CHAPTER XVII. CHANCELLORSVILLE.
The news of the fight between the sheriff's posse and the band at
Lynch's Creek was telegraphed to the Richmond papers by their local
agent upon the day after it occurred. The report said that Captain
Wingfield, a young officer who had frequently distinguished himself, had
followed the traces of a gang, one of whom was a notorious criminal who
had evaded the pursuit of the law and escaped from that section fifteen
years ago, and had, under an assumed name, been acting as overseer at
Mrs. Wingfield's estate of the Orangery. These men had carried off a
negress belonging to Mrs. Wingfield, and had taken her down South.
Captain Wingfield, having obtained the assistance of the sheriff with a
posse of determined men, rode to the place which served as headquarters
for the gang. Upon being summoned to surrender the men opened a fire
upon the sheriff and his posse. A sharp fight ensued, in which the
sheriff was killed and one of his men wounded; while the four members of
the gang were either killed or taken prisoners. It was reported that a
person occupying a position as a planter in the neighborhood of Richmond
is connected with this gang.
The reporter had obtained his news from Vincent, who had purposely
refrained from mentioning the names of those who had fallen. He had
already had a conversation with the wounded prisoner. The latter had
declared that he had simply acted in the affair as he had been paid to
do by the man he knew in Richmond as Pearson, who told him that he
wanted him to aid in carrying off a slave woman, who was really his
property, but had been fraudulently taken from him. He had heard him say
that there was another interested in the affair, who had his own reasons
for getting the woman out of the way, and had paid handsomely for the
job. Who that other was Pearson had never mentioned.
Vincent saw that he had no absolute evidence against Jackson, and
therefore purposely suppressed the fact that Pearson was among the
killed in hopes that the paragraph would so alarm Jackson that he would
at once decamp. His anticipations were entirely justified; for upon the
day of his return to Richmond he saw a notice in the paper that the
Cedars, with its field hands, houses, and all belonging to it, was for
sale. He proceeded at once to the estate agent, and learned from him
that Jackson had come in two days before and had informed him that
sudden and important business had called him away, and that he was
starting at once for New York, where his presence was urgently required,
and that he should attempt to get through the lines immediately. He had
asked him what he thought the property and slaves would fetch. Being
acquainted with the estate, he had given him a rough estimate, and had,
upon Jackson's giving him full power to sell, advanced him two-thirds of
the sum. Jackson had apparently started at once; indeed, he had told him
that he should take the next train as far North as he could get.
Vincent received the news with great satisfaction. He had little doubt
that Jackson had really made down to the South, and that he would try to
cross the lines there, his statement that he intended to go direct North
being merely intended to throw his pursuers off his track should a
warrant be issued against him. However, it mattered little which way
Jackson had gone, so that he had left the State.
There was little chance of his ever returning; for even when he learned
that his confederate in the business had been killed in the fight, he
could not be certain that the prisoner who had been taken was not aware
of the share he had in the business.
A fortnight later Vincent went down into Georgia and brought back Lucy
Kingston for a visit to his mother. She had already received a letter
from her father in reply to one she had written after reaching her
aunt's protection, saying how delighted he was to hear that she had
crossed the lines, for that he had suffered the greatest anxiety
concerning her, and had continually reproached himself for not sending
her away sooner. He said that he was much pleased with her engagement to
Captain Wingfield, whom he did not know personally, but of whom he heard
the most favorable reports from various Virginian gentlemen to whom he
had spoken since the receipt of her letter.
Lucy remained at Richmond until the beginning of March, when Vincent
took her home to Georgia again, and a week after his return rejoined the
army on the Rappahannock. Every effort had been made by the Confederate
authorities to raise the army of General Lee to a point that would
enable him to cope with the tremendous force the enemy were collecting
for the ensuing campaign. The drain of men was now telling terribly, and
Lee had at the utmost 40,000 to oppose the 160,000 collected under
General Hooker.
The first fight of the campaign had already taken place when Vincent
rejoined the army. A body of 3,000 Federal cavalry had crossed the river
on the 17th of March at Kelley's Ford, but had been met by General Fitz
Lee with about 800 cavalry, and after a long and stubborn conflict had
been driven back with heavy loss across the river. It was not until the
middle of April that the enemy began to move in earnest. Every ford was
watched by Stuart's cavalry, and the frequent attempts made by the
Federal horse to push across to obtain information were always defeated.
