movement of General Sedgwick, and some gratitude for assistance so important from his able lieutenant would have seemed natural and graceful in General Hooker. This view of the subject does not seem, however, to have been taken by the Federal commander. He subsequently charged the defeat of Chancellorsville upon General Sedgwick, who he declared had "failed in a prompt compliance with his orders."[1] The facts do not bear out this charge, as the reader has seen. General Sedgwick received the order toward midnight on Saturday, and, at eleven o'clock on Sunday morning, had passed over that stubborn "stone wall" which, in the battle of the preceding December, General Hooker's column had not even been able to reach; had stormed Marye's Hill, which General Hooker had described, in vindication of his own failure to carry the position, as "masonry," "a fortification," and "a mountain of rock;" and had marched thereafter so promptly as to force Lee, in his own defence, to arrest the second advance upon the Federal main body, and divert a considerable force to meet the attack on his flank.

[Footnote 1: General Hooker in Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, Part I., page 130. This great collection is a valuable repository of historic details, and contains the explanation of many interesting questions.]

After the repulse of General Sedgwick, and his retreat across the Rappahannock, General Hooker seems to have been completely discouraged, and hastened to put the river between himself and Lee. His losses in the battles of Saturday and Sunday had amounted to seventeen thousand one hundred and ninety-seven killed and wounded and missing, fourteen pieces of artillery, and twenty thousand stand of arms. The Confederate loss was ten thousand two hundred and eighty-one. Contrary to the ordinary course of things the assailing force had lost a less number of men than that assailed.

The foregoing reflections, which necessarily involve a criticism of General Hooker, arise naturally from a review of the events of the campaign, and seem justified by the circumstances. There can be no inducement for the present writer to underrate the military ability of the Federal commander, as that want of ability rather detracts from than adds to the merit of General Lee in defeating him. It may be said, indeed, that without these errors and shortcomings of General Hooker, Lee, humanly speaking, must have been either defeated or forced to retire upon Richmond.

After giving full weight, however, to all the advantages derived from the extraordinary Federal oversights and mistakes, General Lee's merit in this campaign was greater, perhaps, than in any other during his entire career. Had he left behind him no other record than this, it alone would have been sufficient to have conferred upon him the first glories of arms, and handed his name down to posterity as that of one of the greatest soldiers of history. It is difficult to discover a single error committed by him, in the whole series of movements, from the moment when General Sedgwick crossed at Fredericksburg, to the time of General Hooker's retreat beyond the Rappahannock. It may appear that there was unnecessary delay in permitting Tuesday to pass without a final advance upon General Hooker, in his second line of intrenchments; but, no doubt, many circumstances induced Lee to defer this attack--the fatigue of his troops, consequent upon the fighting of the four preceding days, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday; the necessity of reforming his battalions for the final blow; and the anticipation that General Hooker, who still had at his command a force of more than one hundred thousand men, would not so promptly relinquish his campaign, and retire.

With the exception of this error, if it be such, Lee had made no single false step in the whole of his movements. The campaign was round, perfect, and complete--such as a student of the art of war might pore over, and analyze as an instance of the greatest principles of military science "clothed in act." The most striking features of Lee's movements were their rapidity and audacity. It had been the fashion with some persons to speak of Lee as slow and cautious in his operations, and this criticism had not been completely silenced even in the winter of 1862, when his failure to crush General Burnside afforded his detractors another opportunity of repeating the old charge. After the Chancellorsville campaign these fault-finders were silenced--no one could be found to listen to them. The whole Southern movement completely contradicted their theory. At the first intelligence of the advance of General Hooker's main body across the upper Rappahannock, Lee rode rapidly in that direction, and ordered his troops at the fords of the river to fall back to Chancellorsville. He then returned, and, finding that General Sedgwick had crossed at Fredericksburg, held a prompt consultation with Jackson, when it was decided at once to concentrate the main body of the army in front of General Hooker's column. At the word, Jackson moved; Lee followed. On the 1st of May, the enemy were pressed back upon Chancellorsville; on the 2d, his right was crushed, and his army thrown into confusion; on the 3d, he was driven from Chancellorsville, and, but for the flank movement of General Sedgwick, which Lee was not in sufficient force to prevent, General Hooker would, upon that same day, Sunday, have in all probability suffered a decisive defeat.

In the course of four days Lee had thus advanced, and checked, and then attacked and repulsed with heavy slaughter, an army thrice as large as his own. On the last day of April he had been nearly enveloped by a host of about one hundred and twenty thousand men. On the 3d day of May their main body was in disorderly retreat; and at daylight on the morning of the 6th there was not a Federal soldier, with the exception of the prisoners taken, on the southern bank of the Rappahannock.

During all these critical scenes, when the fate of the Confederate capital, and possibly of the Southern cause, hung suspended in the balance, General Lee preserved, as thousands of persons can testify, the most admirable serenity and composure, without that jubilant confidence displayed by General Hooker in his address to the troops, and the exclamations to his officers. Lee was equally free from gloom or any species of depression. His spirits seemed to rise under the pressure upon him, and at times he was almost gay. When one of General Jackson's aides hastened into his tent near Fredericksburg, and with great animation informed him that the enemy were crossing the river, in heavy force in his front, he seemed to be amused by that circumstance, and said, smiling: "Well, I _heard_ firing, and I was beginning to think it was time some of you lazy young fellows were coming to tell me what it was all about. Say to General Jackson that he knows just as well what to do with the enemy as I do."

The commander-in-chief who could find time at such a moment to indulge in _badinage_, must have possessed excellent nerve; and this composure, mingled with a certain buoyant hopefulness, as of one sure of the event, remained with Lee throughout the whole great wrestle with General Hooker. He retained to the end his simple and quiet manner, divested of every thing like excitement. In the consultation with Jackson, on the night of the 1st of May, when the crisis was so critical, his demeanor indicated no anxiety; and when, as we have said, the news came of Jackson's wound, he said simply, "Sit down here, by me, captain, and tell me all about the fight last evening"--adding, "Ah! captain, any victory is dearly bought which deprives us of the services of General Jackson even for a short time. Don't talk about it--thank God, it is no worse!" The turns of expression here are those of a person who permits nothing to disturb his serenity, and indulges his gentler and tenderer feelings even in the hot atmosphere of a great conflict. The picture presented is surely an interesting and beautiful one. The human being who uttered the good-natured criticism at the expense of the "lazy young fellows," and who greeted the news of Jackson's misfortune with a sigh as tender as that of a woman, was the soldier who had "seized the masses of his force with the grasp of a Titan, and swung them into position as a giant might fling a mighty stone." To General Hooker's threat to crush him, he had responded by crushing General Hooker; nearly surrounded by the huge cordon of the Federal army, he had cut the cordon and emerged in safety. General Hooker with his one hundred thousand men had retreated to the north bank of the Rappahannock, and, on the south bank, Lee with his thirty thousand remained erect, threatening, and triumphant.

We have not presented in these pages the orders of Lee, on various occasions, as these papers are for the most part of an "official" character, and not of great interest to the general reader. We shall, however, occasionally present these documents, and here lay before the reader the orders of both General Hooker and General Lee, after the battle of Chancellorsville, giving precedence to the former. The order of the Federal commander was as follows:

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, _May_ 6,1863.

The major-general commanding tenders to this army his congratulations on its achievements of the last seven days. If it has not accomplished all that was expected, the reasons are well known to the army. It is sufficient to say, they were of a character not to be foreseen or prevented by human sagacity or resources.

In withdrawing from the south bank of the Rappahannock, before delivering a general battle to our adversaries, the army has given renewed evidence in its confidence in itself, and its fidelity to the principles it represents.

By fighting at a disadvantage, we would have been recreant to our trust, to ourselves, to our cause, and to our country. Profoundly loyal, and conscious of its strength, the Army of the Potomac will give or decline battle whenever its interests or honor may command it.

By the celerity and secrecy of our movements, our advance and passage of the river were undisputed, and on our withdrawal not a rebel dared to follow us. The events of the last week may well cause the heart of every officer and soldier of the army to swell with pride.

We have added new laurels to our former renown. We have made long marches, crossed rivers, surprised the enemy in his intrenchments, and, whenever we have fought, we have inflicted heavier blows than those we have received.

We have taken from the enemy five thousand prisoners, and fifteen colors, captured seven pieces of artillery, and placed _hors de combat_ eighteen thousand of our foe's chosen troops.

We have destroyed his depots filled with vast amounts of stores, damaged his communications, captured prisoners within the fortifications of his capital, and filled his country with fear and consternation.

We have no other regret than that caused by the loss of our brave companions, and in this we are consoled by the conviction that they have fallen in the holiest cause ever submitted to the arbitration of battle.

By command of Major-General HOOKER:

S. WILLIAMS, _Assistant Adjutant-General_

General Lee's order was as follows:

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA,

_May_ 7,1863.

With heart-felt gratification, the general commanding expresses to the army his sense of the heroic conduct displayed by officers and men during the arduous operations in which they have just been engaged.

Under trying vicissitudes of heat and storm you attacked the enemy, strongly intrenched in the depths of a tangled wilderness, and again on the hills of Fredericksburg, fifteen miles distant, and by the valor that has triumphed on so many fields forced him once more to seek safety beyond the Rappahannock. While this glorious victory entitles you to the praise and gratitude of the nation, we are especially called upon to return our grateful thanks to the only Giver of victory, for the signal deliverances He has wrought.

It is therefore earnestly recommended that the troops unite on Sunday next in ascribing unto the Lord of hosts the glory due unto His name.

Let us not forget, in our rejoicing, the brave soldiers who have fallen in defence of their country; and, while we mourn their loss, let us resolve to emulate their noble example.

The army and the country alike lament the absence for a time of one to whose bravery, energy, and skill, they are so much indebted for success.

The following letter from the President of the Confederate States is communicated to the army, as an expression of his appreciation of their success:

"I have received your dispatch, and reverently unite with you in giving praise to God for the success with which He has crowned our arms. In the name of the people I offer my cordial thanks, and the troops under your command, for this addition to the unprecedented series of great victories which our army has achieved. The universal rejoicing produced by this happy result will be mingled with a general regret for the good and the brave who are numbered among the killed and the wounded."

R.E. LEE, _General_.

VIII.

PERSONAL RELATIONS OF LEE AND JACKSON.

The most important incident of the great battle of Chancellorsville was the fall of Jackson. The services of this illustrious soldier had now become almost indispensable to General Lee, who spoke of him as his "right arm;" and the commander-in-chief had so long been accustomed to lean upon the strong shoulder of his lieutenant, that now, when this support was withdrawn, he seems to have felt the loss of it profoundly.

In the war, indeed, there had arisen no soldier who so powerfully drew the public eye as Jackson. In the opinion of many persons, he was a greater and abler commander than Lee himself; and, although such an opinion will not be found to stand after a full review of the characters and careers of the two leaders, there was sufficient ground for it to induce many fair and intelligent persons to adopt it. Jackson had been almost uniformly successful. He had conducted to a triumphant issue the arduous campaign of the Valley, where he was opposed in nearly every battle by a force much larger than his own; and these victories, in a quarter so important, and at a moment so critical, had come, borne on the wind of the mountain, to electrify and inspire the hearts of the people of Richmond and the entire Confederacy. Jackson's rapid march and assault on General McClellan's right on the Chickahominy had followed; he then advanced northward, defeated the vanguard of the enemy at Cedar Mountain, led the great column of Lee against the rear of General Pope, destroyed Manassas, held his ground until Lee arrived, and bore an important part in the battle which ensued. Thence he had passed to Maryland, fallen upon Harper's Ferry and captured it, returned to fight with Lee at Sharpsburg, and in that battle had borne the brunt of the enemy's main assault with an unbroken front. That the result was a drawn battle, and not a Southern defeat, was due to Lee's generalship and Jackson's fighting. The retrograde movement to the lowland followed, and Jackson was left in the Valley to embarrass McClellan's advance. In this he perfectly succeeded, and then suddenly reappeared at Fredericksburg, where he received and repulsed one of the two great assaults of the enemy. The battle of Chancellorsville followed, and Lee's statement of the part borne in this hard combat by Jackson has been given. The result was due, he said, not to his own generalship, but to the skill and energy of his lieutenant, whose congratulations he refused to receive, declaring that the victory was Jackson's.

Here had at last ended the long series of nearly unbroken victories. Jackson had become the _alter ego_ of Lee, and it is not difficult to understand the sense of loss felt by the commander-in-chief. In addition to this natural sentiment, was deep regret at the death of one personally dear to him, and to whom he was himself an object of almost reverent love. The personal relations of Lee and Jackson had, from first to last, remained the same--not the slightest cloud had ever arisen to disturb the perfect union in each of admiration and affection for the other. It had never occurred to these two great soldiers to ask what their relative position was in the public eye--which was most spoken of and commended or admired. Human nature is weak at best, and the fame of Jackson, mounting to its dazzling zenith, might have disturbed a less magnanimous soul than Lee's. There is not, however, the slightest reason to believe that Lee ever gave the subject a thought. Entirely free from that vulgar species of ambition which looks with cold eyes upon the success of others, as offensive to its own _amour-propre_ Lee never seems to have instituted any comparison between himself and Jackson--greeted praise of his famous lieutenant with sincere pleasure--and was the first upon every occasion, not only to express the fullest sense of Jackson's assistance, and the warmest admiration of his genius as a soldier, but to attribute to him, as after the battle of Chancellorsville, _all_ the merit of every description.

