Lee's Lieutenants

by Douglas Southall Freeman

  W. T. Wofford, one of the ablest of the brigadiers, suggested that the column move by the right flank until it reached the cut of an unfinished railroad from Orange to Fredericksburg. This cut, he said, would be an excellent place from which to start the attack on the enemy flank. The plan had practicality. Longstreet explained it to Lee, who had been near-by during most of the action, and he approved. Moxley Sorrel, Longstreet’s A.A.G., was put in charge of collecting the troops for what Old Pete termed “a fine chance of a great attack by our right.” He told Sorrel, “Hit hard when you start, but don’t start until you have everything ready. I shall be waiting for your gunfire, and be on hand with fresh troops for further advance.”

  Off went Sorrel in full consciousness that his great opportunity had come. In about an hour he had in line and starting through the woods Tige Anderson’s brigade of Field’s division, Wofford’s of Kershaw’s command, and Mahone’s of Anderson’s—two brigades of the First Corps and one of the Third. Longstreet then had immediately in front of the foe only the brigades of Benning, Law, and Gregg of Field’s division, but Micah Jenkins’s brigade of that division and three brigades of Kershaw’s division and three of Dick Anderson’s were close at hand. If Mahone, leading the flanking column, turned the Federals, Longstreet would have ample force to press them in front and to prepare for the second and perhaps larger turning movement on which engineer Smith was to report. Old Pete’s hopes were high.12

  Intently, at his post of command on the Plank Road, Longstreet awaited the sound of fire from the right. At length there came the challenge of skirmish fire and then the roll of a volley. The attack had begun! Let the troops on the Plank Road redouble their fire and occupy the enemy while the flank attack developed. Send word to the commanders of the reserve to prepare to advance. Everything proceeded as perfectly as on the great day of Second Manassas or on that triumphant December afternoon at Fredericksburg. The roar from the right gave assurance that the three brigades were advancing. In front the enemy was beginning to yield ground. The fire from the right was approaching the Plank Road. Victory was in the air. The hour scarcely was past II, though it was climbing toward Longstreet’s high noon. Not many miles away, in that same Wilderness and on a May day, too, Jackson had turned the Federal right beyond the same Plank Road. Now Longstreet was to roll up their left in an action as decisive.

  Back to Longstreet came Martin Smith. The engineer had located the extreme Federal left, and he suggested a route that would carry a flanking column beyond the Brock Road. Longstreet was highly pleased. He decided to repeat the maneuver of the early morning and to entrust this operation to Smith who, said he, “was a splendid tactician as well as a skillful engineer, and gallant withal.” Smith was directed to take the troops that already had advanced beyond the flank and proceed to the east of the Brock Road. Kershaw was to push forward with his division; Micah Jenkins, who was chafing in reserve, was to cooperate with Kershaw.13

  Jenkins was summoned and soon was by the side of Longstreet. Close behind Jenkins marched his men, who wore new uniforms of a gray so deep that they appeared dark blue or almost black in the forest. Jenkins was jubilant and called for a cheer for Longstreet. The Carolinians for the moment drowned the sound of the firing. Longstreet, much pleased, bade Jenkins ride forward with him toward the Brock Road. The cavalcade was joined by Kershaw and Wofford and their staffs. Longstreet explained the part Kershaw’s and Jenkins’s men were to have in the final operation while Smith swept northward from the far right flank. The attack was to be pressed by all available troops. Meade’s army was to be pushed toward Fredericksburg. All this Longstreet made clear, and then, in his most cheerful manner of the battlefield, touched his horse and started forward again. Kershaw and Jenkins dropped back a few paces to the head of Jenkins’s brigade and followed their chief.

  Longstreet was now almost within musket range of the Brock Road and passing the position reached by Mahone and Tige Anderson in their earlier advance from the right flank. These Virginians and Georgians were in line of battle to the right of and parallel to the Plank Road and about sixty yards from it. At that moment, to the left of the road, Longstreet heard the sound of two or three rifles close at hand. There was an instant of uncertainty. Then came shots from the woods on the right. Longstreet did not follow the rule of caution. Instead of throwing himself from his horse on the opposite side, he instinctively turned the animal’s head toward the fire and started to dash forward to stop it.

