USA > Indiana > The soldier of Indiana in the war for the union, Vol. II > Part 8
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The United States ford of the Rappahannock being now uncovered, Couch's corps crossed at that point with flying colors and to the tune of "Hail Columbia." Carroll's bri- gade, which was the first over, formed line of battle on the hills and scoured the country, but without finding an enemy.
Meantime, the cavalry was divided-one column under Stoneman crossing the Rapidan at Germanna ford. The other, embracing the Third Indiana, and under General Averill, bivouacked on the wet river-flats, about two miles from the river, and Friday, May 1, demonstrated at the ford
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
of the Rail Road crossing, which was held by a considerable force of the enemy's cavalry, supported by artillery. Skirm- ishing was kept up all day, and some artillery work indulged in, but no vigorous attempt was made by Averill to effect a crossing. During the day, Captain Gresham was severely wounded.
Hooker now ordered up Sickles from the front of Freder- ieksburg, and halted in the woods near the south bank of the Rapidan, to effect the concentration of his forces. Having led fifty thousand men, loaded with personal baggage, and eneumbered with artillery and trains, nearly forty miles in two days; bridged and crossed two dangerous streams, and gained a point which took in reverse the entire fortified line of a cautious, suspicious and vigilant enemy, he could not refrain from exultation. He said to his staff: "I have the army of Lee in one hand, and Richmond in the other!" He addressed his troops: "It is with heartfelt satisfaction that the commanding officer announces that the operations of the last three days have determined that our cnemy must either ingloriously fly, or come out from behind his defenses, and give us battle on our own ground, and where certain de- struction awaits him. The operations of the Fifth, Eleventh and Twelfth corps, have been a succession of splendid achievements."
A century and a half ago, there stood on the banks of the Rapidan a great house or castle, in which dwelt an enter- prising Virginia gentleman, Governor Spottswood. Having discovered a belt of mineral rocks, he opened mines, built a furnace, the first in America, levelled the forest to feed his fires, and induced Germans, who had just fled from the per- secutions of the Palatinate, and emigrated to America under the patronage of Queen Anne, to settle in his vicinity and undertake the work of mining. The enterprise failed. The country returned to its original wildness, and became clothed in more than its original gloom. No trace remains of the laborers or their lord, except the names, Germanna ford, the Furnace and Spottsylvania, and a tangled growth of oak, hazel and low bristling pines, many miles in extent, which sprang up after the destruction of the forest. A half dozen
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OPENING OF THE BATTLE.
dark streams and treacherous patches of swamp lie hidden in the shadows; several roads as narrow as bridges, traverse the labyrinth, and here and there are inhabited openings.
In the centre of a small clearing, two or three miles from the southern limit of the Wilderness, and ten miles from Fredericksburg, slightly south of west, is a ruin which, in April, 1863, was a two-story brick tavern. In its front was a smooth road, which both east and west divides, forming the old Orange county plank road and the Fredericksburg and Gordonsville turnpike. The plank road, after bending out toward the south, rejoins the ' pike near Salem Heights, about half way to Fredericksburg. In the pretentious tavern, which is down on the maps as Chancellorsville, Hooker es- tablished his quarters.
About noon of Friday, Mcade, supported by Couch, ad- vanced toward Fredericksburg on three roads-the plank road, the turnpike and a river road, leading along the Rap- pahannock to Banks' ford. A short march disclosed the encmy on all the roads in his front and in the woods on every hand. Lce, though thoroughly surprised, had ac- cepted Hooker's challenge, and here he was in full force.
The advantage of a short and fierce struggle which re- sulted from the contact was with Meade; nevertheless Hooker ordered him to withdraw, and began vigorously to prepare for a defensive battle, expecting, doubtless, a repetition of the assault on Fredericksburg Heights, with the tables turned.
Skirmishing was constant during the afternoon, with mus- kctry and artillery fire. About four o'clock, a severe artillery attack was made on Slocum, who had the centre of the line. It continued until dark, when the enemy retired. The night was spent in throwing up intrenchments.
The front of the army, Saturday morning, was five miles in extent. Slocum's corps lay on the plank road, and looked toward the south. Meade formed the left wing, and faced toward the east. Howard formed the right wing, with his extreme right toward the west. Couch and Sickles were a short time in reserve; but as Slocum and Howard did not connect, Sickles advanced between them, throwing Birney's division well forward.