It is not possible to contemplate this august affection and admiration of the two soldiers for each other, without regarding it as a greater glory to them than all their successes in arms. Lee's opinion of Jackson, and personal sentiment toward him, have been set forth in the above sentences. The sentiment of Jackson for Lee was as strong or stronger. He regarded him with mingled love and admiration. To excite such feelings in a man like Jackson, it was necessary that Lee should be not only a soldier of the first order of genius, but also a good and pious man. It was in these lights that Jackson regarded his commander, and from first to last his confidence in and admiration for him never wavered. He had defended Lee from the criticism of unskilled or ignorant persons, from the time when he assumed command of the army, in the summer of 1862. At that time some one spoke of Lee, in Jackson's presence, as "slow." The criticism aroused the indignation of the silent soldier, and he exclaimed: "General Lee is _not_ 'slow.' No one knows the weight upon his heart--his great responsibilities. He is commander-in-chief, and he knows that, if an army is lost, it cannot be replaced. No! there may be some persons whose good opinion of me may make them attach some weight to my views, and, if you ever hear that said of General Lee, I beg you will contradict it in my name. I have known General Lee for five-and-twenty years. He is cautious. He ought to be. But he is _not_ 'slow.' Lee is a phenomenon. He is the only man whom I would follow blindfold!"

The abrupt and energetic expressions of Jackson on this occasion indicate his profound sense of the injustice done Lee by these criticisms; and it would be difficult to imagine a stronger statement than that here made by him. It will be conceded that he himself was competent to estimate soldiership, and in Jackson's eyes Lee was "a phenomenon--the only man whom he would follow blindfold." The subsequent career of Lee seems to have strengthened and intensified this extreme admiration. What Lee advised or did was always in Jackson's eyes the very best that could be suggested or performed. He yielded his own opinions, upon every occasion, with perfect readiness and cheerfulness to those of Lee, as to the master-mind; loved him, revered him, looked up to him, and never seems to have found fault with him but upon one occasion--when he received Lee's note of congratulation after Chancellorsville. He then said: "General Lee is very kind; but he should give the glory to God."

This affection and admiration were fully returned by General Lee, who consulted Jackson upon every occasion, and confided in him as his personal friend. There was seldom any question between them of superior and subordinate--never, except when the exigency required that the decision should be made by Lee as commander-in-chief. Jackson's supreme genius, indeed, made this course natural, and no further praise is due Lee in this particular, save that of modesty and good sense; but these qualities are commendable and not universal. He committed the greatest undertakings to Jackson with the utmost confidence, certain that he would do all that could be done; and some words of his quoted above express this entire confidence. "Say to General Jackson," he replied to the young staff-officer at Fredericksburg, "that he knows just as well what to do with the enemy as I do."

Lee's personal affection was strikingly displayed after the battle of Chancellorsville, when Jackson lay painfully, but no one supposed mortally, wounded, first at Wilderness Tavern, and then at Ginney's. Prevented from visiting the wounded man, by the responsibilities of command, now all the greater from Jackson's absence, and not regarding his hurt as serious, as indeed it did not appear to be until toward the last, Lee sent him continual messages containing good wishes and inquiries after his health. The tone of these messages is very familiar and affectionate, and leaves no doubt of the character of the relations between the two men.

"Give him my affectionate regards," he said to one officer, "and tell him to make haste and get well, and come back to me as soon as he can. He has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right."

When the wound of the great soldier took a bad turn, and it began to be whispered about that the hurt might prove fatal, Lee was strongly moved, and said with deep feeling: "Surely General Jackson must recover! God will not take him from us, now that we need him so much. Surely he will be spared to us, in answer to the many prayers which are offered for him!"

He paused after uttering these words, laboring evidently under very deep and painful emotion. After remaining silent for some moments, he added: "When you return I trust you will find him better. When a suitable occasion offers, give him my love, and tell him that I wrestled in prayer for him last night, as I never prayed, I believe, for myself."

The tone of these messages is, as we have said, that of familiar affection, as from one valued friend to another. The expression, "Give him my love," is a Virginianism, which is used only when two persons are closely and firmly bound by long association and friendship. Such had been the case with Lee and Jackson, and in the annals of the war there is no other instance of a friendship so close, affectionate, and unalloyed.

Jackson died on the 10th of May, and the unexpected intelligence shocked Lee profoundly. He mourned the death of the illustrious soldier with a sorrow too deep almost to find relief in tears; and issued a general order to the troops, which was in the following words:

With deep grief the commanding general announces to the army the death of Lieutenant-General T.J. Jackson, who expired on the 10th inst., at quarter-past three P.M. The daring, skill, and energy of this great and good soldier, by the decree of an All-wise Providence, are now lost to us. But, while we mourn his death, we feel that his spirit still lives, and will inspire the whole army with his indomitable courage and unshaken confidence in God, as our hope and strength. Let his name be a watchword to his corps, who have followed him to victory on so many fields. Let his officers and soldiers emulate his invincible determination to do every thing in defence of our beloved country. R.E. LEE, _General_.

It is probable that the composition of this order cost General Lee one of the severest pangs he ever experienced.

IX.

CIRCUMSTANCES LEADING TO THE INVASION OF PENNSYLVANIA.

The defeat of General Hooker at Chancellorsville was the turning-point of the war, and for the first time there was apparently a possibility of inducing the Federal Government to relinquish its opposition to the establishment of a separate authority in the South. The idea of the formation of a Southern Confederacy, distinct from the old Union, had, up to this time, been repudiated by the authorities at Washington as a thing utterly out of the question; but the defeat of the Federal arms in the two great battles of the Rappahannock had caused the most determined opponents of separation to doubt whether the South could be coerced to return to the Union; and, what was equally or more important, the proclamations of President Lincoln, declaring the slaves of the South free, and placing the United States virtually under martial law, aroused a violent clamor from the great Democratic party of the North, who loudly asserted that all constitutional liberty was disappearing.

This combination of non-success in military affairs and usurpation by the Government emboldened the advocates of peace to speak out plainly, and utter their protest against the continuance of the struggle, which they declared had only resulted in the prostration of all the liberties of the country. Journals and periodicals, violently denunciatory of the course pursued by the Government, all at once made their appearance in New York and elsewhere. A peace convention was called to meet in Philadelphia. Mr. Vallandigham, nominee of the Democratic party for Governor of Ohio, eloquently denounced the whole policy of endeavoring to subjugate the sovereign States of the South; and Judge Curtis, of Boston, formerly Associate Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, published a pamphlet in which the Federal President was stigmatized as a usurper and tyrant. "I do not see," wrote Judge Curtis, "that it depends upon the Executive decree whether a servile war shall be invoked to help twenty millions of the white race to assert the rightful authority of the Constitution and laws of their country over those who refuse to obey them. But I do see that this proclamation" (emancipating the Southern slaves) "asserts the power of the Executive to make such a decree! I do not perceive how it is that my neighbors and myself, residing remote from armies and their operations, and where all the laws of the land may be enforced by constitutional means, should be subjected to the possibility of arrest and imprisonment and trial before a military commission, and punishment at its discretion, for offences unknown to the law--a possibility to be converted into a fact at the mere will of the President, or of some subordinate officer, clothed by him with this power. But I do perceive that this Executive power is asserted.... It must be obvious to the meanest capacity that, if the President of the United States has an _implied_ constitutional right, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, in time of war, to disregard any one positive prohibition of the Constitution, or to exercise any one power not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, because in his judgment he may thereby 'best subdue the enemy,' he has the same right, for the same reason, to disregard each and every provision of the Constitution, and to exercise all power _needful in his opinion_ to enable him 'best to subdue the enemy.' ... The time has certainly come when the people of the United States _must_ understand and _must_ apply those great rules of civil liberty which have been arrived at by the self-devoted efforts of thought and action of their ancestors during seven hundred years of struggle against arbitrary power."

So far had reached the thunder of Lee's guns at Chancellorsville. Their roar seemed to have awakened throughout the entire North the great party hitherto lulled to slumber by the plea of "military necessity," or paralyzed by the very extent of the Executive usurpation which they saw, but had not had heart to oppose. On all sides the advocates of peace on the basis of separation were heard raising their importunate voices; and in the North the hearts of the people began to thrill with the anticipation of a speedy termination of the bloody and exhausting struggle. The occasion was embraced by Mr. Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederate States, to propose negotiations. This able gentleman wrote from Georgia on the 12th of June to President Davis, offering to go to Washington and sound the authorities there on the subject of peace. He believed that the moment was propitious, and wished to act before further military movements were undertaken--especially before any further projects of invasion by Lee--which would tend, he thought, to silence the peace party at the North, and again arouse the war spirit. The letter of Mr. Stephens was written on the 12th of June, and President Davis responded by telegraph a few days afterward, requesting Mr. Stephens to come to Richmond. He reached that city on the 22d or 23d of June, but by that time Lee's vanguard was entering Maryland, and Gettysburg speedily followed, which terminated all hopes of peace.

The plan of moving the Southern army northward, with the view of invading the Federal territory, seems to have been the result of many circumstances. The country was elated with the two great victories of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and the people were clamorous for active operations against an enemy who seemed powerless to stand the pressure of Southern steel. The army, which had been largely augmented by the return of absentees to its ranks, new levies, and the recall of Longstreet's two divisions from Suffolk, shared the general enthusiasm; and thus a very heavy pressure was brought to bear upon the authorities and on General Lee, in favor of a forward movement, which, it was supposed, would terminate in a signal victory and a treaty of peace.

Lee yielded to this view of things rather than urged it. He was not opposed to an offensive policy, and seems, indeed, to have shared the opinion of Jackson that "the Scipio Africanus policy" was the best for the South. His theory from the beginning of the war had been, that the true policy of the South was to keep the enemy as far as possible from the interior, fighting on the frontier or on Federal soil, if possible. That of the South would there thus be protected from the ravages of the enemy, and the further advantage would accrue, that the Confederate capital, Richmond, would at all times be safe from danger. This was an important consideration, as events subsequently showed. As long as the enemy were held at arm's-length, north of the Rappahannock, Richmond, with her net-work of railroads connecting with every part of the South, was safe, and the Government, undisturbed in their capital, remained a power in the eyes of the world. But, with an enemy enveloping the city, and threatening her lines of communication, the tenure of the place by the Government was uncertain. When General Grant finally thus enveloped the city, and laid hold upon the railroads, Lee's army was defeated, and the Government became fugitive, which alone would have struck a mortal blow to its prestige and authority.

It was to arrive at these results, which his sagacity discerned, that Lee always advocated such movements as would throw back the enemy, and drive him, if possible, from the soil of Virginia. Another important consideration was the question of supplies. These were at all times deficient in the Confederate armies, and it was obviously the best policy to protect as much territory, from which supplies might be drawn, as possible. More than ever before, these supplies were now needed; and when General Lee sent, in May or June, a requisition for rations to Richmond, the commissary-general is said to have endorsed upon the paper, "If General Lee wishes rations, let him seek them in Pennsylvania."

The considerations here stated were the main inducements for that great movement northward which followed the battle of Chancellorsville. The army and country were enthusiastic; the Government rather followed than led; and, throughout the month of May, Lee was busily engaged in organizing and equipping his forces for the decisive advance. Experience had now dictated many alterations and improvements in the army. It was divided into three _corps d'armée_, each consisting of three divisions, and commanded by an officer with the rank of lieutenant-general. Longstreet remained at the head of his former corps, Ewell succeeded Jackson in command of "Jackson's old corps," and A.P. Hill was assigned to a third corps made up of portions of the two others. The infantry was thus rearranged in a manner to increase greatly its efficiency, and the artillery arm was entirely reorganized. The old system of assigning one or more batteries or battalions to each division or corps was done away with, and the artillery of the army was made a distinct command, and placed under General W.N. Pendleton, a brave and energetic officer, who was thenceforward Lee's "chief of artillery." The last arm, the cavalry, was also increased in efficiency; and, on the last day of May, General Lee had the satisfaction of finding himself in command of a well-equipped and admirably-officered army of sixty-eight thousand three hundred and fifty-two bayonets, and nearly ten thousand cavalry and artillery--in all, about eighty thousand men. Never before had the Southern army had present for duty, as fighting men, so large a number, except just before the battles on the Chickahominy. There was, however, this great difference between the army then and at this time: in those first months of 1862, it was made up largely of raw troops who had never heard the discharge of a musket in their lives: while now, in May, 1863 the bulk of the army consisted of Lee's veterans, men who had followed him through the fire of Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville, and could be counted on to effect any thing not absolutely beyond human power. General Longstreet, conversing after the war with a gentleman of the North, declared as much. The army at that time, he said, was in a condition to undertake _any thing_.

X.

LEE'S PLANS AND OBJECTS.

The great game of chess was now about to commence, and, taking an illustration from that game, General Lee is reported to have said that he believed he would "swap queens," that is, advance and attempt to capture the city of Washington, leaving General Hooker at liberty, if he chose so to do, to seize in turn upon Richmond. What the result of so singular a manoeuvre would have been, it is impossible to say; it would certainly have proved one of the strangest incidents of a war fruitful in varied and shifting events.

Such a plan of operations, however, if ever seriously contemplated by Lee, was speedily abandoned. He nowhere makes mention of any such design in his published reports, and he probably spoke of it only in jest. His real aim in the great movement now about to commence, is stated with brevity and reserve--then absolutely necessary--but also with sufficient clearness, in his official report. The position of the enemy opposite Fredericksburg was, he says, such as to render an attack upon him injudicious. It was, therefore, desirable to manoeuvre him out of it--force him to return toward Maryland--and thus free the country of his forces. A further result was expected from this movement. The lower Shenandoah Valley was occupied by the enemy under General Milroy, who, with his headquarters at Winchester, harassed the whole region, which he ruled with a rod of iron. With the withdrawal of the Federal army under General Hooker, and before the advance of the Confederates, General Milroy would also disappear, and the fertile fields of the Valley be relieved. The whole force of the enemy would thus, says Lee, "be compelled to leave Virginia, and possibly to draw to its support troops designed to operate against other parts of the country." He adds: "In this way it was supposed that the enemy's plan of campaign for the summer would be broken up, and part of the season of active operations be consumed in the formation of new combinations and the preparations that they would require. In addition to these advantages, it was hoped that other valuable results might be attained by military success," that is to say, by a battle which Lee intended to fight when circumstances were favorable. That he expected to fight, not merely to manoeuvre the enemy from Virginia, is apparent from another sentence of the report. "It was thought," he says, "that the corresponding movements on the part of the enemy, to which those contemplated by us would probably give rise, might _offer a fair opportunity to strike a blow at the army therein, commanded by General Hooker_" the word "therein" referring to the region "north of the Potomac." In the phrase, "other valuable results which might be attained by military success," the reference is plainly to the termination of the contest by a treaty of peace, based upon the independence of the South.

