CHAPTER XVIII.

Battle of Fredericksburg.-Gen. Jackson conceives the desperate enterprise of driv. ing the enemy into the river.-But he recalls the attack.-Battle of Chancellorsville.-A night council under the pines.-The flank-march.-How Gen. Hooker was deceived.-Gen. Jackson's last dispatch.-Fury of his attack in the Wilderness. He is shot from his horse by his own men.-Particulars of his wound and sufferings. His dying moments.-Funeral ceremonies in Richmond.

WHEN the Federal host, now put under the command of the feeble but gallant Burnside, essayed its fourth "On-to-Richmond," it was determined to try the line of the Rappahannock; and in the battle of Fredericksburg, fought the 13th December, Jackson's command had an active share. In the Confederate line of battle Jackson held the right, occupying about half of the range of hills, which swept around to Hamilton's Crossing on the railroad, inclosing a broken plain stretching back from the margin of the Rappahannock. In the early hours of the day the sun struggled with a thick haze; but as the morning mist lifted there was suddenly revealed one of the most animated scenes of the war, in which the Confederates, looking down as from an amphitheatre, saw before them a plain alive with the multitudes of a great army, and the gleaming bayonets of columns advancing to the attack. On the crest of hills the lines of the Confederate army stretched away, and on a commanding eminence, a little southeast of Marye's Heights, Gen. Lee obtained a view of the entire field. Occasionally Jackson rode up to this point of observation, where Lee camly conversed with his lieutenants, and arranged the final order of battle. Once Gen. Longstreet exclaimed to Jackson: "Are you not scared by that multitude of Yankees you have before you down there?" To which the latter replied: "Wait till they come a little nearer, and they shall either scare me or I'll scare them."

The sun had no sooner let in light enough to disclose the proximity of the lines than the battle commenced with a fierce attack upon A. P. Hill, who held Jackson's front. The divisions of

Early and Taliaferro composed Jackson's second line, while D. H. Hill's division was held in reserve. Jackson estimated the enemy in his front at 55,000 men-the wing of Franklin, supported by a portion of Hooker's division. The first serious incident of the battle was the irruption of this heavy mass through Hill's line. But it was only a temporary triumph; Jackson's second line was ordered forward, checked the enemy's advance, and drove him with great slaughter from the woods to the railroad, only ceasing the pursuit far within the range of the enemy's artillery.

The enemy appears to have been satisfied with this trial of Jackson, and during the remainder of the day did not renew the attack upon him, limiting their demonstration to a spiteful cannonade on his lines. The chief interest of the field transpired upon the left, where the day was decisively won. In the afternoon, Jackson learning the brilliant fortune on other parts of the field, dispatched an order that "he was going to advance and attack the enemy precisely at sunset, and Gen. Stuart was desired to advance his artillery and fire as rapidly as possible, taking care not to injure the troops as they attacked." He had conceived the desperate enterprise of driving the enemy into the river. With his watch in his hand, he counted the minutes until the sun touched the horizon, while he considered the terrible risks of the enterprise, the double embankments of the river road before him, and the immense artillery which crowned the Stafford hills on the other side. of the river. Just as he moved forward, and his first line sprung to the deadly work before it, the enemy opened all his artillery; it covered Jackson's whole front; with a quick perception and perfect self-command he saw the risk and cost of the endeavour, and in a moment relinquished it. It was enough that the day was

won.

Of what followed the brilliant but imperfect victory of Fredericksburg, Gen. Jackson writes in his official report: "On the 15th the enemy still remained in our front, and, in the evening of that day, sent in a flag of truce requesting a cessation of hostilities between his left and our right wing, for the purpose of removing his wounded from the field, which, under previous instructions from the Commanding General, was granted. Our troops patiently remained in position on that, as they had done the previous day, eagerly awaiting another attack from the enemy; and such was the

desire to occupy the front line, when such an attack should be made, that the division of Maj.-Gen. D. H. Hill sent in a written request to be permitted to remain in the front line until next day. But our brave troops were disappointed in the expectation of another attack. For whilst they patiently waited during the night of the 15th, in the hope of another encounter on the following day, and of visiting upon the invaders of their sacred homes and firesides a just retribution for the outrages of this most unprovoked and unchristian war, the enemy hurriedly and silently, during that night, made good his retreat by recrossing the river."

