of Jackson's men, "the best infantry in existence, as tough, hardy, and full of spirit as they are ill-fed, ill-clothed, and illlooking," 1 surprised less than half their number. The officers and men of the Eleventh Corps in the main did well. But, asks Colonel Dodge, "what can be expected of new troops, taken by surprise and attacked in front, flank, and rear at once?" After a brief resistance they ran.

It was a dearly bought victory for the Confederates. Jackson, busy in the endeavor to re-form his troops who had fallen into confusion from the charge through the thick and tangled wood, and eager to discover the intentions of Hooker, rode with his escort forward beyond his line of battle. Fired upon by the Federal troops, they turned about, and as they rode back in the obscurity of the night, were mistaken for Union horsemen and shot at by their own soldiers, Jackson receiving a mortal wound. The disability of the general undoubtedly prevented his victory from being more complete. Sickles was in jeopardy, but the night was clear and the moon nearly full, and he fought his way back, reoccupying his breastworks.

Hooker, despondent at the rout of the Eleventh Corps, was in mind and nerve unfit for the exercise of his great responsibility. The story of Sunday the 3d of May is that of an incompetent commander in a state of nervous collapse confronted by an able and alert general. Early in the morning Jackson's corps, yelling fiercely and crying "Remember Jackson," made the attack, seconded by the troops under Lee's immediate command. The Union soldiers resisted bravely. The efforts of officers and men were praiseworthy, but there was no head, and nothing was effective that emanated from headquarters. Thirty to thirty-five thousand fresh troops, near at hand and eager to fight, were not called into action.3 The parting injunction of Lincoln to Hooker on

1 T. A. Dodge, The Campaign of Chancellorsville, p. 92.

2 Ibid., p. 93.

3 Reynolds's corps, which crossed the river May 2, a portion of the 5th Corps, and Barlow's brigade of the 11th Corps make up this number.

CH. XX.]

BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE

263

his visit to the Army of the Potomac in April,1 "In your next battle put in all your men," 2 had gone unheeded.

Shortly after nine o'clock in the morning Hooker was knocked down and rendered senseless by a cannon ball striking a pillar of the veranda of Chancellor House, against which he was leaning; but at that time the battle was practically lost. "By 10 A. M." said Lee in his report, "we were in full possession of the field.” 3

On the evening of May 2, after the rout of Howard, Hooker sent word to Sedgwick to march toward Chancellorsville and be "in our vicinity at daylight. You will probably fall upon the rear of the forces commanded by General Lee," the despatch continued, "and between us we will use him up."4 The commander had given Sedgwick an impossible undertaking. He was three miles below Fredericksburg on the south side of the river, and between him and Lee lay Early, with over 9000 men occupying places strongly fortified. He received the order at eleven at night, moved promptly, skirmishing as he advanced, and at daylight was in possession of Fredericksburg. To gain the road desired, he must take Marye's Heights, whence the Confederates the previous December had overwhelmed with slaughter Burnside's troops. Two storming columns were formed, flanked by the line of battle, and, advancing on the double quick under a destructive fire, carried the works on the heights, capturing guns and many prisoners.5 Sedgwick then marched towards Hooker; but ere this Hooker's battle of May 3 was over, with the result that he had been driven back from his position at Chancellorsville. Lee learned with much regret of the capture of Fredericksburg and Marye's Heights, and sent a

1 The President reached Falmouth April 5, and remained there until the 10th. Nat. Intelligencer.

2 Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 120.

8 O. R., vol. xxv. part i. p. 800.

Ibid., part ii. p. 365.

5 Marye's Heights was not occupied by so large a force nor so stubbornly defended as when Burnside met there his crushing defeat,

portion of his force to meet Sedgwick's corps. They joined battle at Salem Church, and the Confederates got the better of it. The next day, May 4, leaving Jackson's corps to hold Hooker in check, Lee late in the afternoon fell with 25,000 men upon Sedgwick's 20,000, who resisted the attack until nightfall. Sedgwick, considering that he was hemmed in by the enemy, took advantage of the permission contained in one of the conflicting despatches that crossed between him and his commander, and withdrew that night to the north bank of the Rappahannock. All that day Hooker had done nothing to relieve Sedgwick, although only 22,000 Confederates confronted his 80,000. After a council of war he decided to recross the river, and by the morning of May 6 this movement was accomplished safely and without molestation. The loss of the Union army in the Chancellorsville campaign was 17,287; that of the Confederates, 12,463.1

While Jackson lay suffering from his wounds, pneumonia set in, and eight days after his signal victory over Howard, he died. The Confederates had better lost the battle than