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
Rebel artillery and sharpshooters opened at an early hour on the left and front, and, with a little change of position, kept up a capricious fire throughout the day on Slocum. About eight o'clock Birney saw, with amazement, troops and trains ascending and descending a hill two miles in his front, and moving steadily toward the south-west. A sus- picion instantly forced itself upon him that in spite of the demonstrations against Slocum, perhaps under their cover, the enemy was either retreating to Gordonsville or moving toward Hooker's flank and rear. He accordingly advanced a battery and opened a heavy fire. He succeeded in forcing the Rebel line in disorder from the road it was pursuing, but he was not able to change its general course. Birney then marched out, his right protected by Whipple and his left by Williams, but making slow progress, as he had to force his way through thickets, and even lay a bridge of rails over a troublesome stream. At length he struck the enemy's rear, and, after spirited fighting, captured nearly a regiment-no attempt being made by the Rebel advance to turn to its relief. Still uncertain as to the direction or meaning of the movement, Birney halted in his advanced position on the main road over which the Rebel column had passed, and formed his division into a large square; with his artillery in the centre. Suddenly tumultuous sounds on his right and rear, followed by hurrying messengers, confirmed his worst suspicions.
General Jackson's corps, twenty-five thousand men, had marched unmolested, except by Birney's attack upon its rear, across the whole of Ilooker's front, and was now breaking from the woods upon Howard's corps.
Howard's troops were thunderstruck. One moment they quailed before the fire, and fury, and piercing yells of the unexpected foc; the next, maddened by the awful echoes and reverberations of the forest, they broke their lines and rolled over to the rear in the wildest confusion. Howard struggled in agonizing but fruitless endeavor to control them. Sickles, Berry, Meade and Hooker strove to fill the breach. Williams faced about and hastened back from the support of Birney. His division quivered, as it neared the ungovern-
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PANIC IN THE WILDERNESS.
able multitude, ghastly and unnerved by fear; but the shock was momentary. His advance regiment-our Twenty- Seventh-marched with steady step to its assigned position, and each other regiment fell, without confusion, into its place.
Pleasonton took possession of the flying and scattered artillery, and concentrating it under the protection of his horsemen, opened fire and swept the plank road.
Sykes threw forward his Regulars. Young Pratt pictures their advance: "Just after dark the battling, which had been drawing closer and closer, reached us. Down the line went the command. In five minutes the division had formed in the road, and in another we were going forward at the pas de charge out into the plain about the White House, leaving our woods and breastworks far behind. My regi- ment was almost at the head of the column, and we were soon on the scene of action. I never saw or dreamed of a more magnificent scene. The whole vast plain was filled with heavy columns of infantry. Just in front and near us battery upon battery flamed and thundered, and around and above was the broad glare of exploding shells. Soon came the blot on the grand scene. The cowardly rabble, the Eleventh corps, came streaming back in the wildest confu- sion. We immediately formed across their path. Our officers all jumped to the front, cutting and slashing, and soon formed several regiments, and turned over to their par- alized officers the command of their contemptible crew."
Birney, with difficulty, retraced his way to the ground held by him before his advance-the Twentieth Indiana, the last of his regiments to move back, not getting into position till eleven o'clock.
Meantime, Jackson, after he had gained the intrenchments, and when he was within a half mile of Chancellorsville, was fairly checked. About nine o'clock, during a lull in the bat- tle, the Rebel general, with his staff and escort, rode out to reconnoitre in the light of the rising moon. "General," said one of his staff, "Don't you think this is the wrong place for you?" He replied: "The danger is over. The enemy is routed. Go back and tell A. P. Hill to press right on." In
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
a few minutes, he turned and rode back at a trot, forgetting that he had directed his skirmishers to fire upon cavalry ap- proaching from the Union lines. His troops, unable to see through the woods, and hearing the rapid tramp, received him with a volley. He was shot, and fell, exclaiming, "All my wounds are by own men!"
At this moment, Birney, with naked bayonets, Ward's brigade in front, made a swift charge down the road, recov- ering part of Howard's intrenchments and several of his abandoned guns and caissons, and dashing past, but leaving unnoticed on the ground, the prone and unconscious Rebel chief.
