The battle began with the rising of the sun of the following morning. As soon as the division advanced, Hancock ordered skirmishers to be thrown out on the left flank, the column still advancing under a continuous fire of shot and shell. Regiment after regiment coming up and deploying in line of battle drew down a sweeping fire from the hidden foe. But our force remained at the front, and continued so, during the action. Every attempt that was made by the enemy to break through Hancock's line was immediately repulsed. The men halted on the march through the upper parts of the city only to form more perfect lines of battle, and do the more execution in the attack. His voice was heard above the roar of conflict, calling on the men who survived:

"Close up, men! Steady! Close up! Forward!" In the midst of the fearful scenes of carnage that followed, the care of Hancock for the hospitals, and those wounded who could not reach them, showed the character of the man. The buildings selected for hospital service were watched over with tender care, and as safely guarded as the exciting circumstances of the moment would permit. While wounded himself, and remaining in the heat of the battle, he was constantly allowing sufferers to retire from the field and recross the river. But every permission of

this kind was coupled with the firm command that every man whose wounds would admit of it, must return to the fight. Hundreds of his division, by his good management, were recruited and re-engaged in the action in this way. His troops fought well to the close, and were brought off in good order.

Such was Hancock at Fredericksburg.

16

CHAPTER XX.

AT CHANCELLORSVILLE.

"When Nelson fought his battle of the Nile, it was the result, alone, that decided whether he was to kiss a hand at court or a rod at a courtmartial."-Colton.

F the battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia, is to be

judged by its immediate results, it was disastrous to the Union arms. If it is to be judged by its ultimate effects on the American army and people, it was a success to the Union cause. It was a fearfully bloody battle; in some respects one of the most so ever fought by any people, in any age.

The enemy had temporarily succeeded in the Napoleonic movement of massing large bodies of his troops in the centre of our most exposed position. He did not conquer us; he could not justly claim a victory; but he had, for a time, weakened a part of our power for offensive warfare.

This battle was fought in the first week of May, 1863. The country in which it occurred is nearly

all wild and unfrequented. Parts of it are still a dense, unbroken wilderness. The army of the Union was commanded by General Hooker; that of Disunion by General Lee. The advance made by our forces was among the tangled forests and dark jungles of the dismal wastes of Stafford. In some places they were completely surrounded by hidden foes, who peered upon them unseen from behind dark thickets, and fired at their uncovered columns from their desolate refuges among the munitions of rocks.

Never was a country more capable in itself of being defended; never was one more difficult to overcome. It was like a woody Sebastopol in the wilds of Virginia; an inland Gibraltar of the West.

The Union troops moved into these environed fastnesses, that bristled with rebel bayonets in every thick-set wood, and frowned with ebel artillery in every rocky pass. Their march was taken up at an early hour in the morning, and by seven o'clock the army was well massed in the outskirts of that gloomy battle-field.

On the 2d of May General Hancock, then in command of a division, posted his men in the most guarded manner. Surprises and ambuscades were to be looked for, on every hand. The skirmishers were thrown out by him in all directions, and abattis and

rifle-pits placed in front. The whole of his line was on the edge of a deep, dark wood, where it remained in battle array during the whole of that night.

Early in the morning of the following day the division moved forward. The attack on the enemy immediately began. Notwithstanding their protection in the woods, they were driven out of them, then from their rifle-pits, then along the rude plank road that lay beyond. A large column, massed in the distance, seeing the retreat, rushed backward with speed, and, for a time, fairly fled out of sight in the jungles. Rifle-pits were constructed rapidly along the enemy's lines, and skirmishing was kept up by Hancock, at a distance of only a few hundred yards in front of our works on the extreme right.

At ten o'clock that morning, the skirmish line ex· tended some distance down the Fredericksburg road, directly fronting and close to the hidden position of the rebels. They had opened a brisk fire on our lines, at this point, on a previous occasion, keeping up their infantry volleys for four successive hours; but our resistance had been so general and so firm, it gradually slackened off, and then died away. Every attempt to break our lines had proved futile. Volley had been met by volley; battery by battery; our men growing more energetic and determined at each