These sentences, taken from the only publication ever made by Lee on the subject of the Gettysburg campaign, express guardedly, but distinctly, his designs. He aimed to draw General Hooker north of the Potomac, clear the Valley, induce the enemy to send troops in other quarters to the assistance of the main Federal army, and, when the moment came, attack General Hooker, defeat him if possible, and thus end the war. That a decisive defeat of the Federal forces at that time in Maryland or Pennsylvania, would have virtually put an end to the contest, there seems good reason to believe. Following the Southern victories of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, a third bloody disaster would, in all human probability, have broken the resolution of the Federal authorities. With Lee thundering at the gates of Washington or Philadelphia, and with the peace party encouraged to loud and importunate protest, it is not probable that the war would have continued. Intelligent persons in the North are said to have so declared, since the war, and the declaration seems based upon good sense.

Before passing from this necessary preface to the narrative of events, it is proper to add that, in the contemplated battle with General Hooker, when he had drawn him north of the Potomac, Lee did not intend to assume a _tactical offensive_, but to force the Federal commander, if possible, to make the attack. [Footnote: "It had not been intended to fight a general battle at such a distance from our base, unless attacked by the enemy."--_Lee's Report_] From this resolution he was afterward induced by circumstances to depart, and the result is known.

What is above written will convey to the reader a clear conception of Lee's views and intentions in undertaking his last great offensive campaign; and we now proceed to the narrative of the movements of the two armies, and the battle of Gettysburg.

XI.

THE CAVALRY-FIGHT AT FLEETWOOD.

Lee began his movement northward on the 3d day of June, just one month after the battle of Chancellorsville. From this moment to the time when his army was concentrated in the vicinity of Gettysburg, his operations were rapid and energetic, but with a cautious regard to the movements of the enemy.

Pursuing his design of manoeuvring the Federal army out of Virginia, without coming to action, Lee first sent forward one division of Longstreet's corps in the direction of Culpepper, another then followed, and, on the 4th and 5th of June, Ewell's entire corps was sent in the same direction--A.P. Hill remaining behind on the south bank of the Rappahannock, near Fredericksburg, to watch the enemy there, and bar the road to Richmond. These movements became speedily known to General Hooker, whose army lay north of the river near that point, and on the 5th he laid a pontoon just below Fredericksburg, and crossed about a corps to the south bank, opposite Hill. This threatening demonstration, however, was not suffered by Lee to arrest his own movements. Seeing that the presence of the enemy there was "intended for the purpose of observation rather than attack," and only aimed to check his operations, he continued the withdrawal of his troops, by way of Culpepper, in the direction of the Shenandoah Valley.

A brilliant pageant, succeeded by a dramatic and stirring incident, was now to prelude the march of Lee into the enemy's territory. On the 8th of June, the day of the arrival of Lee's head of column in Culpepper, a review of Stuart's cavalry took place in a field east of the court-house. The review was a picturesque affair. General Lee was present, sitting his horse, motionless, on a little knoll--the erect figure half concealed by the short cavalry-cape falling from his shoulders, and the grave face overshadowed by the broad gray hat--while above him, from a lofty pole, waved the folds of a large Confederate flag. The long column of about eight thousand cavalry was first drawn up in line, and afterward passed in front of Lee at a gallop--Stuart and his staff-officers leading the charge with sabres at tierce point, a species of military display highly attractive to the gallant and joyous young commander. The men then charged in mimic battle the guns of the "Stuart Horse-Artillery," which were posted upon an adjoining hill; and, as the column of cavalry approached, the artillerists received them with a thunderous discharge of blank ammunition, which rolled like the roar of actual battle among the surrounding hills. This sham-fight was kept up for some time, and no doubt puzzled the enemy on the opposite shore of the Rappahannock. On the next morning--either in consequence of a design formed before the review, or to ascertain what this discharge of artillery meant--two divisions of Federal cavalry, supported by two brigades of "picked infantry," were sent across the river at Kelly's and Beverley's Fords, east of the court-house, to beat up the quarters of Stuart and find what was going on in the Southern camps.

The most extensive cavalry-fight, probably, of the whole war, followed. One of Stuart's brigades, near Beverley's Ford, was nearly surprised and resolutely attacked at daylight by Buford's division, which succeeded in forcing back the brigade a short distance toward the high range called Fleetwood Hill, in the rear. From this eminence, where his headquarters were established, Stuart went to the front at a swift gallop, opened a determined fire of artillery and sharp-shooters upon the advancing enemy, and sent Hampton's division to attack them on their left. Meanwhile, however, the enemy were executing a rapid and dangerous movement against Stuart's, rear. General Gregg, commanding the second Federal cavalry division, crossed at Kelly's Ford below, passed the force left in that quarter, and came in directly on Stuart's rear, behind Fleetwood Hill. In the midst of the hard fight in front, Stuart was called now to defend his rear. He hastened to do so by falling back and meeting the enemy now charging the hill. The attack was repulsed, and the enemy's artillery charged in turn by the Southerners. This was captured and recaptured two or three times, but at last remained in the hands of Stuart.

General Gregg now swung round his right, and prepared to advance along the eastern slope of the hill. Stuart had, however, posted his artillery there, and, as the Federal line began to move, arrested it with a sudden and destructive fire of shell. At the same time a portion of Hampton's division, under the brave Georgian, General P.M.B. Young, was ordered to charge the enemy. The assault was promptly made with the sabre, unaided by carbine or pistol fire, and Young cut down or routed the force in front of him, which dispersed in disorder toward the river. The dangerous assault on the rear of Fleetwood Hill was thus repulsed, and the advance of the enemy on the left, near the river, met with the same ill success. General W.H.F. Lee, son of the commanding general, gallantly charged them in that quarter, and drove them back to the Rappahannock, receiving a severe wound, which long confined him to his bed. Hampton had followed the retreating enemy on the right, under the fire of Stuart's guns from Fleetwood Hill; and by nightfall the whole force had recrossed the Rappahannock, leaving several hundred dead and wounded upon the field. [Footnote: The Southern loss was also considerable. Colonel Williams was killed, Generals Lee and Butler severely wounded--the latter losing his foot--and General Stuart's staff had been peculiarly unfortunate. Of the small group of officers, Captain Farley was killed, Captain White wounded, and Lieutenant Goldsborough captured. The Federal force sustained a great loss in the death of the gallant Colonel Davis, of the Eighth New-York Cavalry, and other officers.]

This reconnoissance in force--the Federal numbers probably amounting to fifteen thousand--had no other result than the discovery of the fact that Lee had infantry in Culpepper. Finding that the event of the fight was critical, General Lee had moved a body of infantry in the direction of the field of action, and the gleam of the bayonets was seen by the enemy. The infantry was not, however, engaged on either side, unless the Federal infantry participated in the initial skirmish near Beverley's Ford, and General Lee's numbers and position were not discovered.

We have dwelt with some detail upon this cavalry combat, which was an animated affair, the hand-to-hand encounter of nearly twenty thousand horsemen throughout a whole day. General Stuart was censured at the time for allowing himself to be "surprised," and a ball at Culpepper Court-House, at which some of his officers were present several days before, was pointed to as the origin of this surprise. The charge was wholly unjust, Stuart not having attended the ball. Nor was there any truth in the further statement that "his headquarters were captured" in consequence of his negligence. His tents on Fleetwood Hill were all sent to the rear soon after daylight; nothing whatever was found there but a section of the horse-artillery, who fought the charging cavalry with sabres and sponge-staffs over the guns; that Fleetwood Hill was at one time in the hands of the enemy, was due not to Stuart's negligence, but to the numbers and excellent soldiership of General Gregg, who made the flank and rear attack while Stuart was breasting that in front.

These detached statements, which may seem unduly minute, are made in justice to a brave soldier, who can no longer defend himself.

XII.

THE MARCH TO GETTYSBURG.

This attempt of the enemy to penetrate his designs had not induced General Lee to interrupt the movement of his infantry toward the Shenandoah Valley. The Federal corps sent across the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg, still remained facing General Hill; and, two days after the Fleetwood fight. General Hooker moved up the river with his main body, advancing the Third Corps to a point near Beverley's Ford. But these movements were disregarded by Lee. On the same day Ewell's corps moved rapidly toward Chester Gap, passed through that defile in the mountain, pushed on by way of Front Royal, and reached Winchester on the evening of the 13th, having in three days marched seventy miles.

The position of the Southern army now exposed it to very serious danger, and at first sight seemed to indicate a deficiency of soldiership in the general commanding it. In face of an enemy whose force was at least equal to his own,[Footnote: General Hooker stated his "effective" at this time to have been diminished to eighty thousand infantry.] Lee had extended his line until it stretched over a distance of about one hundred miles. When Ewell came in sight of Winchester, Hill was still opposite Fredericksburg, and Longstreet half-way between the two in Culpepper. Between the middle and rear corps was interposed the Rapidan River, and between the middle and advanced corps the Blue Ridge Mountains. General Hooker's army was on the north bank of the Rappahannock, well in hand, and comparatively massed, and the situation of Lee's army seemed excellent for the success of a sudden blow at it.

It seems that the propriety of attacking the Southern army while thus _in transitu_, suggested itself both to General Hooker and to President Lincoln, but they differed as to the point and object of the attack. In anticipation of Lee's movement, General Hooker had written to the President, probably suggesting a counter-movement across the Rappahannock, somewhere near Fredericksburg, to threaten Richmond, and thus check Lee's advance. This, however. President Lincoln refused to sanction.

"In case you find Lee coming to the north of the Rappahannock," President Lincoln wrote to General Hooker, "I would by no means cross to the south of it. I would not take any risk of being entangled upon the river, _like an ox jumped half over a fence, and liable to be torn by dogs, front and rear, without a fair chance to gore one way or kick the other_"

Five days afterward the President wrote: "I think Lee's army, and not Richmond, is your true objective point. If he comes toward the Upper Potomac, fight him when opportunity offers. If he stays where he is, _fret him and fret him_."

When intelligence now reached Washington that the head of Lee's column was approaching the Upper Potomac, while the rear was south of the Rappahannock, the President wrote to General Hooker: "_If the head of Lee's army is at Martinsburg, and the tail of it on the plank road_ between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the _animal must be very slim somewhere--could you not break him?_"

General Hooker did not seem to be able to determine upon a decisive course of action, in spite of the tempting opening presented to him by Lee. It would seem that nothing could have been plainer than the good policy of an attack upon Hill at Fredericksburg, which would certainly have checked Lee's movement by recalling Longstreet from Culpepper, and Ewell from the Valley. But this bold operation did not appear to commend itself to the Federal authorities. Instead of reënforcing the corps sent across at Fredericksburg and attacking Hill, General Hooker withdrew the corps, on the 13th, to the north bank of the river, got his forces together, and began to fall back toward Manassas, and even remained in ignorance, it seems, of all connected with his adversary's movements. Even as late as the 17th of June, his chief-of-staff, General Butterfield, wrote to one of his officers; "Try and hunt up somebody from Pennsylvania who knows something, and has a cool enough head to judge what is the actual state of affairs there with regard to the enemy. _My impression is, that Lee's movement on the Upper Potomac is a cover for a cavalry-raid on the south side of the river.... We cannot go boggling around until we know what we are going after._"

Such was the first result of Lee's daring movement to transfer military operations to the region north of the Potomac. A Northern historian has discerned in his plan of campaign an amount of boldness which "seemed to imply a great contempt for his opponent." This is perhaps a somewhat exaggerated statement of the case. Without "boldness" a commander is but half a soldier, and it may be declared that a certain amount of that quality is absolutely essential to successful military operations. But the question is, Did Lee expose himself, by these movements of his army, to probable disaster, if his adversary--equal to the occasion--struck at his flank? A failure of the campaign of invasion would probably have resulted from such an attack either upon Hill at Fredericksburg, or upon Longstreet in Culpepper, inasmuch as Ewell's column, in that event, must have fallen back. But a _defeat_ of the combined forces of Hill and Longstreet, who were within supporting distance of each other, was not an event which General Hooker could count upon with any degree of certainty. The two corps numbered nearly fifty thousand men--that is to say, two-thirds of the Southern army; General Hooker's whole force was but about eighty thousand; and it was not probable that the eighty thousand would be able to rout the fifty thousand, when at Chancellorsville less than this last number of Southerners had defeated one hundred and twenty thousand.

There seems little reason to doubt that General Lee took this view of the subject, and relied on Hill and Longstreet to unite and repulse any attack upon them, while Ewell's great "raiding column" drove forward into the heart of the enemy's territory. That the movement was bold, there can certainly be no question; that it was a reckless and hazardous operation, depending for its success, in Lee's eyes, solely on the supposed inefficiency of General Hooker, does not appear. These comments delay the narrative, but the subject is fruitful in suggestion. It may be pardoned a Southern writer if he lingers over this last great offensive movement of the Southern army. The last, it was also one of the greatest and most brilliant. The war, therefore, was to enter upon its second stage, in which the South was to simply maintain the defensive. But Lee was terminating the first stage of the contest by one of those great campaigns which project events and personages in bold relief from the broad canvas, and illumine the pages of history.

Events were now in rapid progress. Ewell's column--the sharp head of the Southern spear--reached Winchester on the 13th of June, and Rodes, who had been detached at Front Royal to drive the enemy from Berryville, reached the last-named village on the same day when the force there retreated to Winchester. On the next morning Early's division attacked the forces of Milroy at Winchester, stormed and captured their "Star Fort," on a hill near the place, and so complete was the rout of the enemy that their commander, General Milroy, had scarcely time to escape, with a handful of his men, in the direction of the Potomac.

For this disaster the unfortunate officer was harshly criticised by General Hooker, who wrote to his Government, "In my opinion, Milroy's men will fight better _under a soldier_."