The campaign of 1863 opens with the battle of Chancellorsville. In April of that year the two armies confronted each other on the banks of the Rappahannock from a point above its confluence with the Rapidan as far down as Port Royal. The bulk of the Confederate forces remained, however, near Fredericksburg. Lee had been weakened by detachments; he had not more than 45,000 men; and when Hooker, the new Federal commander, with twice his numbers, crossed the Rappahannock with the design of enveloping him, and left fronting Fredericksburg Sedgwick, with a force nearly matching Lee's whole army in numbers, the situation was never more desperate for the Confederates. In the last days of April, Hooker had got the greater portion of his army across the Rappahannock, and was moving towards Chancellorsville, about four miles south of the point of the confluence of the Rapidan. The divisions of Anderson and McLaws were marched westward to arrest the progress of Hooker, while Jackson remained in the lines occupied by him in the battle of Fredericksburg, watching the proceedings of Sedgwick before him. On the 29th April, Lee, determining to meet Sedgwick by a feint, left Early's division only to confront him, while Jackson stole rapidly away to reinforce Anderson and McLaws, and to take the aggressive against Hooker. In the mists of the morning and under cover of the forest, Jackson passed securely out of view, defying the espionage of the enemy's balloons, and before noon was with Gen. Lee on Hooker's front, busy in disclosing his real strength and position.

The enemy had here 90,000 troops intrenched at their leisure; his front was well-nigh impregnable; and the design of assailing him from the east or the south was speedily abandoned.

Gen. Jackson eagerly proposed to throw his command entirely into Hooker's rear, availing himself of the absence of the Federal cavalry, and to assail him from the west, and in concert with Anderson and McLaws. It was a characteristic, brilliant, hazardous adventure; it involved a second detachment from Lee's sadly diminished army-Early remaining at Fredericksburg with about seven thousand men; it left only Anderson and McLaws to "contain" Hooker; and yet it was the best thing to be done under all the circumstances.

The plan of action was decided in a council held at night in a cluster of pine trees, and at the foot of one of these Jackson slept, after discussing the grand adventure of the morrow. The thought of its peril might have kept an ordinary commander awake. He had undertaken to move, without being discovered, along the entire front of the enemy, and in close proximity to his lines; to make his way by unfrequented roads, and through dense thickets to his flank and rear; to attack the large force in the intrenchments above Chancellorsville, and to take the chances of a repulse, where, with 22,000 men, and without the possibility of assistance from Gen. Lee, he would have been at the enemy's mercy. Everything was put upon the issue of this movement; but having once calculated it, Jackson was perfectly self-possessed, and a more than usual confidence is said to have shone in his features.

He

In the morning of the 2d May, Jackson was in the saddle. had learned the absence of hostile cavalry; the friendly screen of forests which surrounded Chancellorsville had been described to him. Diverging westward from the Fredericksburg plank-road, he pursued his march by a forest path; passed a point known as "the Furnace;" there struck into a road which intersected the Orange plank-road, on which the enemy's force was planted, regaining which to the northward, he would be in a position to turn Hooker's left flank. But it was impossible to make the perilous flank-march across the whole of the enemy's front without attracting some attention, for his scouts were mounted in the tops of the highest trees, and the screen of the forest was not always available. As the column of Jackson passed over a hill near "the Furnace," it partially disclosed itself; but the enemy, instead of taking alarm, was seized with the conceit of interpreting the movement as a retreat towards Richmond on the part of Lee.

Sickles, who observed the movement, struck the rear of the column, took a few prisoners, and sent an elated account to Hooker, who dispatched to Sedgwick at Fredericksburg: "We know the enemy is flying, trying to save his trains; two of Sickles' divisions are among them."

The enemy's pleasant delusion was to be broken in a few hours by a sudden and almost mortal blow. At three o'clock in the afternoon, Jackson had arrived six miles west of Chancellorsville, and upon precisely the opposite side of the enemy to that occupied by Gen. Lee. Here he wrote his last dispatch to the Commanding General: "I hope, so soon as practicable, to attack. I trust that an ever kind Providence will bless us with success." Two hours were consumed in preparations for the attack; orders were issued, aides and orderlies galloped to and fro, and between five and six o'clock, Jackson advanced his force in three parallel lines, Rodes holding the front and tearing through the thickets to get within view of the enemy's lines. The right wing of Hooker's army, composed of the Eleventh corps under Howard, rested on the plank-road, all unsuspicious of danger. As Rodes' men burst from the woods, uttering loud cheers, attacking the alarmed enemy in front and flank, it appeared that scarcely any organized resistance was offered to the assault. Some of Howard's troops ran from the suppers they were cooking; a few seized their arms, and endeavoured to defend themselves; but quickly the whole corps was in rout, the men flying in the wildest confusion, and leaving the field strewn with their guns and knapsacks.

For three miles the Federals were swept back by a resistless charge, and panic-stricken fugitives fled towards the fords of the Rappahannock. In the dusk of nightfall there was a rushing whirlwind of men, artillery, and wagons sweeping down the road, and through the woods, in mad retreat. The Confederates pressed forward through the barriers of the forest, entangled now and then in an abattis of felled trees, their lines falling into disorder, but their victorious shouts still resounding in the woods. A description of Jackson at this time says: "The only order given by him had been his favourite battle-cry, 'Press forward.' This was his message to every General, and his answer to every inquiry. As he uttered it, he leaned forward upon his horse, and waved his hand as though endeavouring, by its single strength, to urge for