So hour after hour the troops pressed on until they reached the turnpike road passing east and west through Chancellorsville, which now lay exactly between them and the point that they had left in the morning.Jackson's design was to advance upon this line of road, to extend his troops to the left and then to swing round, cut the enemy's retreat to the fords, and capture them all.Hooker had already been joined by two of Sedgwick's army corps, and had now six army corps at Chancelloraville, while Jackson's force consisted of 22,000 men.Lee remained with 13,000 at Tabernacle.The latter general had not been attacked, but had continued to make demonstrations against the Federal left, occupying their attention and preventing them from discovering how large a portion of his force had left him.
It was at five o'clock in the evening that Jackson's troops, having gained their position, advanced to the attack.In front of them lay Howard's division of the Federals, intrenched in strong earthworks covered by felld trees; but the enemy were altogether unsuspicious of danger, and it was not until with tumultuous cheers the Confederates dashed through the trees and attacked the entrenchment that they had any suspicion of their presence.They ran to their arms, but it was too late.The Confederates rushed through the obstacles, climbed the earthworks, and carried those in front of them, capturing 700 prisoners and five guns.The rest of the Federal troops here, throwing away muskets and guns, fled in wild confusion.Steadily the Confederates pressed on, driving the enemy before them, and capturing position after position, until the whole right wing of the Federal army was routed and disorganized.
For three hours the Confederates continued their march without a check; but owing to the denseness of the wood, and the necessity of keeping the troops in line, the advance was slow, and night fell before the movement could be completed.One more hour of daylight and the whole Federal army would have been cut off and captured, but by eight o'clock the darkness in the forest was so complete that all movement had to be stopped.
Half an hour later one of the saddest incidents of the war took place.General Jackson with a few of his staff wont forward to reconnoiter.As he returned toward his lines, his troops in the dark mistook them for a reconnoitering party of the enemy and fired, killing or wounding the whole of them, General Jackson receiving three balls.The enemy, who were but a hundred yards distant, at once opened a tremendous fire with grape toward the spot, and it was some time before Jackson could be carried off the field.The news that their beloved general was wounded was for some time kept from the troops; but a whisper gradually spread, and the grief of his soldiers was unbounded, for rather would they have suffered a disastrous defeat than that Stonewall Jackson should have fallen.
General Stuart assumed the command, General Hill, who was second in command, having, with many other officers, been wounded by the tremendous storm of grape and canister that the Federals poured through the wood when they anticipated an attack.At daybreak the troops again moved forward in three lines, Stuart placing his thirty guns on a slight ridge, where they could sweep the lines of the Federal defenses.Three times the position was won and lost; but the Confederates fought with such fury and resolution, shouting each time they charged the Federal ranks "Remember Jackson," that the enemy gradually gave way, and by ten o'clock Chancelloraville itself was taken, the Federals being driven back into the forest between the houses and the river.
Lee had early in the morning begun to advance from his side to the attack, but just as he was moving forward the news came that Sedgwick had recrossed at Fredericksburg, captured a portion of the Confederate force there, and was advancing to join Hooker.
He at once sent two of his three little divisions to join the Confederates who were opposing Sedgwick's advance, while with the three or four thousand men remaining to him, he all day made feigned attacks upon the enemy's position, occupying their attention there, and preventing them from sending reinforcements to the troops engaged with Stuart.At night he himself hurried away, took the command of the troops opposed to Sedgwick, attacked him vigorously at daybreak, and drove him with heavy loss back across the river.The next day he marched back with his force to join in the final attack upon the Federals; but when the troops of Stuart and Lee moved forward they encountered no opposition.Hooker had begun to carry his troops across the river on the night he was hurled back out of Chancellorsville, and the rest of his troops had crossed on the two following nights.
General Hooker issued a pompous order to his troop.after getting across the river, to the effect that the movement had met with the complete success he had anticipated from it; but the truth soon leaked out.General Sedgwick's force had lost 6,000 men, Hooker's own command fully 20,000 more; but splendid as the success was, it was dearly purchased by the Confederates at the price of the life of Stonewall Jackson.His arm was amputated the day after the battle; he lived for a week, and died not so much from the effect of his wounds as from the pneumonia, the result of his exposure to the heavy dew on the night preceding his march through the Wilderness.