On the 27th of April General Hooker's preparations were complete. His
plan of action was that 20,000 men should cross the river near the old
battlefield of Fredericksburg, and thus lead the Confederates to believe
that this was the point of attack. The main body were, however, to cross
at Kelley's Ford, many miles higher up the river, and to march down
toward Fredericksburg. The other force was then to recross, march up the
river, cross at Kelley's Ford, and follow and join the main army. At the
same time the Federal cavalry, which was very numerous and
well-organized, was, under General Stoneman, to strike down through the
country toward Richmond, and thus cut the Confederate communication with
their capital, and so prevent Longstreet's division, which was lying
near Richmond, from rejoining Lee.
The passage of the river was effected at the two fords without
resistance on the 29th of April, and upon the same day the cavalry
column marched south. General Lee directed a portion of his cavalry
under General Fitz Lee to harass and delay this column as much as
possible. Although he had with him but a few hundred men, he succeeded
in doing good service in cutting off detached bodies of the enemy,
capturing many officers and men, and so demoralizing the invaders that,
after pushing on as far as the James River, Stoneman had to retreat in
great haste across the Rapidan River.
Hooker having crossed the river, marched on to Chancellorsville, where
he set to to entrench himself, having sent word to General Sedgwick, who
commanded the force that had crossed near Fredericksburg, to recross,
push round, and join as soon as possible. Chancellorsville was a large
brick mansion standing in the midst of fields surrounded by extensive
forests. The country was known as the Wilderness. Within a range of many
miles there were only a few scattered houses, and dense thickets and
pine-woods covered the whole country. Two narrow roads passed through
the woods, crossing each other at Chancellorsville; two other roads led
to the fords known as Ely's Ford and the United States Ford. As soon as
he reached Chancellorsville Hooker set his troops to work cutting down
trees and throwing up earthworks for infantry and redoubts for
artillery, erecting a double line of defenses. On these he mounted
upward of a hundred pieces of artillery, commanding the narrow roads by
which an enemy must approach, for the thickets were in many places so
dense as to render it impossible for troops to force their way through
them.
When Sedgwick crossed the river, Lee drew up his army to oppose him; but
finding that no more troops crossed, and that Sedgwick did not advance,
he soon came to the conclusion that this was not the point at which the
enemy intended to attack, and in twenty-four hours one of Stuart's
horsemen brought the news that Hooker had crossed the Rappahannock at
Kelley's Ford and the Rapidan at Ely's Ford. Lee at once left one
division to face General Sedgwick, and ordered the three others to join
General Anderson, who with 8,000 men had fallen back before Hooker's
advance, and taken his post at Tabernacle Church, about halfway between
Fredericksburg and Tabernacle. Lee himself rode forward at once and
joined Anderson.
Jackson led the force from Fredericksburg, and pressed the enemy back
toward Chancellorsville until he approached the tremendous lines of
fortifications, and then fell back to communicate with Lee. That night a
council of war was held, and it was agreed that an attack upon the front
of the enemy's position was absolutely impossible. Hooker himself was so
positive that his position was impregnable that he issued a general
order of congratulation to his troops, saying that "the enemy must now
ingloriously fly or give us battle on our own ground, where certain
destruction awaits him."
Jackson then suggested that he should work right round the Wilderness in
front of the enemy's position, march down until well on its flank, and
attack it there, where they would be unprepared for an assault. The
movement was one of extraordinary peril. Lee would be left with but one
division in face of an immensely superior force; Jackson would have to
perform an arduous march exposed to an attack by the whole force of the
enemy; and both might be destroyed separately without being able to
render the slightest assistance to each other. At daybreak on the 2d of
May Jackson mustered his troops for the advance. He had in the course of
the night caught a severe cold. In the hasty march he had left his
blankets behind him. One of his staff threw a heavy cape over him as he
lay on the wet ground. During the night Jackson woke, and thinking that
the young officer might himself be suffering from the want of his cape,
rose quietly, spread the cape over him, and lay down without it. The
consequence was a severe cold, which terminated in an attack of
pneumonia that, occurring at a time when he was enfeebled by his wounds,
resulted in his death. If he had not thrown that cape over the officer
it is probable that he would have survived his wounds.