After thus clearing the country around Winchester, Ewell advanced rapidly on Martinsburg, where he took a number of prisoners and some artillery. The captures in two days had been more than four thousand prisoners and twenty-nine cannon, with four hundred horses and a large amount of stores. Ewell continued then to advance, and, entering Maryland, sent a portion of his cavalry, under General Imboden, westward, to destroy the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and another body, under General Jenkins, in advance, toward Chambersburg. Meanwhile, the rest of the army was moving to join him. Hill, finding that the enemy had disappeared from his front near Fredericksburg, hastened to march from that vicinity, and was sent forward by Lee, on the track of Ewell, passing in rear of Longstreet, who had remained in Culpepper. The latter was now directed by Lee to move along the eastern side of the Blue Ridge, and, by occupying Ashby's and Snicker's Gaps, protect the flank of the column in the Valley from attack--a work in which Stuart's cavalry, thrown out toward the enemy, assisted.

Such was the posture of affairs when General Hooker's chief-of-staff became so much puzzled, and described the Federal army as "boggling around," and not knowing "what they were going after." Lee's whole movement, it appears, was regarded as a feint to "cover a cavalry-raid on the south side of the river"--a strange conclusion, it would seem, in reference to a movement of such magnitude. It now became absolutely necessary that Lee's designs should be unmasked, if possible; and to effect this object Stuart's cavalry force, covering the southern flank, east of the Blue Ridge, must be driven back. This was undertaken in a deliberate manner. Three corps of cavalry, with a division of infantry and a full supply of artillery, were sent forward from the vicinity of Manassas, to drive Stuart in on all the roads leading to the mountain. A fierce struggle followed, in which Stuart, who knew the importance of his position, fought the great force opposed to him from every hill and knoll. But he was forced back steadily, in spite of a determined resistance, and at Upperville a hand-to-hand sabre-fight wound up the movement, in which the Federal cavalry was checked, when Stuart fell back toward Paris, crowned the mountain-side with his cannon, and awaited a final attack. This was not, however, made. Night approaching, the Federal force fell back toward Manassas, and on the next morning Stuart followed them, on the same road over which he had so rapidly retreated, beyond Middleburg.

Lee paid little attention to these operations on his flank east of the mountains, but proceeded steadily, in personal command of his infantry, in the direction of the Cumberland Valley. Ewell was moving rapidly toward Harrisburg, with orders to "take" that place "if he deemed his force adequate,"[1] General Jenkins, commanding cavalry, preceding the advance of his infantry. He had thus pierced the enemy's territory, and it was necessary promptly to support him. Hill and Longstreet were accordingly directed to pass the Potomac at Shepherdstown and Williamsport. The columns united at Hagerstown, and on the 27th of June entered Chambersburg.

[Footnote 1: This statement of Lee's orders is derived by the writer from Lieutenant-General Ewell.]

General Hooker had followed, crossing the Potomac, opposite Leesburg, at about the moment when Lee's rear was passing from Maryland into Pennsylvania. The direction of the Federal march was toward Frederick, from which point General Hooker could move in either one of two directions--either across the mountain toward Boonsboro, which would throw him upon Lee's communications, or northward to Westminster, or Gettysburg, which would lead to an open collision with the invading army in a pitched battle.

At this juncture of affairs, just as the Federal army was concentrating near Frederick, General Hooker, at his own request, was relieved from command. The occasion of this unexpected event seems to have been a difference of opinion between himself and General Halleck, the Federal general-in-chief, on the question whether the fortifications at Harper's Ferry should or should not be abandoned. The point at issue would appear to have been unimportant, but ill feeling seems to have arisen: General Hooker resented the action of the authorities, and requested to be relieved; his request was complied with, and his place was filled by Major-General George G. Meade.

General Meade, an officer of excellent soldiership, and enjoying the repute of modesty and dignity, assumed command of the Federal army, and proceeded rapidly in pursuit of Lee. The design of moving directly across the South Mountain on Lee's communications, if ever entertained by him, was abandoned. The outcry from Pennsylvania drew him perforce. Ewell, with one division, had penetrated to Carlisle; and Early, with another division, was at York; everywhere the horses, cattle, and supplies of the country, had been seized upon for the use of the troops; and General Meade was loudly called upon to go to the assistance of the people thus exposed to the terrible rebels. His movements were rapid. Assuming command on June 28th, he began to move on the 29th, and on the 30th was approaching the town of Gettysburg.[1]

[Footnote 1: The movements of the Federal commander were probably hastened by the capture, about this time at Hagerstown, of a dispatch from President Davis to General Lee. Lee, it seems, had suggested that General Beauregard should be sent to make a demonstration in the direction of Culpepper, and by thus appearing to threaten Washington, embarrass the movements of the Northern army. To this suggestion the President is said to have replied that he had no troops to make such a movement; and General Meade had thus the proof before him that Washington was in no danger. The Confederacy was thus truly unfortunate again, as in September, 1862, when a similar incident came to the relief of General McClellan.]

XIII.

LEE IN PENNSYLVANIA.

Lee, in personal command of the corps of Hill and Longstreet, had meanwhile moved on steadily in the direction of the Susquehanna, and, reaching Chambersburg on the 27th of June, "made preparations to advance upon Harrisburg."

At Chambersburg he issued an order to the troops, which should find a place in every biography of this great soldier. The course pursued by many of the Federal commanders in Virginia had been merciless and atrocious beyond words. General Pope had ravaged the counties north of the Rappahannock, especially the county of Culpepper, in a manner which reduced that smiling region wellnigh to a waste; General Milroy, with his headquarters at Winchester, had so cruelly oppressed the people of the surrounding country as to make them execrate the very mention of his name; and the excesses committed by the troops of these officers, with the knowledge and permission of their commanders, had been such, said a foreign writer, as to "cast mankind two centuries back toward barbarism."

Now, the tables were turned, and the world looked for a sudden and merciless retaliation on the part of the Southerners. Lee was in Pennsylvania, at the head of an army thirsting to revenge the accumulated wrongs against their helpless families. At a word from him the fertile territory of the North would be made to feel the iron pressure of military rule, proceeding on the theory that retaliation is a just principle to adopt toward an enemy. Fire, slaughter, and outrage, would have burst upon Pennsylvania, and the black flag, which had been virtually raised by Generals Pope and Milroy, would have flaunted now in the air at the head of the Southern army.

Instead of permitting this disgraceful oppression of non-combatants, Lee issued, at Chambersburg, the following general order to his troops:

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA,

CHAMBERSBURG, PA., _June_ 27, 1863.

The commanding general has observed with much satisfaction the conduct of the troops on the march, and confidently anticipates results commensurate with the high spirit they have manifested. No troops could have displayed greater fortitude, or better performed the arduous marches of the past ten days. Their conduct in other respects has, with few exceptions, been in keeping with their character as soldiers, and entitles them to approbation and praise.

There have, however, been instances of forgetfulness, on the part of some, that they have in keeping the yet unsullied reputation of the army, and that the duties exacted of us by civilization and Christianity are not less obligatory in the country of the enemy than in our own.

The commanding general considers that no greater disgrace could befall the army, and, through it, our whole people, than the perpetration of the barbarous outrages on the innocent and defenceless, and the wanton destruction of private property, that have marked the course of the enemy in our own country. Such proceedings not only disgrace the perpetrators, and all connected with them, but are subversive of the discipline and efficiency of the army, and destructive of the ends of our present movements. It must be remembered that we make war only upon armed men, and that we cannot take vengeance for the wrongs our people have suffered without lowering ourselves in the eyes of all whose abhorrence has been excited by the atrocities of our enemy, without offending against Him to whom vengeance belongeth, without whose favor and support our efforts must all prove in vain.

The commanding general, therefore, earnestly exhorts the troops to abstain, with most scrupulous care, from unnecessary or wanton injury to private property; and he enjoins upon all officers to arrest and bring to summary punishment all who shall in any way offend against the orders on this subject.

R.E. LEE, _General_.

The noble maxims and truly Christian spirit of this paper will remain the undying glory of Lee. Under what had been surely a bitter provocation, he retained the calmness and forbearance of a great soul, saying to his army: "The duties exacted of us by civilization and Christianity are not less obligatory in the country of the enemy than in our own.... No greater disgrace could befall the army, and through it our whole people, than the perpetration of outrage upon the innocent and defenceless.... We make war only upon armed men, and cannot take vengeance for the wrongs our people have suffered without offending against Him to whom vengeance belongeth, without whose favor and support our efforts must all prove in vain."

Such were the utterances of Lee, resembling those we might attribute to the ideal Christian warrior; and, indeed, it was such a spirit that lay under the plain uniform of the great Virginian. What he ordered was enforced, and no one was disturbed in his person or property. Of this statement many proofs could be given. A Pennsylvania farmer said to a Northern correspondent, in reference to the Southern troops: "I must say they acted like gentlemen, and, their cause aside, I would rather have forty thousand rebels quartered on my premises than one thousand Union troops." From the journal of Colonel Freemantle, an English officer accompanying the Southern army, we take these sentences:

"In passing through Greencastle we found all the houses and windows shut up, the natives in their Sunday clothes, standing at their doors regarding the troops in a very unfriendly manner. I saw no straggling into the houses, nor were any of the inhabitants disturbed or annoyed by the soldiers. Sentries were placed at the doors of many of the best houses, to prevent any officer or soldier from getting in on any pretence.... I entered Chambersburg at 6 P.M.... Sentries were placed at the doors of all the principal houses, and the town was cleared of all but the military passing through or on duty.... No officer or soldier under the rank of a general is allowed in Chambersburg without a special order from General Lee, which he is very chary of giving, and I hear of officers of rank being refused this pass.... I went into Chambersburg again, and witnessed the singularly good behavior of the troops toward the citizens. I heard soldiers saying to one another that they did not like being in a town in which they were very naturally detested. To any one who has seen, as I have, the ravages of the Northern troops in Southern towns, this forbearance seems most commendable and surprising."

A Northern correspondent said of the course pursued by General Jenkins, in command of Ewell's cavalry: "By way of giving the devil his due, it must be said that, although there were over sixty acres of wheat and eighty acres of corn and oats in the same field, he protected it most carefully, and picketed his horses so that it could not be injured. No fences were wantonly destroyed, poultry was not disturbed, nor did he compliment our blooded cattle so much as to test the quality of their steak and roast."

Of the feeling of the troops these few words from the letter of an officer written to one of his family will convey an idea: "I felt when I first came here that I would like to revenge myself upon these people for the devastation they have brought upon our own beautiful home--that home where we could have lived so happily, and that we loved so much, from which their vandalism has driven you and my helpless little ones. But, though I had such severe wrongs and grievances to redress, and such great cause for revenge, yet, when I got among these people, I could not find it in my heart to molest them."

Such was the treatment of the people of Pennsylvania by the Southern troops in obedience to the order of the commander-in-chief. Lee in person set the example. A Southern journal made the sarcastic statement that he became irate at the robbing of cherry-trees; and, if he saw the _top rail_ of a fence lying upon the ground as he rode by, would dismount and replace it with his own hands.

XIV.

CONCENTRATION AT GETTYSBURG.

This was the position of the great adversaries in the last days of June. Lee was at Chambersburg, in the Cumberland Valley, about to follow Ewell, who was approaching Harrisburg. Early had captured York; and the Federal army was concentrating rapidly on the flank of the Southern army, toward Gettysburg.

Lee had ordered the movement of Early upon York, with the object of diverting the attention of the Federal commander from his own rear, in the Cumberland Valley. The exact movements and position of General Meade were unknown to him; and this arose in large measure from the absence of Stuart's cavalry. This unfortunate incident has given rise to much comment, and Stuart has been harshly criticised for an alleged disobedience of Lee's plain orders. The question is an embarrassing one. Lee's statement is as follows: "General Stuart was left to guard the passes of the mountains" (Ashby's and other gaps in the Blue Ridge, in Virginia), "and observe the movements of the enemy, whom he was instructed to harass and impede as much as possible should he attempt to cross the Potomac. _In that event, General Stuart was directed to move into Maryland, crossing the Potomac east or west of the Blue Ridge, as in his judgment should be best, and take position on the right of our column as it advanced._"

This order was certainly plain up to a certain point. Stuart was to harass and embarrass the movements of the enemy, in case they attempted to cross to the north bank of the Potomac. When they did cross, he also was to pass the river, either east or west of the Blue Ridge, "as in his judgment should seem best." So far the order was unmistakable. The river was to be crossed at such point as Stuart should select, either on the lower waters, or in the Valley. Lee added, however, that this movement should be made in such a manner as to enable Stuart to "take position on the right of our column as it advanced"--the meaning appearing to be that the cavalry should move _between_ the two armies, in order to guard the Southern flank as it advanced into the Cumberland Valley. Circumstances arose, however, which rendered it difficult for Stuart to move on the line thus indicated with sufficient promptness to render his services valuable. The enemy crossed at Leesburg while the Southern cavalry was near Middleburg; and, from the jaded condition of his horses, Stuart feared that he would be unable, in case he crossed above, to place his column between the two armies then rapidly advancing. He accordingly took the bold resolution of passing the Potomac _below_ Leesburg, designing to shape his course due northward toward Harrisburg, the objective point of the Southern army. This he did--crossing at Seneca Falls--but on the march he was delayed by many incidents. Near Rockville he stopped to capture a large train of Federal wagons; at Westminster and Hanovertown he was temporarily arrested by combats with the Federal cavalry; and, ignorant as he was of the concentration of Lee's troops upon Gettysburg, he advanced rapidly toward Carlisle, where, in the midst of an attack on that place, he was recalled by Lee.

Such were the circumstances leading to, and the incidents attending, this movement. The reader must form his own opinion of the amount of blame to be justly attached to Stuart. He always declared, and asserted in his report of these occurrences, that he had acted in exact obedience to his orders; but, on the contrary, as appears from General Lee's report, those orders were meant to prescribe a different movement. He had marched in one sense on "the right" of the Southern column "as it advanced;" but in another sense he had not done so. Victory at Gettysburg would have silenced all criticism of this difference of construction; but, unfortunately, the event was different, and the strictures directed at Stuart were natural. The absence of the cavalry unquestionably embarrassed Lee greatly; but, in his report, he is moderate and guarded, as usual, in his expressions. "The absence of cavalry," he says, "rendered it impossible to obtain accurate information" of General Meade's movements; and "the march toward Gettysburg was conducted more slowly than it would have been had the movements of the Federal army been known."

