The Campaign of Chancellorsville Part 7

The next sound is that of bugles giving the command, and enabling the advancing troops to preserve some kind of alignment. At this the wary p.r.i.c.k up their ears. Surprise stares on every face. Immediately follows a crash of musketry as Rodes sweeps away our skirmish line as it were a cobweb. Then comes the long and heavy roll of veteran infantry fire, as he falls upon Devens's line.

The resistance which this division can make is as nothing against the weighty a.s.sault of a line moving by battalions in ma.s.s. Many of the regiments do their duty well. Some barely fire a shot. This is frankly acknowledged in many of the reports. What can be expected of new troops, taken by surprise, and attacked in front, flank, and rear, at once? Devens is wounded, but remains in the saddle, nor turns over the command to McLean until he has reached the Buschbeck line. He has lost one-quarter of his four thousand men, and nearly all his superior officers, in a brief ten minutes.

Schurz's division is roused by the heavy firing on the right, in which even inexperienced ears detect something more than a mere repet.i.tion of the picket-fight of three hours gone. Its commanding officers are at once alert. Regimental field and staff are in the saddle, and the men behind the stacks, leaving canteens, haversacks, cups with the steaming evening coffee, and rations at the fires. Arms are taken. Regiments are confusedly marched and counter-marched into the most available positions, to meet an emergency which some one should have antic.i.p.ated and provided for. The absence of Barlow is now fatal.

On comes Jackson, pursuing the wreck of the First division. Some of Schurz's regiments break before Devens has pa.s.sed to the rear. Others stand firm until the victorious Confederates are upon them with their yell of triumph, then steadily fall back, turning and firing at intervals; but nowhere a line which can for more than a brief s.p.a.ce r.e.t.a.r.d such an onset.

Down the road towards Chancellorsville, through the woods, up every side road and forest path, pours a stream of fugitives. Ambulances and oxen, pack-mules and ammunition-wagons, officers' spare horses mounted by runaway negro servants, every species of the impedimenta of camp-life, commissary sergeants on all-too-slow mules, teamsters on still-harnessed team-horses, quartermasters whose duties are not at the front, riderless steeds, clerks with armfuls of official papers, non-combatants of all kinds, mixed with frighted soldiers whom no sense of honor can arrest, strive to find shelter from the murderous fire.

No organization is left in the Eleventh Corps but one brigade of Steinwehr's division. Buschbeck has been speedily formed by a change of front, before Devens and Schurz have left the field, in the line of intrenchments built across the road at Dowdall's at the edge of the clearing. No sooner in place than a scattering fire by the men is opened upon friends and foes alike. Dilger's battery trains some of its guns down the road. The reserve artillery is already in position at the north of this line, and uses spherical case with rapidity. Howard and his staff are in the thickest of the fray, endeavoring to stem the tide. As well oppose resistance to an avalanche.

Buschbeck's line stubbornly holds on. An occasional squad, still clinging to the colors of its regiment, joins itself to him, ashamed of falling thus disgracefully to the rear. Officers make frantic exertions to rally their men; useless effort. In little less than half an hour this last stand has been swept away, and the Eleventh Corps is in confused retreat down the pike towards headquarters, or in whatever direction affords an outlet from the remorseless hail.

The general confusion which reigned can scarcely be more accurately described than by detailing the experience of a single regiment. The One Hundred and Nineteenth New York Volunteers was in Schurz's division. It was commanded by an officer of German birth, but long since an American citizen. No more gallant, intelligent man wore uniform, or one better fitted for a pattern soldier. Well read in military matters, he had never yet been under fire, and was nervously anxious to win his spurs. The regiment was a good one; but only three or four officers, and a small percentage of enlisted men, had seen service.

This regiment faced south on the pike just west of the fork in the roads. Under arms in an instant, when the firing was heard on the right, it was soon ordered by one of Schurz's aides to throw itself across the fork, and hold it at all hazards. But the suddenness of the attack had momentarily robbed Col. Peissner of his steadiness, for he was a good drill-master. Instead of facing to the right, counter-marching, filing to the left across the road, and coming to a front,-the simplest if longest movement being the best in times of such excitement,-he faced to the left because his left was nearest to the fork, filed to the left, and then, instead of coming on the left by file into line, he moved astride the roads, and ordered "Front!" This brought the regiment in line with its back to the enemy. The men instinctively came each to an about-face, and the file closers broke through to the now rear. There was no time to correct the error. The regiment, which would have fought well under proper circ.u.mstances, from the start lost confidence in its officers and itself. Still it held its ground until it had burned almost twenty rounds, and until the Confederate line was within fifty yards in its face, and had quite outflanked it. Then the raking volleys of such a front as Jackson was wont to present, and, more than all, the fire of Buschbeck's brigade in its immediate rear, broke it; and it melted away, leaving only a platoon's strength around the colors, to continue for a brief s.p.a.ce the struggle behind the Buschbeck line, while the rest fled down the road, or through the woods away from the deadly fire. This regiment lost its entire color-guard, and nearly one-half of its complement killed or wounded.

