Calamity at Chancellorsville

by Mathew W Lively

  It was close to 11:30 p.m. when the ambulance finally arrived at the hospital. An exhausted Jackson was carried into the warm tent and gently laid in bed. He had lost a great deal of blood and his diminished pulse indicated to McGuire that he was too weak to tolerate surgery. The only means available to treat shock in 1863 were to keep the patient warm and still, so the surgeons gave Jackson another drink of whiskey, covered him with blankets, and instructed him to rest. McGuire would know over the next few hours whether or not Jackson would recover. The general fell into a deep sleep while the group kept a close vigil at his bedside.

  The medical staff tried to suppress knowledge of Jackson’s condition, but word spread through the camp as the night progressed. “For some time after he was brought in, his being wounded was kept from the soldiers as much as possible,” recalled John S. Apperson, a hospital steward. “I noticed Drs. Black and McGuire were in close conversation and the subject was of serious import I could well see. Sometime during the night Dr. Black told us that Gen. Jackson had been wounded. How seriously he did not say.”10

  Jackson’s pulse steadily improved, and two and a half hours after his arrival at the hospital it had become significantly stronger. The surgeons concluded that he was stable enough to undergo a more thorough examination of the wounds, followed by possible amputation of the arm. Timing was important. Much like the “golden hour” concept in trauma care today, Civil War surgeons had found that when surgery was necessary, the sooner it occurred after injury, the better the soldier’s chance of survival. The considerable tissue damage and multiple fractures that accompanied many of the gunshot wounds to extremities during the war were also better managed by amputation, as leaving the damaged fragments intact often led to a serious bone infection known as osteomyelitis.11

  McGuire woke Jackson and informed him of the plan to administer chloroform as an anesthetic, followed by a close examination of his wounds. The entire process would be painless. If the exam revealed that amputation of the arm was needed, McGuire wanted to know whether he should proceed with the operation.

  “Yes, certainly, Dr. McGuire,” Jackson replied. “Do for me whatever you think best.”

  In addition to Black, McGuire enlisted the help of surgeons J. William Walls and Robert T. Coleman. The two most difficult parts of the operation, the administration of chloroform and the amputation itself, would be handled by Black and McGuire, respectively. Coleman would monitor the general’s pulse throughout the procedure while Walls directly assisted McGuire. The ever-present Jimmy Smith would stand nearby holding a candle for extra light.12

  At 2:00 a.m., now May 3, 1863, Black took a cloth folded in the shape of a cone with a chloroform-soaked sponge in its point and positioned it over the general’s nose and mouth. As he inhaled the sweet-smelling anesthetic, Jackson’s pain began to melt away. “What an infinite blessing,” he muttered. He continued to softly repeat the word “blessing” as he faded into a twilight stage of consciousness.

  McGuire carefully examined Jackson’s left arm, noting that a bullet had passed through the extremity about three inches below the shoulder joint, shattering the bone. The damaged brachial artery left McGuire with no other options: he would have to amputate the limb. He then noticed the other wound in the arm. A second bullet, he recorded, had “entered on the outside of the forearm an inch below the elbow joint and came out upon the inside of the forearm an inch above the wrist joint.” The third bullet still lodged in Jackson’s right hand had “entered the palm about the middle of the hand and had fractured two of the bones.” The general had also suffered facial lacerations when his frantic horse ran under the tree limb.13

  McGuire started the operation after the examination was complete. First, he extracted the bullet from the right hand. It was a round ball fired from a smoothbore musket, a clear indication that the shot had come from the Confederate side, as Union soldiers were no longer using the older weapons. He turned and handed the ball to Smith, who would later give it to Anna Jackson.