To return now to the movements of Lee's infantry, after the arrival of the main body at Chambersburg. Lee was about to continue his advance in the direction of Harrisburg, when, on the night of the 29th, his scouts brought him intelligence that the Federal army was rapidly advancing, and the head of the column was near the South Mountain. A glance at the map will indicate the importance of this intelligence. General Meade would be able, without difficulty, in case the Southern army continued its march northward, to cross the South-Mountain range, and place himself directly in Lee's rear, in the Cumberland Valley. Then the Southern forces would be completely intercepted--General Meade would be master of the situation--and Lee must retreat east of the mountain or cut his way through the Federal army.

A battle was thus clearly about to be forced upon the Southern commander, and it only remained for him to so manoeuvre his army as to secure a position in which he could receive the enemy's attack with advantage. Lee accordingly put his column in motion across the mountain toward Gettysburg, and, sending couriers to Ewell and Early to return from Harrisburg and York toward the same point, made his preparations to take position and fight.

On the morning of the 1st day of July, this was then the condition of affairs. General Meade was advancing with rapidity upon the town of Gettysburg, and Lee was crossing the South Mountain, opposite Chambersburg, to meet him.

When the heads of the two columns came together in the vicinity of Gettysburg, the thunders of battle began.

XV.

THE FIRST DAY'S FIGHT AT GETTYSBURG.

The sanguinary struggle which now ensued between the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac continued for three days, and the character of these battles, together with their decisive results, have communicated to the events an extraordinary interest. Every fact has thus been preserved, and the incidents of the great combat, down to the most minute details, have been placed upon record. The subject is, indeed, almost embarrassed by the amount of information collected and published; and the chief difficulty for a writer, at this late day, is to select from the mass such salient events as indicate clearly the character of the conflict.

This difficulty the present writer has it in his power to evade, in great measure, by confining himself mainly to the designs and operations of General Lee. These were plain and simple. He had been forced to relinquish his march toward the Susquehanna by the dangerous position of General Meade so near his line of retreat; this rendered a battle unavoidable; and Lee was now moving to accept battle, designing, if possible, to secure such a position as would give him the advantage in the contest. Before he succeeded in effecting this object, battle was forced upon him--not by General Meade, but by simple stress of circumstances. The Federal commander had formed the same intention as that of his adversary--to accept, and not deliver, battle--and did not propose to fight near Gettysburg. He was, rather, looking backward to a strong position in the direction of Westminster, when suddenly the head of his column became engaged near Gettysburg, and this determined every thing.

A few words are necessary to convey to the reader some idea of the character of the ground. Gettysburg is a town, nestling down in a valley, with so many roads centring in the place that, if a circle were drawn around it to represent the circumference of a wheel, the roads would resemble the spokes. A short distance south of the town is a ridge of considerable height, which runs north and south, bending eastward in the vicinity of Gettysburg, and describing a curve resembling a hook. From a graveyard on this high ground it is called Cemetery Hill, or Ridge. Opposite this ridge, looking westward, is a second and lower range called Seminary Ridge. This extends also north and south, passing west of Gettysburg. Still west of Seminary Ridge are other still lower ranges, between which flows a small stream called Willoughby Run; and beyond these, distant about ten miles, rise the blue heights of the South Mountain.

Across the South Mountain, by way of the village of Cashtown, Lee, on the morning of the 1st of July, was moving steadily toward Gettysburg, when Hill, holding the front, suddenly encountered the head of the enemy's column in the vicinity of Willoughby Run. This consisted of General Buford's cavalry division, which had pushed on in advance of General Reynolds's infantry corps, the foremost infantry of the Federal army, and now, almost before it was aware of Hill's presence, became engaged with him. General Buford posted his horse-artillery to meet Hill's attack, but it soon became obvious that the Federal cavalry could not stand before the Southern infantry fire, and General Reynolds, at about ten in the morning, hastening forward, reached the field. An engagement immediately took place between the foremost infantry divisions of Hill and Reynolds. A brigade of Hill's, from Mississippi, drove back a Federal brigade, seizing upon its artillery; but, in return, Archer's brigade was nearly surrounded, and several hundred of the men captured. Almost immediately after this incident the Federal forces sustained a serious loss; General Reynolds--one of the most trusted and energetic lieutenants of General Meade--was mortally wounded while disposing his men for action, and borne from the field. The Federal troops continued, however, to fight with gallantry. Some of the men were heard exclaiming, "We have come to stay!" in reference to which, one of their officers afterward said, "And a very large portion of them never left that ground."[1]

[Footnote 1: General Doubleday: Report of Committee on the Conduct of the War, Part I., p. 307.]

Battle was now joined in earnest between the two heads of column, and on each side reënforcements were sent forward to take part in this unexpected encounter. Neither General Lee nor General Meade had expected or desired it. Both had aimed, in manoeuvring their forces, to select ground suitable for receiving instead of making an attack, and now a blind chance seemed about to bring on a battle upon ground unknown to both commanders. When the sound of the engagement was first heard by Lee, he was in the rear of his troops at the headquarters which Hill had just vacated, near Cashtown, under the South Mountain. The firing was naturally supposed by him to indicate an accidental collision with some body of the enemy's cavalry, and, when intelligence reached him that Hill was engaged with the Federal infantry, the announcement occasioned him the greatest astonishment. General Meade's presence so near him was a circumstance completely unknown to Lee, and certainly was not desired by him. But a small portion of his forces were "up." Longstreet had not yet passed the mountain, and the forces of General Ewell, although that officer had promptly fallen back, in obedience to his orders, from the Susquehanna, were not yet in a position to take part in the engagement. Under these circumstances, if the whole of General Meade's army had reached Gettysburg, directly in Lee's front, the advantage in the approaching action must be largely in favor of the Federal army, and a battle might result in a decisive Confederate defeat.

No choice, however, was now left General Lee. The head of his advancing column had come into collision with the enemy, and it was impossible to retire without a battle. Lee accordingly ordered Hill's corps to be closed up, and reënforcements to be sent forward rapidly to the point of action. He then mounted his horse and rode in the direction of the firing, guided by the sound, and the smoke which rose above the tranquil landscape.

It was a beautiful day and a beautiful season of the year. The fields were green with grass, or golden with ripening grain, over which passed a gentle breeze, raising waves upon the brilliant surface. The landscape was broken here and there by woods; in the west rose the blue range of the South Mountain; the sun was shining through showery clouds, and in the east the sky was spanned by a rainbow. This peaceful scene was now disturbed by the thundering of artillery and the rattle of musketry. The sky was darkened, here and there, by clouds of smoke rising from barns or dwelling-houses set on fire by shell; and beneath rose red tongues of flame, roaring in response to the guns.

Each side had now sent forward reinforcements to support the vanguards, and an obstinate struggle ensued, the proportions of the fight gradually increasing, until the action became a regular battle. Hill, although suffering from indisposition, which the pallor of his face indicated, met the Federal attack with his habitual resolution. He was hard pressed, however, when fortunately one of General Ewell's divisions, under Rodes, débouched from the Carlisle road, running northward from Gettysburg, and came to his assistance. Ewell had just begun to move from Carlisle toward Harrisburg--his second division, under Early, being at York--when a dispatch from Lee reached him, directing him to return, and "proceed to Gettysburg or Cashtown, as his circumstances might direct." He promptly obeyed, encamped within about eight miles of Gettysburg on the evening of the 30th, and was now moving toward Cashtown, where Johnson's division of his corps then was, when Hill sent him word that he needed his assistance. Rodes was promptly sent forward to the field of action. Early was ordered to hurry back, and Rodes soon reached the battle-field, where he formed his line on high ground, opposite the Federal right.

The appearance of this important reënforcement relieved Hill, and caused the enemy to extend his right to face Rodes. The Federal line thus resembled a crescent, the left half, fronting Hill, toward the northwest; and the right, half-fronting Rodes, toward the north--the town of Gettysburg being in rear of the curve. An obstinate attack was made by the enemy and by Rodes at nearly the same moment. The loss on both sides was heavy, but Rodes succeeded in shaking the Federal right, when Early made his appearance from the direction of York. This compelled the Federal force to still farther extend its right, to meet the new attack. The movement greatly weakened them. Rodes charged their centre with impetuosity; Early came in on their right, with Gordon's brigade in front, and under this combined attack the Federal troops gave way, and retreated in great disorder to and through Gettysburg, leaving the ground covered with their dead and wounded to the number of about five thousand, and the same number of prisoners in the hands of the Confederates.

The first collision of the two armies had thus resulted in a clear Southern victory, and it is to be regretted that this important success was not followed up by the seizure of the Cemetery Range, south of the town, which it was in the power of the Southern forces at that time to do. To whom the blame--if blame there be--of this failure, is justly chargeable, the writer of these pages is unable to state. All that he has been able to ascertain with certainty is the following: As soon as the Federal forces gave way, General Lee rode forward, and at about four o'clock in the afternoon was posted on an elevated point of Seminary Ridge, from which he could see the broken lines of the enemy rapidly retreating up the slope of Cemetery Range, in his front. The propriety of pursuit, with a view to seizing this strong position, was obvious, and General Lee sent an officer of his staff with a message to General Ewell, to the effect that "he could see the enemy flying, that they were disorganized, and that it was only necessary to push on vigorously, and the Cemetery heights were ours." [Footnote: The officer who carried the order is our authority for this statement.] Just about the moment, it would seem, when this order was dispatched--about half-past four--General Hill, who had joined Lee on the ridge, "received a message from General Ewell, requesting him (Hill) to press the enemy in front, while he performed the same operation on his right." This statement is taken from the journal of Colonel Freemantle, who was present and noted the hour. He adds: "The pressure was accordingly applied, in a mild degree, but the enemy were too strongly posted, and it was too late in the evening for a regular attack." General Ewell, an officer of great courage and energy, is said to have awaited the arrival of his third division (Johnson's) before making a decisive assault. Upon the arrival of Johnson, about sunset, General Ewell prepared to advance and seize upon the eastern terminus of the Cemetery Range, which commanded the subsequent Federal position. At this moment General Lee sent him word to "proceed with his troops to the [Confederate] right, in case he could do nothing where he was;" he proceeded to General Lee's tent thereupon to confer with him, and the result was that it was agreed to first assault the hill on the right. It was now, however, after midnight, and the attack was directed by Lee to be deferred until the next morning.

It was certainly unfortunate that the advance was not then made; but Lee, in his report, attributes no blame to any one. "The attack," he says, "was not pressed that afternoon, _the enemy's force being unknown, and it being considered advisable to await the arrival of the rest of our troops._"

The failure to press the enemy immediately after their retreat, with the view of driving them from and occupying Cemetery Heights, is susceptible of an explanation which seems to retrieve the Southern commander and his subordinates from serious criticism. The Federal forces had been driven from the ground north and west of Gettysburg, but it was seen now that the troops thus defeated constituted only a small portion of General Meade's army, and Lee had no means of ascertaining, with any degree of certainty, that the main body was not near at hand. The fact was not improbable, and it was not known that Cemetery Hill was not then in their possession. The wooded character of the ground rendered it difficult for General Lee, even from his elevated position on Seminary Ridge, to discover whether the heights opposite were, or were not, held by a strong force. Infantry were visible there; and in the plain in front the cavalry of General Buford were drawn up, as though ready to accept battle. It was not until after the battle that it was known that the heights might have been seized upon--General Hancock, who had succeeded Reynolds, having, to defend them, but a single brigade. This fact was not known to Lee; the sun was now declining, and the advance upon Cemetery Hill was deferred until the next day.

When on the next morning, between daybreak and sunrise, General Lee, accompanied by Hill, Longstreet, and Hood, ascended to the same point on Seminary Ridge, and reconnoitred the opposite heights through his field-glass, they were seen to be occupied by heavy lines of infantry and numerous artillery. The moment had passed; the rampart in his front bristled with bayonets and cannon. General Hancock, in command of the Federal advance, had hastened back at nightfall to General Meade, who was still some distance in rear, and reported the position to be an excellent one for receiving the Southern attack. Upon this information General Meade had at once acted; by one o'clock in the morning his headquarters were established upon the ridge; and when Lee, on Seminary Hill opposite, was reconnoitring the heights, the great bulk of the Federal army was in position to receive his assault.

The adversaries were thus face to face, and a battle could not well be avoided. Lee and his troops were in high spirits and confident of victory, but every advantage of position was seen to be on the side of the enemy.

XVI.

THE TWO ARMIES IN POSITION.

The morning of the 2d of July had arrived, and the two armies were in presence of each other and ready for battle. The question was, which of the great adversaries would make the attack.

General Meade was as averse to assuming the offensive as his opponent. Lee's statement on this subject has been given, but is here repeated: "It had not been intended to fight a general battle," he wrote, "at such a distance from our base, _unless attacked by the enemy_." General Meade said before the war committee afterward, "It was my desire to fight a defensive rather than an offensive battle," and he adds the obvious explanation, that he was "satisfied his chances of success were greater in a defensive battle than an offensive one." There was this great advantage, however, on the Federal side, that the troops were on their own soil, with their communications uninterrupted, and could wait, while General Lee was in hostile territory, a considerable distance from his base of supplies, and must, for that reason, either attack his adversary or retreat.

He decided to attack. To this decision he seems to have been impelled, in large measure, by the extraordinary spirit of his troops, whose demeanor in the subsequent struggle was said by a Federal officer to resemble that of men "drunk on champagne." General Longstreet described the army at this moment as able, from the singular afflatus which bore it up, to undertake "any thing," and this sanguine spirit was the natural result of a nearly unbroken series of victories. At Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and in the preliminary struggle of Gettysburg, they had driven the enemy before them in disorder, and, on the night succeeding this last victory, both officers and men spoke of the coming battle "as a certainty, and the universal feeling in the army was one of profound contempt for an enemy whom they had beaten so constantly, and under so many disadvantages."[1]

[Footnote 1: Colonel Freemantle. He was present, and speaks from observation.] Contempt of an adversary is dangerous, and pride goes before a fall. The truth of these pithy adages was now about to be shown.