This same day, Saturday, Reynolds' corps withdrew under fire from its position near Fredericksburg, recrossed the river, and marched twenty-two miles, each man carrying eight days' provisions in addition to his knapsack and haversack. Oppressed with the march, the corps halted late at night near United States ford, but the bellowing cannon, and the report that the day was lost, called it to the field, and it pushed on. Toward morning, it reached the ground and took up a position not far from Howard's line on the right.
At nine, Saturday night, Hooker sent an order to Sedgwick to take the Heights of Fredericksburg, now but slightly de- fended, and move up Sunday morning to the attack of Lee's rear. Hooker then turned his attention to the rearrangement of his line, concentrating it in a much smaller space. He posted Meade on his right, and Howard on his left, placing the latter in the intrenchments which had been thrown up the previous day by the former. He stationed Reynolds on the right and rear of Meade, and in reserve. He withdrew Sickles from his advanced position. The enemy, following closely, hotly pressed the division, Birney's, which covered Sickles' rear. Before day, Hooker's new line was complete, and was apparently able to hold its ground against any force.
Sunday's sun rose red as blood, and cast its struggling rays into the murky forest. Already the guns had opened their black mouths, and sharpshooters had begun their fiend- ish work. Now Slocum's corps was assailed, and Couch
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HOOKER STUNNED.
was threatened, but on Sickles the enemy fell with uncon- querable and unquenchable animosity.
Under the fire of forty guns, and behind their intrench- ments, Berry and Birney, Whipple and Williams, stood and withstood assault upon assault. They mowed the Rebels down, only to find the bloody harvest continually renewed. After every repulse, back the assailants came, headlong and desperate, and piercing the tramp, and roar, and rattle, with the shrill cry of their revenge and grief: "Charge, and re- member Jackson!" .
"So," as in days of old with the strong man of Israel, "the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life."
Sickles sent an aid to General Hooker, demanding help. Hooker had been wounded, and was unconscious, dying, it was supposed, or it might be dead. Couch, the next in rank, shrank from the responsibility of weakening the centre or left, or of drawing the reserve from the rear. Sedgwick had not yet made his appearance. Siekles' only relief was from French, who, uncovered by the falling back of troops in his front, threw out toward the Rebel left a part of Carroll's brigade, including the Fourteenth Indiana. Carroll drove the enemy, reached his rifle pits, captured nearly three hund- red prisoners, and started up the second rebel line. But from this point he was forced to withdraw. He carried with him two stands of Rebel colors, and was accompanied by a regiment which he had released from capture.
Sickles retreated to his second line of defence. In the movement the Twenty-Seventh Indiana, which, during the whole morning, had been warmly engaged, distinguished itself, remaining alone in an advanced and exposed position until escape was barely possible, then falling slowly and steadily back.
The enemy was now quict. But after a half hour's rest lic made five fierce charges in succession on Sickles' new position. He also attacked Hancock, who repulsed him, and Slocum, whom he pushed back.
About noon Hooker recovered consciousness; but the gal- lant spirit, so assured and haughty the day before, was be-
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
clouded and dull. He had no longer thought of conquest, or advance, or glory-only of safety.
Sunday night was a beautiful moonlight night, nearly as light as day. The army gained snatches of sleep, while batteries, at intervals, fought crashing duels; and the pickets, not more than forty yards apart, firing as often at shadow as at substance, kept up an almost constant singing of Minie balls.
Sedgwick's co-operative movement was an entire failure. He did not receive Hooker's order until several hours after it was issued. His troops did not move according to his orders until several hours after they were issued. Ile barely gained Fredericksburg Heights by Sunday noon. At Salem Heights, half way between Fredericksburg and Chancellors- ville he was effectually held in check by General Lee, now disengaged from Hooker. He was sorely pressed throughout Monday. Monday night, after hard fighting and with heavy loss, he retreated across the Rappahannock at Banks' Ford.
Meantime Hooker continued quiet, with the exception of nearly constant picket firing, and frequent artillery firing. He concentrated gradually, but did not attempt even to retreat until Tuesday, May 5th, when a pouring rain and the swelling Rappahannock admonished him of the dangers of delay.
Meade's corps moved last, with Sykes' division covering the rears. The Eleventh Regulars were the last to leave the ground and the last to cross the river.