There is much discrepancy as to the time during which the Eleventh Corps made resistance to Jackson's advance. All reliable authorities put the time of the attack as six P.M. When the last gun was fired at the Buschbeck rifle-pits, it was dusk, at that season about quarter past seven. It seems reasonably settled, therefore, that the corps r.e.t.a.r.ded the Confederate advance over about a mile of ground for exceeding an hour. How much more can be expected of ten thousand raw troops telescoped by twenty-five thousand veterans?

Rodes, now quite mixed with Colston's line, still pressed on, and between Hooker's headquarters and his elated foe there was scarce an organized regiment. Hooker's fatal inability to grasp the situation, and his ordering an advance of all troops on Howard's left as far as the Second Corps, had made him almost defenceless. The troops which should have been available to stem this adverse tide were blindly groping in the woods, two miles in front,-in pursuit of Jackson.

One cannot but wonder just where Sickles expected to find Jackson. There can be little doubt that he did think he was about to strike Jackson's flank. His testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War constantly refers to this belief; and he says that he "was about to open his attack in full force," was holding Pleasonton's cavalry in hand, desiring to lead the attack with his infantry, when the news of the disaster to the Eleventh Corps was brought to him; and that every thing seemed to indicate the most brilliant success from thus throwing himself upon Jackson's flank and rear. He refers to McLaws being in his front, but this is an error. McLaws was on Lee's right flank, three miles away. It was with Archer of Jackson's corps, and with Posey and Wright of Anderson's division, that he had to do.

The reports are by no means clear as to the details of these movements. Birney states in his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, that he found that he and Barlow "had got into the midst of the rebel army, the supports on the left not having come up." He therefore formed his command into a huge square, with the artillery in the centre, holding the road over which Jackson had pa.s.sed. "The fire upon his left flank from musketry was galling." This came from Anderson's brigades.

Hayman, Graham and Ward were pushed out along the road, and "found the enemy in some force on three sides." This apparently shows that Birney,-who had the immediate command of the troops in front,-was quite uncertain of what was before him, or just what he was expected to do.

This much is, however, clear: Jackson's small rearguard had succeeded in holding the road which he had traversed, at some point near Welford's; and here this force remained until Jackson was well along towards the plank road. Then Anderson in his turn made a diversion on the other side of Birney, which kept the latter busy for at least a couple of hours.

Sickles's orders were to advance cautiously. This was Hooker's doing. Hence exception cannot fairly be taken to either Birney's or Sickles's conduct for lack of energy. But the latter must have singularly underrated Jackson's methods, if he thought he could strike him at a given point, so many hours after his pa.s.sage. For Jackson was first observed near the Furnace about eight A.M., and Sickles was just getting ready to attack him in this same place at six P.M.

The errors of judgment on this entire day can scarcely be attributed to any one but the general commanding. He was the one to whom all reports were sent. He had knowledge of every thing transpiring. He it was who was responsible for some sensible interpretation of the information brought him, and for corresponding action in the premises.

So much for Sickles's advance. It could not well have been more ill-timed and useless. But his gallant work of the coming night and morrow, when Hooker left him almost alone to resist the fierce a.s.saults of our victorious and elated foe, was ample compensation for his subordinate share in the triviality and fatal issue of Sat.u.r.day's manoeuvring. Nor can blame fall upon him in as full measure as upon Hooker; although he seems illy to have construed what was transpiring in his front, and what he reported may have seriously misled his chief.

Perhaps no officers, during our Civil War, were placed in a more lamentably awkward position than Devens, and in a less degree Schurz, on this occasion. Having been fully convinced by the events of the afternoon that an attack down the pike was highly probable, having carefully reported all these events to his immediate commander, Devens was left without inspection, counsel, or help. He might have gone in person to Howard, but he did not dare leave his division. He might have sent messages which more urgently represented his own anxiety. But when the blow came, he did all that was possible, and remained, wounded, in command, and a.s.sisted in re-organizing some relics of his division behind the Buschbeck works.

Schurz was with Howard a good part of the day, and his opinions were expressed to that officer. To Schurz's personal bearing here, or on any other occasion, no possible exception can be taken.

