Part 9

The position he occupied, according to Gen. Lee, was one of great natural strength, on ground covered with dense forest and tangled under-growth, behind breastworks of logs and an impenetrable abattis, and approached by few roads, all easily swept by artillery. And, while it is true that the position was difficult to carry by direct assault, full compensation existed in other tactical advantages to the army taking the offensive. It is not probable that Lee, in Hooker's place, would have selected such ground. "Once in the wood, it was difficult to tell any thing at one hundred yards. Troops could not march without inextricable confusion." Despite which fact, however, the density of these very woods was the main cause of Lee's success.

In this position, Hooker awaited the assault of his vigorous opponent. As in all defensive battles, he was at certain disadvantages, and peculiarly so in this case, owing to the terrain he had chosen, or been forced to choose by Friday's easily accepted check. There were no debouches for throwing forces upon Lee, should he wish to assume the offensive. There was no ground for manoeuvring. The woods were like a heavy curtain in his front. His left wing was placed so as to be of absolutely no value. His right flank was in the air. One of the roads on which he must depend for retreat was readily assailable by the enemy. And he had in his rear a treacherous river, which after a few hours' rain might become impassable, with but a single road and ford secured to him with reasonable certainty.

And, prone as we had always been to act upon unwarrantable over-estimates of the strength of our adversaries, Hooker had not this reason to allege for having retired to await Lee's attack. For he had just received excellent information from Richmond, to the effect that Lee's rations amounted to fifty-nine thousand daily; and we have seen that he told Slocum, on Thursday, that his column of nearly forty thousand men was much stronger than any force Lee could detach against him. Hooker acknowledges as much in his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, when, in answer to the question, "What portion of the enemy lay between you and Gen. Sedgwick?" he replied:--

"Lee's army at Fredericksburg numbered sixty thousand, not including the artillery, cavalry, and the forces stationed up the river, occupying the posts at Culpeper and Gordonsville. I think my information on this point was reliable, as I had made use of unusual means to ascertain. The enemy left eight thousand men to occupy the lines about Fredericksburg; Jackson marched off to my right with twenty-five thousand; and Lee had the balance between me and Sedgwick."

It will be well to remember this acknowledgment, when we come to deal with Hooker's theories of the force in his own front on Sunday and Monday.

XII. JACKSON'S MARCH, AND SICKLES'S ADVANCE.

Lee and Jackson spent Friday night under some pine-trees, on the plank road, at the point where the Confederate line crosses it. Lee saw that it was impossible for him to expect to carry the Federal lines by direct assault, and his report states that he ordered a cavalry reconnoissance towards our right flank to ascertain its position. There is, however, no mention of such a body having felt our lines on the right, in any of the Federal reports.

It is not improbable that Lee received information, crude but useful, about this portion of our army, from some women belonging to Dowdall's Tavern. When the Eleventh Corps occupied the place on Thursday, a watch was kept upon the family living there. But in the interval between the corps breaking camp to move out to Slocum's support on Friday morning, and its return to the old position, some of the women had disappeared. This fact was specially noted by Gen. Howard.

However the information was procured, the Federal right was doubtless ascertained to rest on high ground, where it was capable of making a stubborn resistance towards the south. But Lee well knew that its position was approached from the west by two broad roads, and reasoned justly that Hooker, in canvassing the events of Friday, would most probably look for an attack on his left or front.

Seated on a couple of cracker-boxes, the relics of an issue of Federal rations the day before, the two Confederate chieftains discussed the situation. Jackson, with characteristic restless energy, suggested a movement with his entire corps around Hooker's right flank, to seize United-States Ford, or fall unawares upon the Army of the Potomac. This hazardous suggestion, which Lee in his report does not mention as Jackson's, but which is universally ascribed to him by Confederate authorities, was one as much fraught with danger as it was spiced with dash, and decidedly bears the Jacksonian flavor. It gave "the great flanker" twenty-two thousand men (according to Col. A. S. Pendleton, his assistant adjutant-general, but twenty-six thousand by morning report) with which to make a march which must at best take all day, constantly exposing his own flank to the Federal assault. It separated for a still longer time the two wings of the Confederate army; leaving Lee with only Anderson's and McLaws's divisions,--some seventeen thousand men,--with which to resist the attack of thrice that number, which Hooker, should he divine this division of forces, could throw against him, the while he kept Jackson busy with the troops on his own right flank.

On the other hand, Hooker had shown clear intention of fighting a defensive battle; and perhaps Lee measured his man better than the Army of the Potomac had done. And he knew Jackson too. Should Hooker remain quiet during the day, either voluntarily or by Lee's engrossing his attention by constant activity in his front, the stratagem might succeed. And in case of failure, each wing had open ground and good roads for retreat, to form a junction towards Gordonsville.

Moreover, nothing better presented itself; and though, in the presence of a more active foe, Lee would never have hazarded so much, the very aggressiveness of the manoeuvre, and the success of Jackson's former flank attacks, commended it to Lee, and he gave his lieutenant orders to proceed to its immediate execution.

For this division of his forces in the presence of an enemy of twice his strength, Lee is not entitled to commendation. It is justifiable only--if at all--by the danger of the situation, which required a desperate remedy, and peculiarly by the success which attended it. Had it resulted disastrously, as it ought to have done, it would have been a serious blow to Lee's military prestige. The "nothing venture, nothing have" principle applies to it better than any maxim of tactics.