" The night of May 5th it rained hard," wrote Mr. Pratt, when he was once more in camp. "The firing everywhere had almost lulled into silence. The men stood in the drenching rain, or dozed leaning against the works-nothing protected except the gunlocks. Just after dark the rumbling of artillery on the road behind us began. Then the endless tramp of infantry. For an hour or so we thought it a change of position on the part of some corps going on. But as the weary slosh, slosh kept on for hours, we knew it was a retreat. Nobody was cheerful. Our expectations and ex- periences were anything but rosc-colored. Our regiment had been more than decimated already for experience, and we
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THIE ARMY RETREATING.
had the certainty of acting as rear guard to a retreating army in expectation. About two o'clock in the morning our division commenced to retreat. It was done very quietly, so quietly that my company and the next one, separated, perhaps, a dozen feet from the rest of the regiment, did not know that it had left, and stood there ten minutes after. The day previous, new roads had been cut through the woods leading to the ford, to allow more columns to march at once. For a while, the progress was slow, nervously so. It was fast nearing morning, and we had not gone half a mile. Between darkness, rain, mire and stumps, we were well-nigh knocked up. Toward morning, the road became better, and we moved faster. By daylight, we reached the plateau about United States ford. We formed in front of a noble looking house, and waited while the army streamed over the two pontoon bridges. They came in by a half- dozen routes, almost at a run, regiments and brigades badly mixed. If the enemy had attacked us in daylight, in force, we should have been destroyed. We took a hurried break- fast-mine was part of two crackers. Soon the thump of artillery began on the left, evidently the enemy feeling his way in the woods, and our line reformed on the edge of the woods back of the house. It was a nervous hour while we stood there, the booming coming nearer and the army hurry- ing by. At last, stragglers and all, they were over, and we filed down the hill to the bridges and crossed, the engineers, with the fastenings of the pontoon boats in their hands, begging us to hurry. We scrambled up the steep hills, and were formed on the heights, 'closed in mass,' that is, the entire division packed together as elose as possible, just be- hind some artillery, which, in twenty minutes after, opened on the head of a Rebel column. I went up by the battery, and could just distinguish the Rebel artillery at the edge of the opposite woods, going through the loading and firing. Of course, the enemy did not follow us across, and our batteries were so well served, that theirs were soon si- lenecd. We then began the mareh, a weary tramp of all day; weak, sleepy, hungry, the mud almost knee-deep all the way. About dark, in a driving rain, we got back here (to
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
Falmouth). I got my tent pitched, made the first meal for twenty-four hours, save the crackers in the morning, of some roasted potatoes. Nothing ever tasted so delicious, and then I enjoyed such a sleep as only the thoroughly exhausted ever know.
" Up to the hour of retreat, we were a victorious army; thanks to a rainy, dark night, and a well-planned retreat, we are not a demoralized one. And so the campaign ended, and left us thinking of the brilliant 'might-have-been', if the river had not risen, and the Eleventh corps had been soldiers."
Stoneman and Averill gathered up their scattered cavalry, which they had employed to little or no purpose, and also hastened over the return march.
Lee neither published, nor allowed to be published, an official statement of his losses in the battle of Chancellors- ville. He had good reason for his reticenee. Our army took at least man for man, and our loss was more than seventeen thousand. Our dead were left in the forest, unburied where they fell.
The Twenty-Seventh Indiana, out of three hundred, lost one hundred and forty-seven killed and wounded. Among the killed were Captain Cassady and Lieutenant Hamrick. Among the wounded were Colonel Colgrove, Captains Wil- liams, Fesler and Jerger, and Lieutenants Van Buskirk, White, Hubbard, Hoffer and Loughry.
The Fourteenth, in killed, wounded and missing, lost sixty-four. Carroll, in his report, speaks of the cool judg- ment and indomitable courage of Colonel Coons, Lieutenant Colonel Cavins and Major Houghton; and of the prompt- itude and gallantry of Lieutenant A. M. Van Dyke.
His comrades of the Fourteenth tell how George Rotramel, a lieutenant, leaped over the works, calling the pickets to follow, and re-established the broken line.
No report has been obtained of the losses in the Twentieth. They must have been heavy, as the regiment was in the extreme front both Saturday and Sunday, and, with the rest of Birney's division, was engaged during every hour of the conflict. While skirmishing at one time, it captured the whole of the Twenty-Third Georgia. After the battle,
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GENERAL SATISFACTION.