  Moving to the left arm, McGuire performed a circular amputation. Taking a long, sharp surgical knife, he made an incision through the skin, muscles, and other soft tissue in a circular motion around the arm down to the bone. Surgeon Walls then tied off the artery and retracted the soft tissue toward the shoulder for several inches in order to expose an intact segment of bone. McGuire cut through the visible bone with an amputation saw. When the retracted tissue was released, it covered the end of the bone and McGuire sutured the incision to close the wound and form a stump. The entire procedure was completed within minutes and with minimal loss of blood. McGuire finished by placing a dressing over the stump and covering Jackson’s facial lacerations with isinglass plaster, a precursor to modern-day adhesive bandages.14

  With the surgery complete and Jackson resting comfortably, McGuire needed to assist with the care of other wounded soldiers at the hospital. He instructed Smith to watch the general closely and send for him immediately if there was any change. In half an hour, he would have coffee sent over and Smith was to wake Jackson and have him drink a cup.

  The coffee arrived at the appropriate time and Smith was easily able to arouse the general and ask whether he would take some. Jackson drank half a pint, commenting that the coffee was “very good, refreshing.” Fully awake, Jackson looked at the stump and realized he had lost his arm. “Were you here?” he asked Smith, referring to the operation. Yes, the lieutenant answered, he had been present for the entire procedure. After a moment of reflection, Jackson asked whether he had said anything while under the influence of chloroform, as it was the most pleasant physical sensation he had ever enjoyed. “I think I had enough consciousness to know what was happening,” Jackson continued, “and at one time thought I heard the most delightful music that ever greeted my ears—I believe it was the sawing of the bone.”15

  * * *

  Robert E. Lee was sleeping in his tent when he was awakened by voices outside. Wilbourn was there, having been sent by Pendleton to inform the commanding general of the night’s events. Entering Lee’s tent, the signal officer gave a detailed account of the fighting and the current position of the opposing armies.

  Then Wilbourn sadly reported that Jackson had been wounded and taken to a field hospital. “Thank God it is no worse,” Lee said. “God be praised that he is yet alive.” After a brief reflective pause, he added, “Ah, Captain, any victory is dearly bought that deprives us of the services of Jackson even for a short time.”

  Wilbourn started to describe Jackson’s wounds and the way he had received them when Lee stopped him: “Captain, don’t let us say anything more about it. It is too painful to talk about.” Hotchkiss arrived at Lee’s tent about an hour later and also began to tell him of Jackson’s wounding. “I know all about it and do not wish to hear any more,” Lee said to him. “It is too painful a subject.”16

  Back at the corps hospital, Jackson completed two important tasks while still awake following his surgery. The first was to ask Joseph Morrison to go to Richmond and bring Anna Jackson (Morrison’s sister) to be with him while he recovered. He then dictated a message to Lee informing him of his wounding and that he had turned command of the corps over to A. P. Hill. Jackson then drifted back to sleep.

  He would rest only briefly before being awakened again, however. Around 3:30 a.m., Sandie Pendleton arrived and asked McGuire whether he could speak to the general. The surgeon at first refused on the grounds that Jackson needed rest. It was important, Pendleton said: the battle was turning. A. P. Hill had also been wounded, and cavalry general Jeb Stuart had been summoned to the front to assume overall command. “Mac,” Pendleton implored, “the safety of his army and the success of our cause depends upon my seeing him.” After a brief check on Jackson’s condition, McGuire allowed Pendleton to enter.

  “Well, Major,” said Jackson to the adjutant as he walked into the tent, “I am glad to see you, very glad. I thought you were killed.”

  Pendleton reported on the current st
ate of affairs, and said Stuart wanted to know the general’s intentions. Jackson tried to concentrate his thoughts. For a moment, McGuire observed, “his nostrils dilated” and “his eyes flashed its old fire” as if he was about to enter battle, but soon his face relaxed as his weakness returned.

  “I don’t know. I can’t tell,” Jackson sighed. “[S]ay to General Stuart that he must do what he thinks best.”

  Pendleton walked out. With tears welling up in his eyes, he commented to McGuire, “We didn’t know what he was worth, Mac, ‘til we lost him.”17

  Jackson slipped back into sleep and McGuire resumed his work tending to the wounded, checking in on the general every hour and finding him asleep each time. Jim Lewis also arrived at some point during the night to help with his care, bringing food and another blanket.