XVII. THE CONDUCT OF THE ELEVENTH CORPS.

There can be no attempt to gainsay that the Eleventh Corps, on this luckless Sat.u.r.day, did not do its whole duty. That it was panic-stricken, and that it decamped from a field where as a corps it had not fought, is undeniable. But portions of the corps did fight, and the entire corps would doubtless have fought well under favorable circ.u.mstances. It is but fair, after casting upon the corps the aspersion of flight from before the enemy, to do it what justice is possible, and to palliate the bad conduct of the whole by bearing testimony to the good conduct of some of its parts.

It has been called a German corps. This is not quite exact. Of nearly thirteen thousand men in the corps, only forty-five hundred were Germans. But it must be admitted that so many officers high in rank were of that nationality, that the general tendency and feeling were decidedly unlike the rest of the army. Moreover, there is not wanting testimony to show that there were some who wore shoulder-straps in the corps who gave evidence of having taken up the profession of arms to make money, and not to fight.

The artillery of the corps did well. Those general officers who most severely rebuke the conduct of the corps, all say a word in favor of the service of the guns. Dilger, on the road, just at Buschbeck's line, fired with his own hands from his last gun a round of canister when the Confederates were within a dozen yards. Most of the guns had been well served, but had been sent to the rear in time to save them from capture.

The reserve artillery did its duty, nor limbered up until the Confederate line had outflanked its position, rendered it useless, and jeopardized its safety.

All the guns that were saved were put into action an hour later, and did effective service on the Fairview crest, in company with the artillery of the Third and Twelfth Corps.

At the time of the attack, which was made by Jackson without an advance of skirmishers, Devens's reserve regiments were ordered up to support von Gilsa. There appears to have been something like a stand attempted; but the left wing of the Confederate line speedily enveloped von Gilsa's front, and showed in rear of his right flank, when his regiments melted away.

Devens states in his report that a new line might have been formed on Gen. Schurz's division, if the latter had maintained his ground, but acknowledges that the falling-back of his own troops "must undoubtedly have added to the difficulties encountered by the command of that officer."

Schurz's report is very clear and good. This is partly attributable to the avalanche of abuse precipitated upon his division by the press, which called forth his detailed explanation, and an official request for permission to publish his report. There existed a general understanding that Schurz held the extreme right; and the newspapermen, to all appearance, took pleasure in holding a German responsible, in their early letters, for the origin of the panic. This error, together with the fact of his having discussed the situation during the day with Gen. Howard, and of his having remained of the opinion that an attack on our right was probable, accounts for the care exhibited in his statements. That he did harbor such fears is proved by his having, of his own motion, after the attack of three o'clock, placed the Fifty-Eighth New York, Eighty-Second Ohio, and Twenty-Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers, near Hawkins's farm, in the north part of the Dowdall clearing, and facing west. Still Schurz's report is only a careful summary of facts otherwise substantiated. He deals no more in his own opinions than a division commander has a right to do.

Schurz states that he strongly advised that the entire corps should take up the Buschbeck line, not considering the woods a reliable point d'appui. For they were thick enough to screen the manoeuvring of the enemy, but not, as the event showed, to prevent his marching through them to the attack.

When the onset came, it was impossible quickly to change front. Schurz's regiments were all hemmed in between the rifle-pits before them and the woods in their rear. Still, more than half of the regiments of this division appear to have maintained their credit, and the testimony would tend to show that the men burned from five to thirty rounds each. But without avail. They were telescoped. Their defences were rendered useless. The enemy was on both sides of and perpendicular to them. It is an open question whether, at that time, any two divisions of the army could have changed front and made a good defence under these circ.u.mstances. Later in the war our soldiers were more habituated, particularly in the West, to fighting on either side of their breastworks. But these were raw troops. And this was not the first, nor was it the last, panic in the Army of the Potomac. But the corps had, as ill-luck willed it, nothing in its rear to repair or conceal its discomfiture.

Buschbeck's brigade had better opportunities, and acted correspondingly better. It had time to occupy the rifle-pits facing west before the enemy had completed the destruction of the first and third divisions. Buschbeck's stand covered a full half-hour. He was re-enforced by many fragments of broken regiments, holding together under such officers as had escaped utter demoralization. The troops remained behind these works until outflanked on right and left, for Jackson's front of over two miles easily enveloped any line our little force could form.

During the early part of the attack, Colquitt's brigade ran across the pickets of Devens's and Schurz's south front, which there had been no time to call in. Instead of joining in the advance, Colquitt remained to engage these latter, deeming it essential to protect Jackson's right. This was the nucleus of one of the many detached engagements of this day. Several bodies of Union troops thus isolated were captured en ma.s.se.

The reports of the officers concerned, as a rule, possess the merit of frankness. As an instance, Col. Hartung, of the Seventy-Fourth New York, relates that he had no opportunity to fire a shot until after he arrived behind the Buschbeck intrenchments. The facts would appear to be given in an even-handed way, in all the reports rendered.