  A savage volley greeted him. The impact of a heavy bullet lifted Longstreet from his saddle, into which he fell back uncertainly the next instant. Micah Jenkins and two others were struck mortally. At the flash of the volley, Jenkins’s men turned to the right and lifted their rifles. Instantly Joe Kershaw dashed among them. “They are friends!” he cried in a voice that everyone heard. Jenkins’s disciplined men threw themselves on the ground to escape another volley. There was none. Mahone’s men, who had done the firing, quickly recognized their mistake. Some of them rushed out to voice their regret and to render such aid as they might.14

  By this time Longstreet had been taken from his saddle and placed by the roadside. His condition manifestly was serious. A miniée ball had entered near the throat and crashed into the right shoulder. Hemorrhage was severe, though the medical director of the corps soon was at hand to stanch it. So great was the vitality of Longstreet that he blew the bloody foam from his mouth and whispered instructions: “Tell General Field to take command, and move forward with the whole force and gain the Brock Road.” Field was soon at his side, then Dick Anderson and the commanding general rode up. To them, as fully as his clogged throat and shaken vocal organs permitted, Longstreet explained his plan.

  Lee undertook to direct the execution of it, but the troops were scattered widely. Confusion ruled the field. Time was required to draw the lines and make the deployment. The enemy meanwhile strengthened his front. Late in the afternoon, when the Confederate right wing attacked, it was repulsed almost before it got under way.

  Longstreet was carried to the rear past soldiers who recognized his bulky form, though his hat was over his face. “He is dead,” some of them said, “and they are telling us he is only wounded.” Longstreet heard them and gamely, with his left hand, lifted his hat from his face. He said afterward that the answering cheers of the troops eased somewhat his pain. Once in an ambulance the general was quiet in his pain. One observer told himself, “He is calm and entirely master of the situation—he is both greater and more attractive than I have heretofore thought him.”15

  While Longstreet was being carried to the rear, Micah Jenkins was dying. A bullet had penetrated his brain. Half conscious, “he would cheer his men and implore them to sweep the enemy into the river, until he became too weak to talk.” He died without knowing he had been hit. He was twenty-eight years of age. Others were lost that day of rank less exalted but of long service in the army. Colonel Van Manning of the famous 3rd Arkansas was wounded and captured. James D. Nance, colonel of the 3rd South Carolina, said to be “the best all round soldier” of his brigade, was killed. Dead, too, was Colonel J. Thompson Brown, who had been senior officer of the Second Corps artillery at Gettysburg. Still another excellent soldier who fell that May 6 was Colonel C. M. Avery of the 33rd North Carolina, Lane’s brigade.

  The thought, the talk, was of Longstreet. He, the “Old War Horse,” had fallen in the Wilderness that had witnessed the mortal wounding of Jackson. The two disasters had been almost precisely a year apart. Every soldier who remembered Chancellorsville observed the similarities and wondered whether Longstreet would have the fate of Jackson. Four surgeons, including the medical director of the army, concluded that the wound was “not necessarily fatal.” In relation to the command of the army, the loss of Longstreet, even temporarily, might be as serious as the fall of Stonewall, because the leadership of the other corps was shaken. Besides the illness of Powell Hill, a development that day raised anew the question whether Ewell was qualified to comm
and in the field.16

  It was a curious development, for which there scarcely was a parallel in the history of the army. During the night of May 5-6, John Gordon had sent out scouts to ascertain the position of the enemy near his front, which was on the extreme left of the Confederate line. About dawn the scouts returned with an astonishing story: The Federal flank, they said, was in the woods a short distance ahead. Gordon’s left considerably overlapped the Union right. This seemed scarcely credible; it did not seem possible that the careful Meade had committed such a blunder. Gordon ordered another examination of the ground. The second party came back with full confirmation of the first report and with the further assurance that no supports were within several miles of the Federal flank. Gordon went forward to see for himself. A rapid ride convinced him that no Federal supports were directly ahead or within striking distance.