  Around 9:00 a.m., booming cannon from the renewed fighting around Chancellorsville again woke Jackson from his sleep. Drinking more coffee, he expressed the belief that he would fully recover from his wounds. A courier then arrived with Lee’s response to Jackson’s earlier message. Smith read it out loud:

  General: I have just received your note, informing me you were wounded. I cannot express my regret at the occurrence. Could I have directed events, I should have chosen, for the good of the country, to have been disabled in your stead.

  I congratulate you upon the victory which is due to your skill and energy.

  Most truly yours,

  R. E. Lee, General18

  Turning his head aside after Smith finished, Jackson quietly remarked, “General Lee is very kind, but he should give the praise to God.” Then looking back at Smith, he took the opportunity to quiz the young divinity student. “Can you tell me where the Bible gives generals a model for their official reports of battles?” Laughing, Smith said he had never thought of looking to the scriptures for such guidance. “Nevertheless,” Jackson replied, “there are such, and excellent models too. Look for instance at the narrative of Joshua’s battles with the Amalekites—there you have one. It has clearness, brevity, modesty; and it traces the victory to its right source, the blessing of God.”19

  At 10:00 a.m., McGuire came in on his hourly rounds to find Jackson awake and talkative. The general had one complaint: pain in his right side. He asked the physician to take a look at the area, as he believed he had struck it against a stone or stump when he fell from the litter the night before. McGuire performed a careful examination, but could find no signs of injury: “The skin was not bruised or broken and the lung performed as far as I could tell, its proper function.” The surgeon prescribed a “simple application and rub”—most likely a mustard plaster—and told Jackson the pain should diminish momentarily.20

  Distinct sounds of cannon fire and musketry from the battle could still be heard, and Jackson insisted that McGuire leave him to supervise removing the wounded and to visit the other hospitals. McGuire reluctantly agreed, but instructed Smith to remain with the general and to send for Black if he needed anything.

  Tucker Lacy now arrived and asked whether he could visit with Jackson. Entering the tent and seeing the bandaged stump, the pastor exclaimed, “Oh General, what a calamity!” Jackson quickly tried to reassure him:

  You find me severely wounded but not unhappy or depressed. I believe that it has been done according to the will of God and I acquiesce entirely in his holy will. It may appear strange, but you never saw me more perfectly contented than I am today; for I am sure that my heavenly father designs this affliction for my good. I am perfectly satisfied that either in this life or the life which is to come, I shall discover that what is now regarded as a calamity, is a blessing. And if it is regarded as a calamity (for surely I will feel it to be a great inconvenience to be deprived of my arm) it will result in a great blessing. I can wait until God, in his own time shall make known to me the object he has in thus afflicting me. But why should not I rather rejoice in it as a blessing and not look upon it as a calamity at all? If it were in my power to replace my arm and to restore myself to perfect health, I should not dare to do it, unless I had reason to believe it was the will of God.21

  “If it be best for you,” the pastor asked him, “how is it with the country?”

  “It is no doubt best for the country also,” he answered, “and that will, by and by, be seen.”22

  After further relating to Lacy the circumstances of the event, Jackson said of the wounding: “I thought after I fell from the litter, that I would die upon the field and I gave myself up into the hands of my heavenly father without a fear. I was in the possession of perfect peace. It has been a valuable and precious experience to me, that I was brought face to face with death and found all was well. In that experience, I learned an important lesson; that one who had been the subject of converting grace and was the child of God, could, in the midst of the severest sufferings, fix the thoughts upon God and heavenly things and derive great comfort and peace.”

