Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/263

CHANCELLORSVILLE 255 of North Virginia under Gen. Lee. Hooker re- placed Burnside in command of the army of the Potomac, Jan. 26, 1863. He found it somewhat demoralized by the defeat at Fredericksburg and by dissensions among its principal officers, but by the middle of April he had brought it to a high state of efficiency. It numbered 132,000 men, of whom 13,000 were cavalry. It was divided into seven corps, under Rey- nolds, Couch, Sickles, Meade, Sedgwick, How- ard, and Slocum, the cavalry being under Stoneman. It lay in camp on the left bank of the Rappahannock, opposite Fredericksburg. The confederate army was intrenched on the heights across the river. It was divided into the corps of Longstreet and Jackson, but Longstreet himself, with three of his five divi- sions, had been sent to North Carolina, so that there remained 62,000 men, of whom 3,000 were cavalry under Stuart. The position was thought to be unassailable in front, and Hooker undertook to turn its left flank, and so fall upon its rear. In the mean while he sent all his cavalry, with the exception of 1,000, upon an expedition to cut the communications of the enemy with Richmond. On the morning of April 27 a column 36,000 strong, which com- prised the greater part of the corps of Meade, Howard, and Slocum, moved up the left bank of the Rappahannock 27 m. to Kelly's ford, be- yond the extreme confederate left, where they crossed without opposition. Meade then moved down the opposite bank 10 m. toward the United States ford, brushed away three brigades which defended it, so that Couch, who was waiting on the other side with 12,000 men, crossed, and the four corps moved by different roads toward Chancellorsville, which had been designated as the place of rendezvous. They were in light marching order, encumbered with little artillery or baggage, the ammuni- tion being carried by mules; and before the night of the 30th 48,000 men had reached Chan- cellorsville, and Sickles with 18,000 more was only a few hours' march behind. So success- fully had the movement been conducted, that Hooker was justified by every military consid- eration in declaring that "the enemy must either ingloriously fly or come out from behind his intrenchments and give us battle on our own ground, where certain destruction awaits him." Chancellorsville was a solitary brick mansion, surrounded by a few outbuildings, standing in a clearing on the verge of a wild region known as the Wilderness. The tract, 10 or 15 m. in extent each way, had formerly been cov- ered with a heavy forest. This had been cut down to supply fuel for the iron furnaces, and the soil being too poor to repay cultivation, a dense growth of dwarf pines, scrub oak, chin- quapins, and brambles had sprung up. The surface was varied by low ridges, swampy in- tervales, and muddy brooks. Here and there was a solitary church, tavern, or farm house, each in a little clearing. Two main roads traverse the Wilderness from E. to W. These, 171 VOL. IT. 17 coming from Oulpeper and Orange Court House, unite near Chancellorsville, and after two or three miles again diverge, both running toward Fredericksburg, 11 m. E. of Chancel- lorsville. The other roads are little more than wood paths. The battle of Chancellorsville was fought near the eastern border of this tract; that of the Wilderness, a year later, about 10 m. to the west. Sedgwick and Rey- nolds had crossed the Rappahannock below Fredericksburg, and were making a threaten- ing demonstration on the confederate front, and it was not till the evening of the 30th that Lee was aware that his left flank had been turned, and that Hooker was in his rear, with a force fully equal to his own. Directing Early with 10,000 men to hold the heights of Fredericksburg, he at once called up Anderson from the left, and ordered Jackson to march from the extreme right. Jackson's main force was 20 m. distant. He began to move at mid- night ; at 8 o'clock the head of his column be- gan to come up to Anderson, and by 11 on Friday morning, May 1, all had arrived, and were drawn up in line of battle in front of the Wilderness, out of which the enemy was now beginning to move. Hooker had done much, but he had omitted the one thing which would have insured success. An hour's march, the evening before or this morning, would have taken him unopposed out of the Wilderness and into the open country. But now, at noon, as his columns debouched by different roads, they found the enemy advancing in force ; and, in opposition to the opinion of every one of his generals who had touched the enemy, he fell back again into the Wilderness. " The passage- way," he says, "was narrow; I was satisfied that I could not throw troops through it fast enough to resist the advance of Gen. Lee, and was apprehensive of being whipped in detail. Accordingly, instructions were given for the troops in advance to return and establish them- selves on the line they had just left, and to hold themselves in readiness to receive the en- emy." The enemy, barely 50,000 strong, had come out of his intrenchments, and Hooker with more than 60,000 retreated before them from the ground which he himself had chosen, abandoned the offensive and assumed the de- fensive, while at the same time he had, 15 m. away, 56,000 more who were only hindered from falling upon what was now Lee's rear by the 10,000 left with Early. Hooker's defen- sive line was nearly in the shape of the letter C, the main front facing southward, the upper and lower curves looking west and east. The corps and. divisions were somewhat broken up. Meade was oa the left, nearest Fredericksburg, Slocum in the centre, Howard on the right. The corps of. Couch and Sickles were mainly in reserve^ but a division from each was thrust forward into the front line. Howard's position was weakly posted, being in military phrase " in the air;" but as the enemy were wholly on the leftj hardly reaching to the centre, it was