Before daybreak Jackson sends two of his aides, in company with some local guides, to find a practicable road, by which he may, with the greatest speed and all possible secrecy, gain the position he aims at on Hooker's right and rear, and immediately sets his corps in motion, with Rodes, commanding D. H. Hill's division, in the advance, and A. P. Hill bringing up the rear.

Jackson's route lay through the woods, along the road on which rested Lee's line. His corps, since Friday's manoeuvres, was on the left; and, as he withdrew his troops at dawn, Lee deployed to the left to fill the gap, first placing Wright where Jackson had been on the west of the plank road, and later, when Wright was ordered to oppose Sickles at the Furnace, Mahone's brigade.

This wood-road led to Welford's or Catherine's Furnace, from which place a better one, called the Furnace road, zigzagged over to join the Brock (or Brook) road, the latter running northerly into Y-shaped branches, each of which intersected the pike a couple of miles apart.

Jackson was obliged to make some repairs to the road as he advanced, for the passage of his artillery and trains. In many places the bottom, none too reliable at any time, was so soft with the recent rains, that it had to be corduroyed to pull the guns through. But these men were used to marches of unequalled severity, and their love for their leader made no work too hard when "Old Jack" shared it with them. And although they had already been marching and fighting continuously for thirty hours, this circuit of well-nigh fifteen miles was cheerfully done, with an alacrity nothing but willing and courageous hearts, and a blind belief that they were outwitting their enemy, could impart.

His progress was masked by Stuart, who interposed his cavalry between Jackson and the Union lines, and constantly felt of our skirmishers and pickets as he slowly kept abreast with the marching column.

At the Furnace comes in another road, which, a short distance above, forks so as to lead to Dowdall's Tavern on the left, and to touch the Union lines by several other branches on the right. It was this road down which Wright and Stuart had advanced the evening before in their attack on our lines.

Here, in passing Lewis's Creek (Scott's Run) and some elevated ground near by, the column of Jackson had to file in full view of the Union troops, barely a mile and a half away. The movement was thus fully observed by us, hundreds of field-glasses pointing steadily at his columns.

It seems somewhat strange that Jackson should have made this march, intended to be quite disguised, across the Furnace-clearing. For there was another equally short route, making a bend southward through the woods, and, though possibly not so good as the one pursued, subsequently found available for the passage of Jackson's trains, when driven from the Furnace by Sickles. It is probably explained, however, by the fact that this route, selected during the night, was unfamiliar to Jackson, and that his aides and guides had not thought of the point where the troops were thus put en evidence. And Jackson may not have been with the head of the column.

So early as eight o'clock Birney of the Third Corps, whose division had been thrust in between Howard and Slocum, reported to Sickles that a movement in considerable force was being made in our front. Sickles conveyed the information to Hooker, who instructed him to investigate the matter in person. Sickles pushed out Clark's rifled battery, with a sufficient support, to shell the passing column. This, says Sickles, obliged it to abandon the road. It was observed that the column was a large one, and had a heavy train. Sickles considered it either a movement for attack on our right, or else one in retreat. If the former, he surmised at the time that he had arrested it; if the latter, that the column had taken a more available route.

It was while Rodes was filing past the Furnace that the first attack by Clark's battery was made; and Col. Best, with the Twenty-third Georgia Regiment, was sent out beyond the Furnace to hold the road. Best subsequently took position in and about the Furnace buildings, and placed some troops in the railroad cutting south.

Sickles, meanwhile, had again reported to Hooker, and been instructed to strengthen his reconnoissance. But it was noon before this order was given, and he was then advised to push out with great caution. He asked for the whole of Birney's division, and another one in support. With these he thought to get possession of the road on which the enemy was moving, and, if it was a retreat, cut him off; if a flank movement, thrust himself in between the two bodies of the enemy. Hooker accorded this request; and Birney was advanced a mile and a half through the woods, bridging two or three arms of Scott's Run, and some marshy ground, and making his way with great difficulty. Two regiments of Berdan's sharpshooters were thrown out in front, and the Twentieth Indiana Infantry led Birney's division. Considerable opposition was encountered, say the reports of these regiments; but after some skirmishing, Berdan managed to surround Best's command, and captured nearly the entire force.

Why Birney advanced through the woods is not readily understood; for there was a good road close by his position, leading to the Furnace, by using which many hours could have been saved.

From the prisoners of the Twenty-third Georgia, and some others intercepted, it was clearly ascertained, by two P.M., that Jackson was moving towards our right flank, with, as the prisoners stated, some forty thousand men.

These facts Sickles also reported to Hooker, requesting Pleasonton's cavalry, and his own third division, to cooperate in a flank attack, which he seems to have assumed he could make on Jackson. Hooker ordered Whipple up into supporting distance to Birney, with instructions to connect the latter with Slocum; and directed Williams (Slocum's right division) to cover the left of the advancing column, and if necessary attack the enemy there. Howard received instructions from Capt. Moore, who had been announced in general orders as on Hooker's staff, to cover Birney's right; and he detached his reserve brigade, the best and largest in the Eleventh Corps, commanded by Barlow, and led it out in person to its position.

Hooker subsequently denied having sent Capt. Moore to Howard, alleging the order to have emanated from Sickles; but, as Capt. Moore was on Hooker's staff, Howard certainly could do no less than he did, supposing the order to be by authority from headquarters.