Little remains to be said. The Eleventh Corps was panic-stricken, and did run, instead of retreating. It was a mere disorganized ma.s.s in a half-hour from the beginning of the attack, with but a few isolated regiments, and one brigade, retaining a semblance of orderliness.

But was it so much the misbehavior of the troops as the faultiness of the position they occupied?

The corps was got together again before Sunday morning, in a condition to do good service. Had it been tested, it would, in all probability, have fought well.

The loss of the corps was one-quarter of its effective.

Some time after the battle of Chancellorsville, a motion was made to break up the Eleventh Corps, and distribute its regiments among the others; but it was not done. Hooker then remarked that he would yet make that corps fight, and be proud of its name. And it subsequently did sterling service. Gen. Thomas remarked, in congratulating Hooker on his victory at Lookout Mountain, that "the bayonet-charge of Howard's troops, made up the side of a steep and difficult hill, over two hundred feet high, completely routing and driving the enemy from his barricades on its top,... will rank with the most distinguished feats of arms of this war." And it is a.s.serted that this encomium was well earned, and that no portion of it need be set down to encouragement.

In their evidence before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, Hooker and Sickles both testify that the panic of the Eleventh Corps produced a gap in the line, and that this was the main cause of disaster on this field. But the fatal gap was made long before the Eleventh Corps was attacked. It was Hooker's giddy blunder in ordering away, two miles in their front, the entire line from Dowdall's to Chancellorsville, that made it.

This was the gap which enabled Jackson to push his advance to within a few hundred yards of Chancellorsville before he could be arrested. This was what made it possible for him to join his right to Lee's left wing next day. Had Hooker but kept his troops in hand, so as to have moved up Birney sharply in support, to have thrown forward Berry and Whipple if required, the Confederate advance would, in all human probability, have been checked at Dowdall's; Lee and Jackson would still have been separated by a distance of two miles; and of this perilous division excellent advantage could have yet been taken at daylight Sunday by the Army of the Potomac.

Hooker's testimony includes the following attempt to disembarra.s.s himself of the onus of the faulty position of the Eleventh Corps and its consequences: "No pickets appear to have been thrown out; and I have reason to suppose that no effort was made by the commander of the corps on the right to follow up and keep himself advised of Jackson's movements, although made in broad daylight, and with his full knowledge. In this way the Eleventh Corps was lost to me, and more than that, because its bad conduct impaired the confidence that the corps of the army had in one another. I observed this fact during the night, from the firing on the picket-lines, as well as from the general manner of the troops, if a gun was fired by the enemy: after that, the whole line would let off their pieces. The men seemed to be nervous; and during the coming-in of the Eleventh Corps I was fearful, at one time, that the whole army would be thrown into confusion by it. Some of my staff-officers killed half a dozen of the men in trying to arrest their flight."

It is not intended, by what has been said, to exonerate Howard at the expense of Hooker. To Howard will always be imputed, and justly, a certain part of the blame; for there were, during the afternoon, enough indications of a probable attack down the pike to make a prudent corps-commander either a.s.sume the responsibility of a change of front,-as it could advantageously be made on the Buschbeck line prolonged,-or else, at least, so strongly urge the facts on his superior that no blame could cling to his own skirts. But neither can Hooker's larger share of blame he shifted off his own to Howard's shoulders. While it may be said that the latter did not exhibit the activity which the questionable aspect of affairs demanded,-for he did not personally inspect his lines after the early morning hours,-it is equally true that the commander of the army utterly neglected his right wing, though he had every circ.u.mstance relating to its danger reported to him.

XVIII. HOOKER'S PARRY.

The position of the Army of the Potomac is critical in the extreme. But several circ.u.mstances come to the rescue. It is almost dark. The rebel lines have become inextricably mixed. Colston, who has gradually moved up to Rodes's support, is so completely huddled together with this latter's command, that there is no organization left. Still Jackson's veterans press on, determined to crush our army beyond recovery, and drive it from United-States Ford. Stuart has in fact, at his own suggestion, got orders to move his cavalry division in that direction, and occupy the road to Ely's. A. P. Hill's division is still intact in rear of the two leading lines, now shuffled into one quite unmanageable ma.s.s, but still instinctively pushing forward.

So faulty have Hooker's dispositions been, in advancing his entire right centre without filling the gap, that the only available troops to throw into the breach, after the rapid destruction of the Eleventh Corps, are Berry's division of the old Third. These hardened soldiers are still in reserve on the clearing, north of headquarters. It is fortunate, indeed, that they are still there; for Sickles has just asked for their detail to join his own column out in the woods, and an hour ago Berry would certainly have been sent.