General Lee, it is said, shared the general confidence of his troops, and was carried away by it. He says in his report "Finding ourselves unexpectedly confronted by the Federal army, it became a matter of difficulty to withdraw through the mountain with our large trains; at the same time, the country was unfavorable for collecting supplies while in the presence of the enemy's main body, as he was enabled to restrain our foraging-parties by occupying the passes of the mountains with regular and local troops. A battle thus became in a measure unavoidable." But, even after the battle, when the Southern army was much weaker, it was found possible, without much difficulty, to "withdraw through the mountains" with the trains. A stronger motive than this is stated in the next sentence of General Lee's report:" _Encouraged by the successful issue of the engagement of the first day, and in view of the valuable results that would ensue from the defeat of the army of General Meade_, it was thought advisable to renew the attack." The meaning of the writer of these words is plain. The Federal troops had been defeated with little difficulty in the first day's fight; it seemed probable that a more serious conflict would have similar results; and a decisive victory promised to end the war.

General Meade, it seems, scarcely expected to be attacked. He anticipated a movement on Lee's part, over the Emmetsburg road southward. [Footnote: Testimony of General Meade before the war committee.] By giving that direction to his army, General Lee would have forced his adversary to retire from his strong position on Cemetery Hill, or come out and attack him; whether, however, it was desirable on General Lee's part to run the risk of such an attack on the Southern column _in transitu_, it is left to others better able than the present writer to determine.

This unskilled comment must pass for what it is worth. It is easy, after the event, for the smallest to criticise the greatest. Under whatever influences, General Lee determined not to retreat, either through the South Mountain or toward Emmetsburg, but marshalled his army for an attack on the position held by General Meade.

The Southern lines were drawn up on Seminary Ridge, and on the ground near Gettysburg. Longstreet's corps was posted on the right, opposite the Federal left, near the southern end of Cemetery Ridge. Next came Hill's corps, extending along the crest nearly to Gettysburg. There it was joined by Ewell's line, which, passing through the town, bent round, adapting itself to the position of the Federal right which held the high ground, curving round in the shape of a hook, at the north end of the ridge.

The Federal lines thus occupied the whole Cemetery Range--which, being higher, commanded Seminary Ridge--and consisted, counting from right to left, of the troops of Generals Howard, Hancock, Sickles, Sykes, and Sedgwick; the two latter forming a strong reserve to guard the Federal left. The position was powerful, as both flanks rested upon high ground, which gave every advantage to the assailed party; but on the Federal left an accidental error, it seems, had been committed by General Sickles. He had advanced his line to a ridge in front of the main range, which appeared to afford him a better position; but this made it necessary to retire the left wing of his corps, to cover the opening in that direction. The result was, an angle--the effect of which is to expose troops to serious danger--and this faulty disposition of the Federal left seems to have induced General Lee to direct his main attack at the point in question, with the view of breaking the Federal line, and seizing upon the main ridge in rear. "In front of General Longstreet," he says, "the enemy held a position from which, if he could be driven, it was thought that our army could be used to advantage in assailing the more elevated ground beyond." In order to coöperate in this, the main attack, Ewell was ordered at the same time to assail the Federal right toward Gettysburg, and Hill directed to threaten their centre, and, if there were an opening, make a real attack. These demonstrations against the enemy's right and centre, Lee anticipated, would prevent him from reënforcing his left. Longstreet would thus, he hoped, be "enabled to reach the west of the ridge" in rear of the Federal line; and General Meade afterward said, "If they had succeeded in occupying that, it would have prevented me from holding any of the ground which I subsequently held at the last"--that is to say, that he would have been driven from the entire Cemetery Range.

Such was the position of the two adversaries, and such the design of Lee, on the 2d of July, when the real struggle was about to begin.

XVII.

THE SECOND DAY.

Throughout the forenoon of the day about to witness one of those great passages of arms which throw so bloody a glare upon the pages of history, scarcely a sound disturbed the silence, and it was difficult to believe that nearly two hundred thousand men were watching each other across the narrow valley, ready at the word to advance and do their best to tear each other to pieces.

During all these long hours, when expectation and suspense were sufficient to try the stoutest nerves, the two commanders were marshalling their lines for the obstinate struggle which was plainly at hand. General Meade, who knew well the ability of his opponent, was seeing, in person, to every thing, and satisfying himself that his lines were in order to receive the attack. Lee was making his preparations to commence the assault, upon which, there could be little doubt, the event of the whole war depended.

From the gallantry which the Federal troops displayed in this battle, they must have been in good heart for the encounter. It is certain that the Southern army had never been in better condition for a decisive conflict. We have spoken of the extraordinary confidence of the men, in themselves and in their commander. This feeling now exhibited itself either in joyous laughter and the spirit of jesting among the troops, or in an air of utter indifference, as of men sure of the result, and giving it scarcely a thought. The swarthy gunners, still begrimed with powder from the work of the day before, lay down around the cannon in position along the crest, and passed the moments in uttering witticisms, or in slumber; and the lines of infantry, seated or lying, musket in hand, were as careless. The army was plainly ready, and would respond with alacrity to Lee's signal. Of the result, no human being in this force of more than seventy thousand men seemed to have the least doubt.

Lee was engaged during the whole morning and until past noon in maturing his preparations for the assault which he designed making against the enemy's left in front of Longstreet. All was not ready until about four in the afternoon; then he gave the word, and Longstreet suddenly opened a heavy artillery-fire on the position opposite him. At this signal the guns of Hill opened from the ridge on his left, and Ewell's artillery on the Southern left in front of Gettysburg thundered in response. Under cover of his cannon-fire, Longstreet then advanced his lines, consisting of Hood's division on the right, and McLawe's division on the left, and made a headlong assault upon the Federal forces directly in his front.

The point aimed at was the salient, formed by the projection of General Sickles's line forward to the high ground known as "The Peach Orchard." Here, as we have already said, the Federal line of battle formed an angle, with the left wing of Sickles's corps bending backward so as to cover the opening between his line and the main crest in his rear. Hood's division swung round to assail the portion of the line thus retired, and so rapid was the movement of this energetic soldier, that in a short space of time he pushed his right beyond the Federal left flank, had pierced the exposed point, and was in direct proximity to the much-coveted "crest of the ridge," upon the possession of which depended the fate of the battle. Hood was fully aware of its importance, and lost not a moment in advancing to seize it. His troops, largely composed of those famous Texas regiments which Lee had said "fought grandly and nobly," and upon whom he relied "in all tight places," responded to his ardent orders: a small run was crossed, the men rushed up the slope, and the crest was almost in their very grasp.

Success at this moment would have decided the event of the battle of Gettysburg, and in all probability that of the war. All that was needed was a single brigade upon either side--a force sufficient to seize the crest, for neither side held it--and with this brigade a rare good fortune, or rather the prompt energy of a single officer, according to Northern historians, supplied the Federal commander. Hood's line was rushing up with cheers to occupy the crest, which here takes the form of a separate peak, and is known as "Little Round Top," when General Warren, chief-engineer of the army, who was passing, saw the importance of the position, and determined, at all hazards, to defend it. He accordingly ordered the Federal signal-party, which had used the peak as a signal-station, but were hastily folding up their flags, to remain where they were, laid violent hands upon a brigade which was passing, and ordered it to occupy the crest; and, when Hood's men rushed up the rocky slope with yells of triumph, they were suddenly met by a fusillade from the newly-arrived brigade, delivered full in their faces. A violent struggle ensued for the possession of the heights. The men fought hand to hand on the summit, and the issue remained for some time doubtful. At last it was decided in favor of the Federal troops, who succeeded in driving Hood's men from the hill, the summit of which was speedily crowned with artillery, which opened a destructive fire upon the retreating Southerners. They fell back sullenly, leaving the ground strewed with their dead and wounded. Hood had been wounded, and many of his best officers had fallen. For an instant he had grasped in his strong hand the prize which would have been worth ten times the amount of blood shed; but he had been unable to retain his hold; he was falling back from the coveted crest, pursued by that roar of the enemy's cannon which seemed to rejoice in his discomfiture.

An obstinate struggle was meanwhile taking place in the vicinity of the Peach Orchard, where the left of Hood and the division of McLaws had struck the front of General Sickles, and were now pressing his line back steadily toward the ridge in his rear. In spite of resolute resistance the Federal troops at this point were pushed back to a wheat-field in the rear of the Peach Orchard, and, following up this advantage, Longstreet charged them and broke their line, which fell back in disorder toward the high ground in rear. In this attack McLaws was assisted by Hill's right division--that of Anderson. With this force Longstreet continued to press forward, and, piercing the Federal line, seemed about to inflict upon them a great disaster by seizing the commanding position occupied by the Federal left. Nothing appears to have saved them at this moment from decisive defeat but the masterly concentration of reënforcements after reënforcements at the point of danger. The heavy reserves under Generals Sykes and Sedgwick were opposite this point, and other troops were hastened forward to oppose Longstreet. This reënforcement was continuous throughout the entire afternoon. In spite of Lee's demonstrations in other quarters to direct attention, General Meade--driven by necessity--continued to move fresh troops incessantly to protect his left; and success finally came as the reward of his energy and soldiership. Longstreet found his weary troops met at every new step in advance by fresh lines, and, as night had now come, he discontinued the attack. The Federal lines had been driven considerably beyond the point which they had held before the assault, and were now east of the wheat-field, where some of the hardest fighting of the day had taken place, but, in spite of this loss of ground, they had suffered no serious disaster, and, above all, Lee had not seized upon that "crest of the ridge," which was the keystone of the position.

Thus Longstreet's attack had been neither a success nor a failure. He had not accomplished all that was expected, but he had driven back the enemy from their advanced position, and held strong ground in their front. A continuance of the assault was therefore deferred until the next day--night having now come--and General Longstreet ordered the advance to cease, and the firing to be discontinued.

During the action on the right, Hill had continued to make heavy demonstrations on the Federal centre, and Ewell had met with excellent success in the attack, directed by Lee, to be made against the enemy's right. This was posted upon the semicircular eminence, a little southeast of Gettysburg, and the Federal works were attacked by Ewell about sunset. With Early's division on his right, and Johnson's on his left, Ewell advanced across the open ground in face of a heavy artillery-fire, the men rushed up the slope, and in a brief space of time the Federal artillerists and infantry were driven from the works, which at nightfall remained in Ewell's hands.

Such had been the fate of the second struggle around Gettysburg. The moon, which rose just as the fighting terminated, threw its ghastly glare upon a field where neither side had achieved full success.

Lee had not failed, and he had not succeeded. He had aimed to drive the Federal forces from the Cemetery Range, and had not been able to effect that object; but they had been forced back upon both their right and left, and a substantial advantage seemed thus to have been gained. That the Confederate success was not complete, seems to have resulted from the failure to seize the Round-Top Hill. The crisis of the battle had undoubtedly been the moment when Hood was so near capturing this position--in reference to the importance of which we quoted General Meade's own words. It was saved to the Federal army by the presence of mind, it seems, of a single officer, and the gallantry of a single brigade. Such are the singular chances of battle, in which the smallest causes so often effect the greatest results.

General Lee, in company with General Hill, had, during the battle, occupied his former position on Seminary Ridge, near the centre of his line--quietly seated, for the greater portion of the time, upon the stump of a tree, and looking thoughtfully toward the opposite heights which Longstreet was endeavoring to storm. His demeanor was entirely calm and composed. An observer would not have concluded that he was the commander-in-chief. From time to time he raised his field-glass to his eyes, and rising said a few words to General Hill or General Long, of his staff. After this brief colloquy, he would return to his seat on the stump, and continue to direct his glass toward the wooded heights held by the enemy. A notable circumstance, and one often observed upon other occasions, was that, during the entire action, he scarcely sent an order. During the time Longstreet was engaged--from about half-past four until night--he sent but one message, and received but one report. Having given full directions to his able lieutenants, and informed them of the objects which he desired to attain, he, on this occasion as upon others, left the execution of his orders to them, relying upon their judgment and ability.

A singular incident occurred at this moment, which must have diverted Lee, temporarily, from his abstracted mood. In the midst of the most furious part of the cannonade, when the air was filled with exploding shell, a Confederate band of music, between the opposing lines, just below General Lee's position, began defiantly playing polkas and waltzes on their instruments. The incident was strange in the midst of such a hurly-burly. The bloody battle-field seemed turned into a ballroom.

With nightfall the firing sunk to silence. The moon had risen, and the pale light now lit up the faces of the dead and wounded of both sides.

Lee's first great assault had failed to secure the full results which he had anticipated from it.

XVIII.

THE LAST CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG.

The weird hours of the moonlit night succeeding the "second day at Gettysburg" witnessed a consultation between Lee and his principal officers, as to the propriety of renewing the attack on the Federal position, or falling back in the direction of the Potomac. In favor of the latter course there seemed to be many good reasons. The supplies, both of provisions and ammunition, were running short. The army, although unshaken, had lost heavily in the obstinately-disputed attack. In the event of defeat now, its situation might become perilous, and the destruction of the Army of Northern Virginia was likely to prove that of the Southern cause. On the other hand, the results of the day's fighting, if not decisive, had been highly encouraging. On both the Federal wings the Confederates had gained ground, which they still held. Longstreet's line was in advance of the Peach Orchard, held by the enemy on the morning of the second, and Ewell was still rooted firmly, it seemed, in their works near Gettysburg. These advantages were certainly considerable, and promised success to the Southern arms, if the assault were renewed. But the most weighty consideration prompting a renewal of the attack was the condition of the troops. They were undismayed and unshaken either in spirit or efficiency, and were known both to expect and to desire a resumption of the assault. Even after the subsequent charge of Pickett, which resulted so disastrously, the ragged infantry were heard exclaiming: "We've not lost confidence in the old man! This day's work won't do him no harm! Uncle Robert will get us into Washington yet!" Add to this the fact that the issue of the second day had stirred up in Lee himself all the martial ardor of his nature; and there never lived a more thorough _soldier_, when he was fully aroused, than the Virginian. All this soldiership of the man revolted at the thought of retreating and abandoning his great enterprise. He looked, on the one hand, at his brave army, ready at the word to again advance upon the enemy--at that enemy scarce able on the previous day to hold his position--and, weighing every circumstance in his comprehensive mind, which "looked before and after," Lee determined on the next morning to try a decisive assault upon the Federal troops; to storm, if possible, the Cemetery Range, and at one great blow terminate the campaign and the war.