Colonel Wheeler reported it gay. " Yes," said General Hooker, "that regiment is gay."
The Nineteenth regiment lost four men, charging the rifle- pits below Fredericksburg. Being in reserve at Chancellors- ville, it suffered no loss. The Seventh, also in reserve and behind fortifications, suffered no loss.
One man of Howard's body guard was captured while collecting broken troops, a work in which the guard was effi- cient. Charlie Noble, a fearless youth belonging to the band, writes: "Commissioned officers as high as colonels joined in the flight. I had a notion to run some of them through. I was mad enough to do it, and yet I could not keep from laughing to see them run."
After the two armies had settled down in their old en- campments, General Hooker and General Lee issued eon- gratulatory orders, and Stoneman and Averill followed suit.
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
CHAPTER VI.
GETTYSBURG.
Oh, stranger, go and tell our people that we are lying here, having obeyed their words .- Inscription on the tomb of the Spartans who fell at Thermopyla.
The right wing of the Army of the Potomac, in the spring of 1863, occupied the Shenandoah Valley and Harper's Ferry. Since November, 1862, General Milroy had been in command in the valley-the latter part of the time under General Schenck as department commander at Baltimore. During this time he administered affairs with severe justice, and in consequence made himself exceedingly obnoxious to secessionists. An offered reward of one thousand dollars for his life testified to the intensity of their aversion, while it betrayed, what indeed they made little attempt to conceal, their approval of assassination as a last resort. Milroy's force numbered from seven to twelve thousand men, and he felt himself able not only to hold the sullen citizens in sub- jection, and to keep down guerrillas, but to clear the valley and keep it clear of Rebel troops. His cavalry scouts pa- trolled the district as far as Front Royal and Strasburg. They were frequently in collision with cavalry scouts of the enemy, and came off victorious in nearly every encounter. General Milroy was, however, restrained from any aggressive demonstration and interfered with on every occasion. Gen- cral Halleck, seeming to share the antipathy of the citizens, displayed toward him a singular want of courtesy at all times, and offered him decided indignities whenever oppor- tunity allowed. This fire on his rear was beyond the patient endurance of the high-spirited Indiana General. He chafed and fretted under it, unconsciously increasing and giving the color of justice to the aversion shown toward him by his superior.
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AGAIN ON THE RAPPAHANNOCK.
In May the force in the valley consisted of about seven thousand effective men; headquarters were at Winchester; and the left, a brigade under Colonel McReynolds, held Berryville and guarded the adjacent passes of the Blue Ridge and the neighboring fords of the Shenandoah. ,
General French, with eleven thousand men, held Harper's Ferry, the fortifications of which had been inereased and strengthened by Slocum's corps in the preceding winter.
The main portion of the Army of the Potomac continued at Falmouth, after the battle of Chaneellorsville, a little more than a month. It received few reinforcements, although it lost twenty thousand nine months' and two years' men. Occupying, however, pleasant and healthy camps, and engaging in no undertakings of importance it recuperated its strength and spirits.
The character of every day life is pleasantly detailed by Lieutenant Pratt:
" CAMP ELEVENTH INFANTRY, NEAR RAPPAHANNOCK, June 5th, 1863.
" MY DEAR FATHER :- Day before yesterday, with about half the regiment, I was out on picket some three miles from our camp. The duty was light and not at all danger- ous, as no enemy was within miles of us. My quarters were about a hundred yards from my men, under a noble old tree overhanging a little stream, and as both days were charming midsummer ones, the woods full of a hundred dif- ferent choruses-of whippoorwills, tree toads, and the gurg- ling Minnehaha running at my feet-it was rare enjoyment for me, just from the dusty, sweltering camp. The night after we went out the regiment, with the division, moved at three in the morning. The second evening about dusk we were relieved, and we bivouacked that night on the bank of Potomac Creek, near where we had been doing duty.
"This morning at four, roused up from our elay couches, bathed, breakfasted, and a little after five began the march, and after eight miles found the regiment between the United States and Banks fords, near the river. The division is stretched along between the two crossings.
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
"A few moments ago, an orderly came around to our tents with an order from army headquarters, countersigned by our corps and division commanders, to be ready to move at a moment's notice, without baggage and with three days' ra- tions. At any moment, we may expect the Adjutant's time- worn expression-' Gentlemen, you will please join your companies.'
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