Part 14

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 circumstances. 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 masse.

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 mass 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 asserted 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 disembarrass 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 assume 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 circumstance 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 circumstances 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 mass, 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.

This division is at once thrown across the pike on the first crest below Fairview, west of Chancellorsville. The artillery of the Eleventh Corps is in part re-assembled. Capt. Best, chief of artillery of the Twelfth Corps, has already trained his guns upon the advancing Confederate columns, to protect the new line. But Berry is almost alone. Hays's brigade of the Second Corps, on his right, is his only support. The Excelsior brigade is rapidly pushed into the woods, north of the plank road; the Fourth Excelsior and the First Massachusetts south. Carr's brigade is kept in second line, one hundred and fifty yards in the rear. The men, with the instinctive pride of self-reliance, move up with the steadiness of veterans on drill, regardless of the stream of fugitives breaking through their intervals.

The flight of the Eleventh Corps has stampeded part of the Third Corps artillery. But it is re-assembled in short order, and at once thrown into service. Capt. Best manages by seven P.M. to get thirty-four guns into line on the crest, well served. Himself is omnipresent. Dimick's and Winslow's batteries under Osborn, Berry's chief of artillery, join this line on the hill, leaving a section of Dimick on the road. And such part of the disjecta membra of the Eleventh Corps as retains semblance of organization is gathered in support of the guns. Capt. Best has begun to fire solid shot over the heads of Berry's men into the woods beyond; and, as Gen. Lee says, the Confederate advance is checked in front of this crest by the vigorous opposition encountered.

Hurried orders are despatched to Geary to withdraw his attack, and re-occupy his breastworks. This he straightway accomplishes. Similar orders are carried to Williams. But, before the latter can retrace his steps, Jackson's columns have reached the right of his late position. Anderson also advances against him; so that Williams is obliged to move cautiously by his left, and change front when he arrives where his line had lately joined Geary's and, being unable to take up his old post, he goes into position, and prolongs Berry, south of the pike. It is long after dark before he ascertains his bearings, and succeeds in massing his division where it is needed.

Anxious as Jackson is to press on,--"Give me one hour more of daylight, and I will have United-States Ford!" cries he,--he finds that he must re-establish order in his scattered forces before he can launch this night attack upon our newly formed but stubbornly maintained lines.

Nor is the darkness the most potent influence toward this end. Illy as Sickles's advance has resulted thus far, it is now a sovereign element in the salvation of the Army of the Potomac. His force at the Furnace, Birney, Whipple, Barlow, and Pleasonton, amounts to fifteen thousand men, and over forty guns. None of these officers are the men to stand about idle. No sooner has Sickles been persuaded by a second courier,--the first he would not credit,--that the Eleventh Corps has been destroyed, and that Jackson is in his rear, than he comprehends that now, indeed, the time has come to batter Jackson's flank. He orders his column to the right about, and moves up with all speed to the clearing, where Pleasonton has held his cavalry, near Birney's old front.

Howard, upon being attacked, had sent hurriedly for a cavalry regiment. Pleasonton, having received orders to send him one, instructed Major Huey, commanding the Eighth Pennsylvania Cavalry, to march to Dowdall's and report to Howard. Huey set out by the wood road which leads through Hazel Grove into the plank road. From the testimony of the persons chiefly concerned it would appear that, at the time this order was given by Pleasonton to Huey, there was at Hazel Grove, where the cavalry regiments were drawn up, no sign whatever of the disaster to Howard. There were no fugitives nor any confusion. Nor does the evidence show that Pleasonton ordered any charge on the enemy: it rather shows that Huey was not directed to go at urgent speed. And he must have been very deliberate in his movement, for by the time the cavalry had reached the vicinity of the plank road, Jackson had demolished the Eleventh Corps, and had advanced so far that the head of this cavalry column, marching by twos, suddenly came upon the Confederate lines. The officers in the lead at once gave the order to charge, and right gallantly did these intrepid horsemen ride down into the seething mass of exultant Confederate infantry. The shock was nobly given and home, but was, of course, in the woods and against such odds, of no great effect. Thirty men and three officers, including Major Keenan, were killed. Only one Confederate report--Iverson's--mentions this charge. Its effect was local only.

Three batteries of Whipple's division had remained in the Hazel Grove clearing while the infantry had advanced towards the Furnace. When the rout of the Eleventh Corps became clear, these eighteen guns were ordered in battery, facing about north-west, by their commander, Capt. Huntington, and kept up a heavy fire upon the woods through which Jackson was pushing his way. Pleasonton, for his part, trained Martin's horse-battery in the same direction. Other guns were later added to these, and all expended a good deal of ammunition on the enemy's lines. But there was no fighting at Hazel Grove rising to the distinction of a battle. The importance given to it by Sickles and Pleasonton is not borne out by the facts. There was no Federal loss, to speak of; nor do the Confederate reports make any comment upon this phase of the battle. They probably supposed these guns to be an extension of the line of batteries at Fairview. As such they were, without question, of no inconsiderable use.

Meanwhile Birney, sending word to Barlow that they run danger of being cut off, and detailing the Twentieth Indiana and Sixty-third Pennsylvania Volunteers as rearguard, rejoins Sickles and Pleasonton in the clearing, and both move up to sustain his flank.

So soon as Jackson's guns gave Lee the intimation of his assault, the latter advanced upon the Union line with sufficient vigor to prevent Hooker from sending re-enforcements to his right. The attack was sharp; and a general inclination to the left was ordered, to connect with Jackson's right as the latter brought his columns nearer. "These orders were well executed, our troops advancing up to the enemy's intrenchments, while several batteries played with good effect upon his lines until prevented by increasing darkness." (Lee.)

McLaws reports: "My orders were to hold my position, not to engage seriously, but to press strongly so soon as it was discovered that Gen. Jackson had attacked... when I ordered an advance along the whole line to engage with the skirmishers, which were largely re-enforced, and to threaten, but not attack seriously; in doing which Gen. Wofford became so seriously engaged, that I directed him to withdraw, which was done in good order, his men in good spirits, after driving the enemy to their intrenchments."