The powerful influences which we have mentioned, coöperating, shaped the decision to which Lee had come. He would not retreat, but fight. The campaign should not be abandoned without at least one great charge upon the Federal position; and orders were now given for a renewal of the attack on the next morning. "The general plan of attack," Lee says, "was unchanged, except that one division and two brigades of Hill's corps were ordered to support Longstreet." From these words it is obvious that Lee's main aim now, as on the preceding day, was to force back the Federal left in front of Longstreet, and seize the high ground commanding the whole ridge in flank and reverse. To this end Longstreet was reënforced, and the great assault was evidently intended to take place in that quarter. But circumstances caused an alteration, as will be seen, in Lee's plans. The centre, thus weakened, was from stress of events to become the point of decisive struggle. The assaults of the previous day had been directed against the two extremities of the enemy; the assault of the third day, which would decide the fate of the battle and the campaign, was to be the furious rush of Pickett's division of Virginian troops at the enemy's centre, on Cemetery Hill.

A preliminary conflict, brought on by the Federal commander, took place early in the morning. Ewell had continued throughout the night to hold the enemy's breastworks on their right, from which he had driven them in the evening. As dawn approached now, he was about to resume the attack; and, in obedience to Lee's orders, attempt to "dislodge the enemy" from other parts of the ridge, when General Meade took the initiative, and opened upon him a furious fire of cannon, which was followed by a determined infantry charge to regain the hill. Ewell held his ground with the obstinate nerve which characterized him, and the battle raged about four hours--that is, until about eight o'clock. At that time, however, the pressure of the enemy became too heavy to stand. General Meade succeeded in driving Ewell from the hill, and the Federal lines were reëstablished on the commanding ground which they had previously occupied.

This event probably deranged, in some degree, General Lee's plans, which contemplated, as we have seen, an attack by Ewell contemporaneous with the main assault by Longstreet. Ewell was in no condition at this moment to assume the offensive again; and the pause in the fighting appears to have induced General Lee to reflect and modify his plans. Throughout the hours succeeding the morning's struggle, Lee, attended by Generals Hill and Longstreet, and their staff-officers, rode along the lines, reconnoitring the opposite heights, and the cavalcade was more than once saluted by bullets from the enemy's sharp-shooters, and an occasional shell. The result of the reconnoissance seems to have been the conclusion that the Federal left--now strengthened by breastworks, behind which powerful reserves lay waiting--was not a favorable point for attack. General Meade, no doubt, expected an assault there; and, aroused to a sense of his danger by the Confederate success of the previous day, had made every preparation to meet a renewal of the movement. The Confederate left and centre remained, but it seemed injudicious to think of attacking from Ewell's position. A concentration of the Southern force there would result in a dangerous separation of the two wings of the army; and, in the event of failure, the enemy would have no difficulty in descending and turning Lee's right flank, and thus interposing between him and the Potomac.

The centre only was left, and to this Lee now turned his attention. A determined rush, with a strong column at Cemetery Hill in his front, might wrest that point from the enemy. Then their line would be pierced; the army would follow; Lee would be rooted on this commanding ground, directly between the two Federal wings, upon which their own guns might be turned, and the defeat of General Meade must certainly follow. Such were, doubtless, the reflections of General Lee, as he rode along the Seminary Range, scanning, through his field-glass, the line of the Federal works. His decision was made, and orders were given by him to prepare the column for the assault. For the hard work at hand, Pickett's division of Virginian troops, which had just arrived and were fresh, was selected. These were to be supported by Heth's division of North Carolina troops, under General Pettigrew, who was to move on Pickett's left; and a brigade of Hill's, under General Wilcox, was to cover the right of the advancing column, and protect it from a flank attack.

The advance of the charging column was preceded by a tremendous artillery-fire, directed from Seminary Ridge at the enemy's left and centre. This began about an hour past noon, and the amount of thunder thus unloosed will be understood from the statement that Lee employed one hundred and forty-five pieces of artillery, and the enemy replied with eighty--in all _two hundred and twenty-five_ guns, all discharging at the same time. For nearly two hours this frightful hurly-burly continued, the harsh roar reverberating ominously in the gorges of the hills, and thrown back, in crash after crash, from the rocky slopes of the two ridges. To describe this fire afterward, the cool soldier, General Hancock, could find no other but the word _terrific_. "Their artillery-fire," he says, "was the most terrific cannonade I ever witnessed, and the most prolonged.... It was a most terrific and appalling cannonade--one possibly hardly ever paralleled."

While this artillery-duel was in progress, the charging column was being formed on the west of Seminary Ridge, opposite the Federal centre on Cemetery Hill. Pickett drew up his line with Kemper's and Garnett's brigades in front, and Armistead's brigade in rear. The brigade under General Wilcox took position on the right, and on the left was placed the division under Pettigrew, which was to participate in the charge. The force numbered between twelve and fifteen thousand men; but, as will be seen, nearly in the beginning of the action Pickett was left alone, and thus his force of about five thousand was all that went forward to pierce the centre of the Federal army.

The opposing ridges at this point are about one mile asunder, and across this space Pickett moved at the word, his line advancing slowly, and perfectly "dressed," with its red battle-flags flying, and the sunshine darting from the gun-barrels and bayonets. The two armies were silent, concentrating their whole attention upon this slow and ominous advance of men who seemed in no haste, and resolved to allow nothing to arrest them. When the column had reached a point about midway between the opposing heights the Federal artillery suddenly opened a furious fire upon them, which inflicted considerable loss. This, however, had no effect upon the troops, who continued to advance slowly in the same excellent order, without exhibiting any desire to return the fire. It was impossible to witness this steady and well-ordered march under heavy fire without feeling admiration for the soldiership of the troops who made it. Where shell tore gaps in the ranks, the men quietly closed up, and the hostile front advanced in the same ominous silence toward the slope where the real struggle, all felt, would soon begin.

They were within a few hundred yards of the hill, when suddenly a rapid cannon-fire thundered on their right, and shell and canister from nearly fifty pieces of artillery swept the Southern line, enfilading it, and for an instant throwing the right into some disorder. This disappeared at once, however. The column closed up, and continued to advance, unmoved, toward the height. At last the moment came. The steady "common-time" step had become "quick time;" this had changed to "double-quick;" then the column rushed headlong at the enemy's breastworks on the slope of the hill. As they did so, the real thunder began. A fearful fire of musketry burst forth, and struck them in the face, and this hurricane scattered the raw troops of Pettigrew as leaves are scattered by a wind. That whole portion of the line gave way in disorder, and fled from the field, which was strewed with their dead; and, as the other supports had not kept up, the Virginians under Pickett were left alone to breast the tempest which had now burst upon them in all its fury.

They returned the fire from the breastworks in their front with a heavy volley, and then, with loud cheers, dashed at the enemy's works, which they reached, stormed, and took possession of at the point of the bayonet. Their loss, however, was frightful. Garnett was killed; Armistead fell, mortally wounded, as he leaped on the breastworks, cheering and waving his hat; Kemper was shot and disabled, and the ranks of the Virginians were thinned to a handful. The men did not, however, pause. The enemy had partially retreated, from their first line of breastworks, to a second and stronger one about sixty yards beyond, and near the crest; and here the Federal reserve, as Northern writers state, was drawn up "four deep." This line, bristling with bayonets and cannon, the Virginians now charged, in the desperate attempt to storm it with the bayonet, and pierce, in a decisive manner, the centre of the Federal army. But the work was too great for their powers. As they made their brave rush they were met by a concentrated fire full in their faces, and on both flanks at the same moment. This fire did not so much cause them to lose heart, as literally hurl them back. Before it the whole charging column seemed to melt and disappear. The bravest saw now that further fighting was useless--that the works in their front could not be stormed--and, with the frightful fire of the enemy still tearing their lines to pieces, the poor remnants of the brave division retreated from the hill. As they fell back, sullenly, like bull-dogs from whom their prey had been snatched just as it was in their grasp, the enemy pursued them with a destructive fire both of cannon and musketry, which mowed down large numbers, if large numbers, indeed, can be said to have been left. The command had been nearly annihilated. Three generals, fourteen field-officers, and three-fourths of the men, were dead, wounded, or prisoners. The Virginians had done all that could be done by soldiers. They had advanced undismayed into the focus of a fire unsurpassed, perhaps, in the annals of war; had fought bayonet to bayonet; had left the ground strewed with their dead; and the small remnant who survived were now sullenly retiring, unsubdued; and, if repulsed, not "whipped."

Such was the last great charge at Gettysburg. Lee had concentrated in it all his strength, it seemed. When it failed, the battle and the campaign failed with it.

XIX.

LEE AFTER THE CHARGE.

The demeanor of General Lee at this moment, when his hopes were all reversed, and his last great blow at the enemy had failed, excited the admiration of all who witnessed it, and remains one of the greatest glories of his memory.

Seeing, from his place on Seminary Ridge, the unfortunate results of the attack, he mounted his horse and rode forward to meet and encourage the retreating troops. The air was filled with exploding shell, and the men were coming back without order. General Lee now met them, and with his staff-officers busied himself in rallying them, uttering as he did so words of hope and encouragement. Colonel Freemantle, who took particular notice of him at this moment, describes his conduct as "perfectly sublime." "Lee's countenance," he adds, "did not show signs of the slightest disappointment, care, or annoyance," but preserved the utmost placidity and cheerfulness. The hurry and confusion of the scene seemed not to move him in any manner, and he rode slowly to and fro, saying in his grave, kindly voice to the men: "All this will come right in the end. We'll talk it over afterward, but in the mean time all good men must rally. We want all good and true men just now."

Numbers of wounded passed him, some stretched on litters, which men wearing the red badge of the ambulance corps were bearing to the rear, others limping along bleeding from hurts more or less serious. To the badly wounded Lee uttered words of sympathy and kindness; to those but slightly injured, he said: "Come, bind up your wound and take a musket," adding "my friend," as was his habit.

An evidence of his composure and absence of flurry was presented by a slight incident. An officer near him was striking his horse violently for becoming frightened and unruly at the bursting of a shell, when General Lee, seeing that the horse was terrified and the punishment would do no good, said, in tones of friendly remonstrance: "Don't whip him, captain, don't whip him. I've got just such a foolish horse myself, and whipping does no good."

Meanwhile the men continued to stream back, pursued still by that triumphant roar of the enemy's artillery which swept the whole valley and slope of Seminary Ridge with shot and shell. Lee was everywhere encouraging them, and they responded by taking off their hats and cheering him--even the wounded joining in this ceremony. Although exposing himself with entire indifference to the heavy fire, he advised Colonel Freemantle, as that officer states, to shelter himself, saying: "This has been a sad day for us, colonel, a sad day. But we can't expect always to gain victories."

As he was thus riding about in the fringe of woods, General Wilcox, who, about the time of Pickett's repulse, had advanced and speedily been thrown back with loss, rode up and said, almost sobbing as he spoke, that his brigade was nearly destroyed. Lee held out his hand to him as he was speaking, and, grasping the hand of his subordinate in a friendly manner, replied with great gentleness and kindness: "Never mind, general, all this has been _my_ fault. It is _I_ who have lost this fight, and you must help me out of it in the best way you can."

This supreme calmness and composure in the commander-in-chief rapidly communicated itself to the troops, who soon got together again, and lay down quietly in line of battle in the fringe of woods along the crest of the ridge, where Lee placed them as they came up. In front of them the guns used in the great cannonade were still in position, and Lee was evidently making every preparation in his power for the highly probable event of an instant assault upon him in his disordered condition, by the enemy. It was obvious that the situation of affairs at the moment was such as to render such an attack highly perilous to the Southern troops--and a sudden cheering which was now heard running along the lines of the enemy on the opposite heights, seemed clearly to indicate that their forces were moving. Every preparation possible under the circumstances was made to meet the anticipated assault; the repulsed troops of Pickett, like the rest of the army, were ready and even eager for of the attack--but it did not come. The cheering was afterward ascertained to have been simply the greeting of the men to some one of their officers as he rode along the lines; and night fell without any attempt on the Federal side to improve their success.

That success was indeed sufficient, and little would have been gained, and perhaps much perilled, by a counter-attack. Lee was not defeated, but he had not succeeded. General Meade could, with propriety, refrain from an attack. The battle of Gettysburg had been a Federal victory.

Thus had ended the last great conflict of arms on Northern soil--in a decisive if not a crushing repulse of the Southern arms. The chain of events has been so closely followed in the foregoing pages, and the movements of the two armies have been described with such detail, that any further comment or illustration is unnecessary. The opposing armies had been handled with skill and energy, the men had never fought better, and the result seems to have been decided rather by an occult decree of Providence than by any other circumstance. The numbers on each side were nearly the same, or differed so slightly that, in view of past conflicts, fought with much greater odds in favor of the one side, they might be regarded as equal. The Southern army when it approached Gettysburg numbered sixty-seven thousand bayonets, and the cavalry and artillery probably made the entire force about eighty thousand. General Meade's statement is that his own force was about one hundred thousand. The Federal loss was twenty-three thousand one hundred and ninety. The Southern losses were also severe, but cannot be ascertained. They must have amounted, however, to at least as large a number, even larger, perhaps, as an attacking army always suffers more heavily than one that is attacked.

What is certain, however, is that the Southern army, if diminished in numbers and strength, was still unshaken.

XX.

LEE'S RETREAT ACROSS THE POTOMAC.