  The sight inflamed Gordon’s spirit. His great opportunity had come. An attack on that flank would overwhelm it. Gordon hurried to corps headquarters. There he found Ewell and Early, described the condition on his front, and asked permission to attack with his brigade. Early opposed. Scouts had brought him reports of Federal infantry between Gordon and the river. Another report, though of the vaguest sort, was that Burnside’s IX Corps was taking position in rear of the Federal right, the very ground that Gordon had found unoccupied. Neither Ewell nor Early had undertaken to make personal reconnaissance or even to have staff officers establish the facts. Early insisted an attack on the left might be repulsed, leaving the Second Corps no reserves if the enemy then assumed the offensive. The corps, indeed the whole army, might be involved in disaster. His argument was based on the domineering assumption that his intelligence reports were correct and those of Gordon were in error, though Gordon had verified his reports and Early had done nothing to substantiate those he received.

  Ewell was puzzled. In much the same mood as at Gettysburg, he hesitated. He reported that he could not decide on the move, one way or the other, without personal examination, which he resolved to make later in the day. He was not to be brought to a more positive frame of mind, even though Gordon offered impetuously to assume all the blame in the event of failure. While on the Plank Road Longstreet fought and fell, and Lee painfully put confused lines in order for an advance against the Federal left, Ewell did little or nothing to clarify conflicting intelligence reports. Perplexed or weary or hypnotized for the moment by the confident insistence of Early, he permitted the fateful afternoon to pass without an offensive blow.17

  Toward sunset, about 5:30, Ewell saw the commanding general draw rein at corps field headquarters. Lee had passed one of the most anxious days of his military career and now, still shaken by the narrow escape of the morning, the fall of Longstreet, and the repulse of the last attack on the Federal left, he came to ask if something could not be done by Ewell to relieve the pressure on the other Confederate flank. Gordon listened for a time while his seniors discussed the situation, and at last told Lee of the situation he had found on the Federal right during the morning and of the plan he had proposed for rolling up that flank. Immediately Old Jube renewed with vigor the objections he had raised when Gordon first reported. Gordon stood his ground squarely. Lee had confidence in Gordon and wished to know why, in the circumstances, the assault had not been delivered. The answers must have been so feeble that Lee considered silence the best rebuke. In a few words he ordered the attack.

  The result was all that Gordon had promised. As soon as the Confederates were astride the Federal flank, regiment after regiment gave way. Gordon’s men pronounced the advance the “finest frolic” they had enjoyed during the war. Steadily they moved along the line till darkness halted their advance. “Had the movement been made at an earlier hour,” said Gordon in his report, “… it would have resulted in a decided disaster to the whole right wing of General Grant’s army, if not in its entire disorganization.”18

  The darkness that had halted Gordon was weird and affrighting. On the right, where the battle had been most furious, there was the fantastic light of forest fires that a brisk wind was spreading fast. The reflection of the fire gave the clouds a sickening yellow cast. Louder were the frantic cries of the wounded who could not creep away as fast as the flames approached. Two hundred of them soon were suffocated or burned to charred trunks of flesh. At dawn the forest had been an impenetrable maze of greenery; now, after the fire swept on, there were long, black-bordered aisles and a smouldering floor—a hideous temple of Mars.19

  The sacrifice had been bloody. John M. Jones and Micah Jenkins were dead. Leroy Stafford was dying. John Pegram and Harry Benning were wounded. Powell Hill was so sick that he might not be able to exercise command the next day. Ewell seemed unable to reach a decision. Longstreet, the strongest and most dependable of all the lieutenants, was the victim of a wound that might kill him and certainly would incapacitate him for the months of decisive fighting with this new and stubborn adversary, Grant.

  2

  THE ADVANTAGE OF AN EARLY START

  To meet Grant’s next attack, whenever and wherever delivered, the Confederates must have the best procurable successor to Longstreet. The senior division commander of the First Corps was Lafayette McLaws. By odd chance, the court-martial findings in this case were announced on May 4, the very day the offensive on the Rapidan commenced. So light was the judgment of his failings for so heavy an alleged offense that it was, in effect, a vindication of McLaws and a humiliation to Longstreet. The War Department, unwilling to have even that mild sentence stand, disapproved the findings on the ground of irregularity of procedure. At Bragg’s instance, McLaws on May 7 was directed to rejoin his command.