At daybreak the column commenced its march. It had to traverse a narrow
and unfrequented road through dense thickets, occasionally crossing
ground in sight of the enemy, and at the end to attack a tremendous
position held by immensely superior forces. Stuart with his cavalry
moved on the flank of the column whenever the ground was open, so as to
conceal the march of the infantry from the enemy. As the rear of the
column passed a spot called the Furnace, the enemy suddenly advanced and
cut off the 23d Georgia, who were in the rear of the column, and
captured the whole regiment with the exception of a score of men. At
this point the road turned almost directly away from Chancellorsville,
and the enemy believed that the column was in full retreat, and had not
the least idea of its real object.
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
Chancellorsville, 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 felled 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 went 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 Chancellorsville 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.
During the two days' fighting Vincent Wingfield had discharged his
duties upon General Stuart's staff. On the first day the work had been
slight, for General Stuart, with the cannon, remained in the rear, while
Jackson's infantry attacked and carried the Federal retrenchments. Upon
the second day, however, when Stuart assumed the command, Vincent's
duties had been onerous and dangerous in the extreme. He was constantly
carrying orders from one part of the field to the other, amid such a
shower of shot and shell that it seemed marvelous that any one could
exist within it. To his great grief Wildfire was killed under him, but
he himself escaped without a scratch. When he came afterward to try to
describe the battle to those at home he could give no account of it.
"To me," he said, "it was simply a chaos of noise and confusion. Of what
was going on I knew nothing. The din was appalling. The roar of the
shells, the hum of grape and canister, the whistle of bullets, the
shouts of the men, formed a mighty roar that seemed to render thinking
impossible. Showers of leaves fell incessantly, great boughs of trees
were shorn away, and trees themselves sometimes came crashing down as a
trunk was struck full by a shell. The undergrowth had caught fire, and
the thick smoke, mingled with that of the battle, rendered it difficult
to see or to breathe. I had but one thought, that of making my way
through the trees, of finding the corps to which I was sent, of
delivering my message, and finding the general again. No, I don't think
I had much thought of danger, the whole thing was somehow so tremendous
that one had no thought whatever for one's self. It was a sort of
terrible dream, in which one was possessed of the single idea to get to
a certain place. It was not till at last we swept across the open ground
down to the house, that I seemed to take any distinct notice of what was
going on around me. Then, for the first time, the exulting shouts of the
men, and the long lines advancing at the double, woke me up to the fact
that we had gained one of the most wonderful victories in history, and
had driven an army of four or five times our own strength from a
position that they believed they had made impregnable."
The defeat of Hooker for a time put a stop to any further advance
against Richmond from the North. The Federal troops, whose term of
service was up, returned home, and it was months before all the efforts
of the authorities of Washington could place the army in a condition to
make a renewed advance. But the Confederates had also suffered heavily.
A third of the force with which Jackson had attacked had fallen, and
their loss could not be replaced, as the Confederates were forced to
send every one they could raise to the assistance of the armies in the
West, where Generals Banks and Grant were carrying on operations with
great success against them. The important town of Vicksburg, which
commanded the navigation of the Mississippi, was besieged, and after a
resistance lasting for some months, surrendered, with its garrison of
25,000 men, on the 3d of July, and the Federal gunboats were thus able
to penetrate by the Mississippi and its confluents into the heart of the
Confederacy.
Shortly after the battle of Chancellorsville, Vincent was appointed to
the command of a squadron of cavalry that was detached from Stuart's
force and sent down to Richmond to guard the capital from any raids by
bodies of Federal cavalry. It had been two or three times menaced by
flying bodies of horsemen, and during the cavalry advance before the
battle of Chancellorsville small parties had penetrated to within three
miles of the city, cutting all the telegraph wires, pulling up rails,
and causing the greatest terror. Vincent was not sorry for the change.
It took him away from the great theater of the war, but after
Chancellorsville he felt no eager desire to take part in future battles.
His duties would keep him near his home, and would give ample scope for
the display of watchfulness, dash, and energy. Consequently he took no