  Jackson then turned the focus of the conversation to the battle, commenting on the flanking maneuver: “Our movement yesterday was a great success. I think the most successful military movement of my life, but I expect to receive far more credit for it than I deserve. Most men will think that I had planned it all out from the first, but it was not so. I simply took advantage of circumstances as they were presented to me in the providence of God. I feel that his hand led me. Let us give him all the glory.”23

  Sensing that Jackson was beginning to tire from the visit, Smith politely asked Lacy to leave so the general could rest. As the pastor walked out of the tent, he noticed Jackson’s amputated arm wrapped in a blanket and laid on the ground. Thinking it undignified for the arm of such an important person to be relegated to a mass burial, Lacy picked up the extremity and traveled to his brother’s estate, Ellwood, located a mile from Wilderness Tavern. There, Lacy buried the arm in the same family cemetery where Hotchkiss had placed the body of his friend, Boswell. In 1903, Jimmy Smith placed a stone marker for the arm in the cemetery that still exists today.24

  Ruins of Wilderness Tavern in 1864 with the Ellwood homestead visible in the distant background.

  Library of Congress

  * * *

  Lieutenant Henry Kyd Douglas, another young Virginian on Jackson’s staff, appeared at 11:00 a.m. to give Smith an update on the fighting around Chancellorsville. Relaying the news to Jackson, Smith described the valor exhibited by the Stonewall Brigade as it charged through the Union line amid Jeb Stuart’s shouts of “Remember Jackson!” Expressing the pride he had for his old brigade, Jackson remarked, “Just like them to do so, just like them. They are a noble set of men.” Smith told him the victory had come at a cost, though: their brigade commander had fallen. “Paxton? Paxton?” Jackson asked, referring to Brig. Gen. Frank “Bull” Paxton, a friend from his days in Lexington, Virginia. He had been killed in action, Smith disclosed. Closing his eyes and turning away, Jackson remained silent.25

  * * *

  Sixty miles south of Wilderness Tavern in Richmond, Virginia, Anna Jackson had just finished attending a worship service when the Reverend William Brown asked for a moment of her time. “Very sadly and feelingly,” she recalled, “he informed me that the news had come that General Jackson had been wounded—severely, but it was hoped not dangerously.” The painful shock she experienced at the moment was “better imagined than described.”

  A dispatch was immediately sent inquiring of the general’s condition and asking whether Mrs. Jackson could come to the hospital. A response later in the day indicated her husband was doing well, but the way was not clear for her to journey north—passenger travel on the railroad had stopped due to Union cavalry raids in the area. Assured by railroad authorities that the tracks would be clear in a day or two, Anna’s friends convinced her to wait instead of risking capture by traveling in a wagon.26

  Back at Chancellorsville, General Lee had sent his own message to the hospital advising that Jackson be moved, if possible, to Guiney Station. He was concerned Federal forces wou
ld outflank the Confederate army in the Wilderness Tavern area and thereby capture Jackson. From the train station, Lee reasoned, the wounded general could be quickly moved farther south if needed.

  An 1872 Currier and Ives lithograph entitled “The Death of Stonewall Jackson.”

  Author’s Collection

  * * *

  Jackson, however, did not want to leave if it would endanger his health. “I am not afraid of the enemy troubling me,” he said. “I have always been kind to their wounded and they will be kind to me, I feel sure.” In fact, Jackson, at the suggestion and urging of McGuire, had been the first in the war to recognize physicians as noncombatants. After the capture of several Union surgeons following the battle of Winchester in 1862, Jackson permitted the men to be released back to their units once they were finished caring for their own Federal wounded. The gesture was reciprocated on the Union side, and the action subsequently became the official policy of both the United States and Confederate governments.27

  It was close to 8:00 p.m. that night before Hunter McGuire returned to the corps hospital. Checking in on the general, he was pleased to find the pain in his right side had disappeared and he appeared to be doing well. Jackson was eager for more information about the battle and asked McGuire about minute details of which troops were engaged and how they had fared. When the surgeon reiterated the gallantry displayed by his old brigade, Jackson commented, “The men of that command will one day be proud to say to their children, ‘I was one of the Stonewall Brigade.’” He then went on to deny any right to the name “Stonewall”: “It belongs to the brigade and not at all to me.”28