  Notice of this order was not telegraphed to Lee at once, nor was McLaws immediately ordered to rejoin the army. Consequently Lee did not know on the day after Longstreet’s wounding that McLaws was to return and, by seniority, assume temporary command. The acting commander of McLawss division, Joseph B. Kershaw, was not yet a major general and could not be considered for corps command. Nor could Charles W. Field, head of the other division of the First Corps, be advanced. He was of appointment too recent and of experience too limited. Pickett, second in seniority among the division commanders of the corps, apparently was not mentioned as a possibility.

  First intimation of what was in the mind of the commanding general was given Moxley Sorrel. Early on the morning of the seventh the A.A.G. was summoned to headquarters and conducted by Lee to the shade of a large tree, where they would not be overheard. Sorrel was told that Dick Anderson, Edward Johnson, and Jubal Early were under consideration. Which of the three did Sorrel think best suited? Early, said the young colonel, probably was the ablest of them but would be the most unpopular with the corps. Johnson was quite unknown to the corps. “His reputation is so high that perhaps he would prove all that could be wished, but I think someone personally known to the corps would be preferred.” Without weighing good qualities against bad, Sorrel took up in Anderson’s behalf where he stopped in objecting to Johnson. “We know him,” he said of Anderson, “and shall be satisfied with him.”

  From Lee’s response, Sorrel went away in the conviction that the commanding general believed Early best qualified and that he would be named. Instead, later in the day, an order was issued naming Dick Anderson “to the temporary command of Longstreet’s Corps.” William Mahone would assume command of Anderson’s division. It was welcome news to the First Corps and was entirely defensible because Anderson, next to McLaws, was the senior major general of the army. He had been transferred to the Third Corps some months before, but he was remembered and beloved. Before another twenty-four hours passed, these men had reason to be proud, for the army’s sake, that Anderson was their commander.20

  The morning of May 7 passed with scarcely an exchange of picket fire. Grant had not been so badly hit the previous day that he had to rest and lick his wounds; consequently, the assumption was that he had begun, or soon would begin, another move. From Ewell came a report th
at the Federal lines in front of the extreme Confederate left had been evacuated. The enemy evidently had abandoned during the night his line of supply via Germanna Ford. He could open a new supply line by way of Fredericksburg, or proceed southward in the direction of Richmond and procure supplies from the lower Rappahannock or down the R.F. & P. Railroad from Fredericksburg. If moving to Fredericksburg, he would cover both the Plank Road and the Turnpike and advance down them. In the event his objective were the railroad and the direct approach to Richmond, his road would be by way of Todd’s Tavern and Spotsylvania Court House.

  Without any evidence of a choice by the enemy between these routes, Lee considered the probability of a move on Spotsylvania so great that early in the day he directed General Pendleton to cut a road from the Confederate right to the main road to Spotsylvania in order that a swift flank march could be made to the Court House by the shortest route. A series of reconnaissance reports by the cavalry deepened the suspicions of the commanding general that the next move of the enemy would be toward Spotsylvania, as did observations made with a strong marine glass of the movements of what appeared to be a park of heavy artillery. By 7:00 P.M. Lee issued orders for Dick Anderson to take Kershaw’s and Field’s divisions and start before 3:00 A.M. for Spotsylvania.21

  Anderson was chosen for this movement because his troops were farthest on the right and could start more readily. The whole operation, in fact, could be a swift side-slip to the right. Anderson’s was an exceedingly critical pursuit. If he did not reach Spotsylvania ahead of the enemy, the Army of Northern Virginia might not be able to interpose between Richmond and the Federals. Orders gave him discretion in starting for his objective: He was to withdraw quietly from the lines after nightfall and move his troops to some point where they could rest. Before the designated hour of 3, they were to take the road for Spotsylvania that Pendleton had cut that day through the forest.