The Campaign of Chancellorsville. Theodore Ayrault Dodge

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СКАЧАТЬ Chancellorsville, Slocum took command of the three corps there assembled. He was ordered to ascertain, by a cavalry party, whether the enemy were detaching any considerable force from Fredericksburg to meet his column. If not, an advance at all hazards was to be made, and a position on the plank road which would uncover Banks's Ford to be secured. If the enemy were in strong force, Slocum was to select a position, and compel his attack. Not a moment was to be lost until the troops were concentrated at Chancellorsville. "From that moment all will be ours," said Hooker.

      The inconsistency of these orders can be explained only by marked ignorance of the country. To secure a position which would uncover Banks's Ford was certainly a great desideratum; but the possession of Chancellorsville was far from accomplishing this end, as we shall see.

      So admirably planned and executed were all orders up to this time, that on Thursday, by two P.M., three corps of nearly forty thousand men were concentrated on Lee's flank, while the latter was still unaware of the presence of any considerable Federal force in this vicinity.

      On Monday Couch had been ordered to march two divisions of his (Second) corps to Banks' Ford, but to keep back from the river, and to show no more than the usual pickets. One brigade and a battery to be sent to United-States Ford, there to relieve an equal detail of the Eleventh Corps, which would rejoin its command. All their artillery to move with these two divisions, and to be ready to cover a forced crossing. The division whose camps at Falmouth were most easily seen by the enemy from across the river (it happened to be Gibbon's) to be left in camp to do picket and provost duty. The Third Corps would be available in case the enemy himself attempted a crossing. Gibbon to be ready to join the command at any time.

      On Thursday, as soon as Anderson withdrew Mahone's and Posey's brigades from United-States Ford, which he did when Meade's crossing at Ely's had flanked that position, Couch, whose bridge was all ready to throw, was ordered to cross, and march in support towards the heaviest firing. This he did, with French and Hancock, and reached Chancellorsville the same evening.

      Swinton, rather grandiloquently, says, "To have marched a column of fifty thousand men, laden with sixty pounds of baggage and encumbered with artillery and trains, thirty-seven miles in two days; to have bridged and crossed two streams, guarded by a vigilant enemy, with the loss of half a dozen men, one wagon, and two mules—is an achievement which has few parallels, and which well deserves to rank with Prince Eugene's famous passage of the Adige."

      However exaggerated this praise may be, Hooker nevertheless deserves high encomiums on his management of the campaign so far. Leaving Stoneman's delay out of the question, nothing had gone wrong or been mismanaged up to the present moment. But soon Hooker makes his first mistake.

      At 12.30 on Thursday, the Third Corps, which lay near Franklin's Crossing, on the north side of the river, received orders to proceed by the shortest route, and concealed from the enemy, to United-States Ford, to be across the river by seven A.M., Friday; in pursuance of which order, Sickles immediately started, in three columns, following the ravines to Hamet's, at the intersection of the Warrenton pike and United-States Ford road. Here he bivouacked for the night. At five A.M. Friday he marched to the ford, and passed it with the head of his column at seven A.M., Birney leading, Whipple and Berry in the rear. Leaving Mott's brigade and a battery to protect the trains at the ford, he then pushed on, and reported at Chancellorsville at nine A.M. Under Hooker's orders he massed his corps near the junction of the roads to Ely's and United-States Fords, in the open near Bullock's, sending a brigade and a battery to Dowdall's Tavern.

      Hooker, meanwhile, had arrived at Chancellorsville, and taken command. He at once issued this characteristic order:—

      HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,

       CAMP NEAR FALMOUTH, VA., April 30, 1863.

      GENERAL ORDERS, No. 47.

      It is with heartfelt satisfaction that the commanding general announces to the army that the operations of the last three days have determined that our enemy must ingloriously fly, or come out from behind his defences, and give us battle on our own ground, where certain destruction awaits him.

      The operations of the Fifth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Corps have been a succession of splendid achievements.

      By command of Major-Gen. Hooker.

       S. WILLIAMS,

       Assistant Adjutant-General.

      Pleasonton, during Thursday, pushed out towards Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania Court House to observe the enemy.

      Fitz Hugh Lee had bivouacked this evening at Todd's Tavern. Stuart, with his staff, had started towards Fredericksburg to report the condition of affairs to Gen. Lee. It was a bright moonlight night. A mile or two on the road he ran against a party of Federal horsemen, the advance of the Sixth New York Cavalry, under Lieut.-Col. McVicar. Sending back for the Fifth Virginia Cavalry, Lee attacked the Federal troopers, leading in person at the head of his staff; but, being repulsed, he sent for the entire brigade to come up, with which he drove back McVicar's detachment.

      The combat lasted some time, and was interesting as being a night affair, in which the naked weapon was freely used. Its result was to prevent Pleasonton from reaching Spotsylvania Court House, where he might have destroyed a considerable amount of stores.

      The position on Thursday evening was then substantially this. At Hamilton's Crossing there was no change. Each party was keenly scanning the movements of the other, seeking to divine his purpose. Sedgwick and Reynolds were thus holding the bulk of Lee's army at and near Fredericksburg. Hooker, with four corps, and Sickles close by, lay at Chancellorsville, with only Anderson's small force in his front, and with his best chances hourly slipping away. For Lee, by this time aware of the real situation, hesitated not a moment in the measures to be taken to meet the attack of his powerful enemy.

IX. LEE'S INFORMATION AND MOVEMENTS.

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      Let us now turn to Lee, and see what he has been doing while Hooker thus discovered check.

      Pollard says: "Lee calmly watched this" (Sedgwick's) "movement, as well as the one higher up the river under Hooker, until he had penetrated the enemy's design, and seen the necessity of making a rapid division of his own forces, to confront him on two different fields, and risking the result of fighting him in detail."

      Lossing states Lee's object as twofold: to retain Banks's Ford, so as to divide Hooker's army, and to keep his right wing in the Wilderness.

      Let us listen to Lee himself. In his report he says he was convinced on Thursday, as Sedgwick continued inactive, that the main attack would be made on his flank and rear. "The strength of the force which had crossed, and its apparent indisposition to attack, indicated that the principal effort of the enemy would be made in some other quarter."

      He states that on April 14 he was informed that Federal cavalry was concentrating on the upper Rappahannock. On the 21st, that small bodies of infantry had appeared at Kelley's Ford. These movements, and the demonstrations at Port Royal, "were evidently intended to conceal the designs of the enemy," who was about to resume active operations.

      The Federal pontoon bridges and troops below Fredericksburg "were effectually protected from our artillery by the depth of the river's bed and the narrowness of the stream, while the batteries on the other side completely commanded the wide plain between our lines and the river."

      "As СКАЧАТЬ