Lee commenced his retreat in the direction of the Potomac on the night of the 4th of July. That the movement did not begin earlier is the best proof of the continued efficiency of his army and his own willingness to accept battle if the enemy were inclined to offer it.

After the failure of the attack on the Federal centre, he had withdrawn Ewell from his position southeast of Gettysburg, and, forming a continuous line of battle on Seminary Ridge, awaited the anticipated assault of General Meade. What the result of such an assault would have been it is impossible to say, but the theory that an attack would have terminated in the certain rout of the Southern army has nothing whatever to support it. The _morale_ of Lee's army was untouched. The men, instead of being discouraged by the tremendous conflicts of the preceding days, were irate, defiant, and ready to resume the struggle. Foreign officers, present at the time, testify fully upon this point, describing the demeanor of the troops as all that could be desired in soldiers; and General Longstreet afterward stated that, with his two divisions under Hood and McLaws, and his powerful artillery, he was confident, had the enemy attacked, of inflicting upon them a blow as heavy as that which they had inflicted upon Pickett. The testimony of General Meade himself fully corroborates these statements. When giving his evidence afterward before the war committee, he said:

"My opinion is, now, that General Lee evacuated that position, _not from the fear that he would be dislodged from it by any active operations on my part_, but that he was fearful that a force would be sent to Harper's Ferry to cut off his communications.... That was what caused him to retire."

When asked the question, "Did you discover, after the battle of Gettysburg, any symptoms of demoralization in Lee's army?" General Meade replied, "No, sir; I saw nothing of that kind."[1]

[Footnote 1: Report of Committee on Conduct of War, Part I., page 337.]

There was indeed no good reason why General Lee should feel any extreme solicitude for the safety of his army, which, after all its losses, still numbered more than fifty thousand troops; and, with that force of veteran combatants, experience told him, he could count upon holding at bay almost any force which the enemy could bring against him. At Chancellorsville, with a less number, he had nearly routed a larger army than General Meade's. If the _morale_ of the men remained unbroken, he had the right to feel secure now; and we have shown that the troops were as full of fight as ever. The exclamations of the ragged infantry, overheard by Colonel Freemantle, expressed the sentiment of the whole army. Recoiling from the fatal charge on Cemetery Hill, and still followed by the terrible fire, they had heart to shout defiantly: "We've not lost confidence in the old man! This day's work won't do him no harm! Uncle Robert will get us into Washington yet--you bet he will!"

Lee's reasons for retiring toward the Potomac were unconnected with the _morale_ of his army. "The difficulty of procuring supplies," he says, "rendered it impossible to continue longer where we were." What he especially needed was ammunition, his supply of which had been nearly exhausted by the three days' fighting, and it was impossible to count upon new supplies of these essential stores now that the enemy were in a condition to interrupt his communications in the direction of Harper's Ferry and Williamsport. The danger to which the army was thus exposed was soon shown not to have been overrated. General Meade promptly sent a force to occupy Harper's Ferry, and a body of his cavalry, hastening across the South Mountain, reached the Potomac near Falling Waters, where they destroyed a pontoon bridge laid there for the passage of the Southern army.

Lee accordingly resolved to retire, and, after remaining in line of battle on Seminary Ridge throughout the evening and night of the 3d and the whole of the 4th, during which time he was busy burying his dead, began to withdraw, by the Fairfield and Chambersburg roads, on the night of this latter day. The movement was deliberate, and without marks of haste, the rear-guard not leaving the vicinity of Gettysburg until the morning of the 5th. Those who looked upon the Southern army at this time can testify that the spirit of the troops was unsubdued. They had been severely checked, but there every thing had ended. Weary, covered with dust, with wounds whose bandages were soaked in blood, the men tramped on in excellent spirits, and were plainly ready to take position at the first word from Lee, and meet any attack of the enemy with a nerve as perfect as when they had advanced.

For the reasons stated by himself, General Meade did not attack. He had secured substantial victory by awaiting Lee's assault on strong ground, and was unwilling now to risk a disaster, such as he had inflicted, by attacking Lee in position. The enthusiasm of the authorities at Washington was not shared by the cool commander of the Federal army. He perfectly well understood the real strength and condition of his adversary, and seems never to have had any intention of striking at him unless a change of circumstances gave him some better prospect of success than he could see at that time.

The retrograde movement of the Southern army now began, Lee's trains retiring by way of Chambersburg, and his infantry over the Fairfield road, in the direction of Hagerstown. General Meade at first moved directly on the track of his enemy. The design of a "stern chase" was, however, speedily abandoned by the Federal commander, who changed the direction of his march and moved southward toward Frederick. When near that point he crossed the South Mountain, went toward Sharpsburg, and on the 12th of July found himself in front of the Southern army near Williamsport, where Lee had formed line of battle to receive his adversary's attack.

The deliberate character of General Meade's movements sufficiently indicates the disinclination he felt to place himself directly in his opponent's front, and thus receive the full weight of his attack. There is reason, indeed, to believe that nothing could better have suited the views of General Meade than for Lee to have passed the Potomac before his arrival--which event would have signified the entire abandonment of the campaign of invasion, leaving victory on the side of the Federal army. But the elements seemed to conspire to bring on a second struggle, despite the reluctance of both commanders. The recent rains had swollen the Potomac to such a degree as to render it unfordable, and, as the pontoon near Williamsport had been destroyed by the Federal cavalry, Lee was brought to bay on the north bank of the river, where, on the 12th, as we have said, General Meade found him in line of battle.

Lee's demeanor, at this critical moment, was perfectly undisturbed, and exhibited no traces whatever of anxiety, though he must have felt much. In his rear was a swollen river, and in his front an adversary who had been reënforced with a considerable body of troops, and now largely outnumbered him. In the event of battle and defeat, the situation of the Southern army must be perilous in the extreme. Nothing would seem to be left it, in that event, but surrender, or dispersion among the western mountains, where the detached bodies would be hunted down in detail and destroyed or captured. Confidence in himself and his men remained, however, with General Lee, and, with his line extending from near Hagerstown to a point east of Williamsport, he calmly awaited the falling of the river, resolved, doubtless, if in the mean time the enemy attacked him, to fight to the last gasp for the preservation of his army.

No attack was made by General Meade, who, arriving in front of Lee on the 12th, did no more, on that day, than feel along the Southern lines for a point to assault. On the next day he assembled a council of war, and laid the question before them, whether or not it were advisable to make an assault. The votes of the officers were almost unanimously against it, as Lee's position seemed strong and the spirit of his army defiant; and the day passed without any attempt of the Federal army to dislodge its adversary.

While General Meade was thus hesitating, Lee was acting. A portion of the pontoon destroyed by the enemy was recovered, new boats were built, and a practicable bridge was completed, near Falling Waters, by the evening of the 13th. The river had also commenced falling, and by this time was fordable near Williamsport. Toward dawn on the 14th the army commenced moving, in the midst of a violent rain-storm, across the river at both points, and Lee, sitting his horse upon the river's bank, superintended the operation, as was his habit on occasions of emergency. Loss of rest and fatigue, with that feeling of suspense unavoidable under the circumstances, had impaired the energies of even his superb physical constitution. As the bulk of the rear-guard of the army safely passed over the shaky bridge, which Lee had looked at with some anxiety as it swayed to and fro, lashed by the current, he uttered a sigh of relief, and a great weight seemed taken from his shoulders. Seeing his fatigue and exhaustion. General Stuart gave him some coffee; he drank it with avidity, and declared, as he handed back the cup, that nothing had ever refreshed him so much.

When General Meade, who is said to have resolved on an attack, in spite of the opposition of his officers, looked, on the morning of the 14th, toward the position held on the previous evening by the Southern army, he saw that the works were deserted. The Army of Northern Virginia had vanished from the hills on which it had been posted, and was at that moment crossing the Potomac. Pressing on its track toward Falling Waters, the Federal cavalry came up with the rear, and in the skirmish which ensued fell the brave Pettigrew, who had supported Pickett in the great charge at Gettysburg, where he had waved his hat in front of his men, and, in spite of a painful wound, done all in his power to rally his troops. With this exception, and a few captures resulting from accident, the army sustained no losses. The movement across the Potomac had been effected, in face of the whole Federal army, as successfully as though that army had been a hundred miles distant.[1]

[Footnote 1: Upon this point different statements were subsequently made by Generals Lee and Meade, and Lee's reply to the statements of his opponent is here given:

HEADQUARTERS ARMY NORTHERN VIRGINIA,

_July 21, 1863._

_General S. Cooper, Adjutant and Inspector-General C.S.A., Richmond, Va_.:

GENERAL: I have seen in Northern papers what purported to be an official dispatch from General Meade, stating that he had captured a brigade of Infantry, two pieces of artillery, two caissons, and a large number of small-arms, as this army retired to the south bank of the Potomac, on the 13th and 14th inst.

This dispatch has been copied into the Richmond papers, and, as its official character may cause it to be believed, I desire to state that it is incorrect. The enemy did not capture any organized body of men on that occasion, but only stragglers, and such as were left asleep on the road, exhausted by the fatigue and exposure of one of the most inclement nights I have ever known at this season of the year. It rained without cessation, rendering the road by which our troops marched to the bridge at Falling Waters very difficult to pass, and causing so much delay that the last of the troops did not cross the river at the bridge until 1 P.M. on the 14th. While the column was thus detained on the road a number of men, worn down by fatigue, lay down in barns, and by the roadside, and though officers were sent back to arouse them, as the troops moved on, the darkness and rain prevented them from finding all, and many were in this way left behind. Two guns were left on the road. The horses that drew them became exhausted, and the officers went forward to procure others. When they returned, the rear of the column had passed the guns so far that it was deemed unsafe to send back for them, and they were thus lost. No arms, cannon, or prisoners, were taken by the enemy in battle, but only such as were left behind under the circumstances I have described. The number of stragglers thus lost I am unable to state with accuracy, but it is greatly exaggerated in the dispatch referred to.

I am, with great respect, your obedient servant,

R.E. LEE, _General_.

The solicitude here exhibited by the Southern commander, that the actual facts should be recorded, is natural, and displayed Lee's spirit of soldiership. He was unwilling that his old army should appear in the light of a routed column, retreating in disorder, with loss of men and munitions, when they lost neither.]

XXI.

ACROSS THE BLUE RIDGE AGAIN.

Lee moved his army to the old encampment on the banks of the Opequan which it had occupied after the retreat from Sharpsburg, in September, 1862, and here a few days were spent in resting.

We have, in the journal of a foreign officer, an outline of Lee's personal appearance at this time, and, as we are not diverted from these characteristic details at the moment by the narrative of great events, this account of Lee, given by the officer in question--Colonel Freemantle, of the British Army--is laid before the reader:

"General Lee is, almost without exception, the handsomest man of his age I ever saw. He is tall, broad-shouldered, very well made, well set up--a thorough soldier in appearance--and his manners are most courteous, and full of dignity. He is a perfect gentleman in every respect. I imagine no man has so few enemies, or is so universally esteemed. Throughout the South, all agree in pronouncing him as near perfection as man can be. He has none of the small vices, such as smoking, drinking, chewing, or swearing; and his bitterest enemy never accused him of any of the greater ones. He generally wears a well-worn, long gray jacket, a high black-felt hat, and blue trousers, tucked into his Wellington boots. I never saw him carry arms, and the only marks of his military rank are the three stars on his collar. He rides a handsome horse, which is extremely well governed. He himself is very neat in his dress and person, and in the most arduous marches he always looks smart and clean.... It is understood that General Lee is a religious man, though not so demonstrative in that respect as Jackson, and, unlike his late brother-in-arms, he is a member of the Church of England. His only faults, so far as I can learn, arise from his excessive amiability."

This personal description is entirely correct, except that the word "jacket" conveys a somewhat erroneous idea of Lee's undress uniform coat, and his hat was generally gray. Otherwise, the sketch is exactly accurate, and is here presented as the unprejudiced description and estimate of a foreign gentleman, who had no inducement, such as might be attributed to a Southern writer, to overcolor his portrait. Such, in personal appearance, was the leader of the Southern army--a plain soldier, in a plain dress, without arms, with slight indications of rank, courteous, full of dignity, a "perfect gentleman," and with no fault save an "excessive amiability." The figure is attractive to the eye--it excited the admiration of a foreign officer, and remains in many memories now, when the sound of battle is hushed, and the great leader, in turn, has finished his life-battle and lain down in peace.

The movements of the two armies were soon resumed, and we shall briefly follow those movements, which led the adversaries back to the Rappahannock.

Lee appears to have conceived the design, after crossing the Potomac at Williamsport, to pass the Shenandoah River and the Blue Ridge, and thus place himself in the path of General Meade if he crossed east of the mountain, or threaten Washington. This appears from his own statement. "Owing," he says, "to the swollen condition of _the Shenandoah River, the plan of operations which had been contemplated when we recrossed the Potomac could not be put in execution_". The points fixed upon by Lee for passing the mountain were probably Snicker's and Ashby's Gaps, opposite Berryville and Millwood. The rains had, however, made the river, in these places, unfordable. On the 17th and 18th days of July, less than a week after Lee's crossing at Williamsport, General Meade passed the Potomac above Leesburg, and Lee moved his army in the direction of Chester Gap, near Front Royal, toward Culpepper.

The new movements were almost identically the same as the old, when General McClellan advanced, in November, 1862, and the adoption of the same plans by General Meade involves a high compliment to his predecessor. He acted with even more energy. As Lee's head of column was defiling toward Chester Gap, beyond Front Royal, General Meade struck at it through Manassas Gap, directly on its flank, and an action followed which promised at one time to become serious. The enemy was, however, repulsed, and the Southern column continued its way across the mountain. The rest of the army followed, and descended into Culpepper, from which position, when Longstreet was detached to the west, Lee retired, taking post behind the Rapidan.

General Meade thereupon followed, and occupied Culpepper, his advance being about half-way between Culpepper Court-House and the river.

Such was the position of the two armies in the first days of October, when Lee, weary, it seemed, of inactivity, set out to flank and fight his adversary.