1 My authorities for this account are the reports of Lee, Stuart, Halleck, Warren, Couch, Sickles, Meade, Sedgwick, Howard, Schurz, Devens, O. R., vol. xxv. part i.; the Union and Confederate correspondence, ibid., part ii.; T. A. Dodge's Chancellorsville; A. C. Hamlin's ibid.; Doubleday's ibid.; testimonies of Hooker, Butterfield, Warren, Sickles, Hancock, Devens, C. W., 1865, vol. i.; articles of Couch, Howard, Smith, Jackson, Colston, Benjamin, Hooker's comments on Chancellorsville, Century War Book, vol. iii.; Dabney's Jackson; Life of Jackson by his wife; Fitzhugh Lee's Lee; Taylor's ibid.; Long's ibid.; Hist. of the 2d Army Corps, Walker; Walker's Hancock; Nicolay and Hay, vol. vii. chap. iv.; Swinton, Army of the Potomac.

The report gained currency that Hooker's mental collapse was due to intoxication. This is gainsaid by the testimony of Pleasanton, C. W., 1865, vol. i. p. 31; by Couch in his article, Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 170. "The story is positively contradicted by all of the officers who were with Hooker during the battle." - Nicolay and Hay, vol. iii. p. 108 note. I have heard the same denial from two officers. The truth seems to be that Hooker was accustomed to drink a large amount of whiskey daily without being prevented from attending to his round of duties, but when he started on this campaign, or at all events on the day that he reached Chancellors. ville, from motives which do him honor, he stopped drinking entirely.

CH. XX.]

DEATH OF STONEWALL JACKSON

265

this commander of genius. Nothing will as well round the conception of him which we have already acquired from following his successful career as the testimony of the ablest and noblest representative of the Southern cause. On hearing that he was wounded Lee wrote to him: "Could I have directed events, I should have chosen for the good of the country to be disabled in your stead." After the war he declared, "Had I Stonewall Jackson at Gettysburg, I would have won a great victory."

With the fervent abolitionist poet, we of the North may "let a tear fall on Stonewall's bier."3 He was the leader and the type of the very religious Scotch-Irish of the South, who, as we found out to our cost, were redoubtable fighters. They will never again meet us in civil strife; indeed in the war with Spain of 1898 the descendants of those who with sublime devotion had followed Stonewall Jackson responded to the common country's call.

Who may pretend to explain the incongruity of man? Both the conscientious Jackson and Barère, the man without a conscience, believed in waging war like barbarians. During the wars of the Revolution the Frenchman proposed to the Convention that no English or Hanoverian prisoners be taken. "I always thought," declared Jackson, that "we ought to meet the Federal invaders on the outer verge of just right and defence, and raise at once the black flag, viz., ‘No quarter to the violators of our homes and firesides.' It would in the end have proved true humanity and mercy. The Bible is full of such wars, and it is the only policy that would bring the North to its senses." 5

1 O. R., vol. xxv. part ii. p. 769.

66

2 Life of Lee, Fitzhugh Lee, p. 281. Longstreet wrote of Jackson's death: The shock was a very severe one to men and officers, but the full extent of our loss was not felt until the remains of the beloved general had been sent home. The dark clouds of the future then began to lower above the Confederates." - Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 245,

8 Barbara Frietchie.

4 La Révolution, Taine, tome iii. pp. 248, 250.

Life of Jackson, by his wife, p. 310.

Owing to the censorship of the telegraph by the War Department, the news of the disaster at Chancellorsville reached the North slowly. When its full extent became known, discouragement ruled. Many men who were earnest in the support of the war gave up all idea that the South could be conquered. Nothing demonstrates more painfully the sense of failure of the North to find a successful general than the serious and apparently well-considered suggestion of the Chicago Tribune that Abraham Lincoln take the field as the actual commander of the Army of the Potomac. We sincerely believe, the writer of this article concluded, that "Old Abe" can lead our armies to victory. "If he does not, who will ?" 1

Nevertheless, the gloom and sickness at heart so apparent after the first and second Bull Run, the defeat of McClellan before Richmond, and the battle of Fredericksburg are not discernible in anything like the same degree. It is true that the newspapers are not so accurate a reflection of public sentiment as they had been. There was unmistakably a large amount of editorial writing for the purpose of keeping up the hope of their readers; but even after the evidence of the newspapers is corrected by the recollections of contemporaries which are printed or still exist as tradition, it is impossible to resist the inference that the depression was different in kind and measure from that which had heretofore prevailed. Business, which had commenced to improve in the autumn of 1862, was now very active. An era of moneymaking had begun. It is seen in wild speculation on the stock exchanges, in legitimate transactions, and in the savings of the people finding an investment in the bonds of the government. Noticeable, also, is the sentiment that the war has helped trade and manufactures. The government was a large purchaser of material; one activity was breeding another; men honestly, and in some cases dishonestly, were gaining profits although the State was in distress. When

1 May 23.