GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AFTER THE WAR.
A few days before we were ready to move, General Lee sent for General Ewell to receive his orders. I was present at the time and remarked that if we were ever going to make an offensive battle it should be done south of the Potomac—adding that we might have an opportunity to cross the Rappahannock near Culpeper Court House and make a battle there. I made this suggestion in order to bring about a discussion which I thought would give Ewell a better idea of the plan of operations. My remark had the desired effect and we talked over the possibilities of a battle south of the Potomac. The enemy would be on our right flank while we were moving north. Ewell’s corps was to move in advance to Culpeper Court House, mine to follow, and the cavalry was to move along on our right flank to the east of us. Thus, by threatening his rear we could draw Hooker from his position on Stafford Heights opposite Fredericksburg. Our movements at the beginning of the campaign were necessarily slow in order that we might be sure of having the proper effect on Hooker.
Ewell was started off to the valley of Virginia to cross the mountains and move in the direction of Winchester, which was occupied by considerable forces under Milroy. I was moving at the same time east of the Blue Ridge with Stuart’s cavalry on my right so as to occupy the gaps from Ashby on to Harper’s Ferry. Ewell, moving on through the valley, captured troops and supplies at Winchester, and passed through Martinsburg and Williamsport into Maryland. As I moved along the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge we heard from day to day of the movements of Hooker’s army, and that he had finally abandoned his position on Stafford Heights, and was moving up the Potomac in the direction of Washington. Upon receipt of that information, A. P. Hill was ordered to draw off from Fredericksburg and follow the movements of General Ewell, but to cross the Potomac at Shepherdstown. When Hill with his troops and well-supplied trains had passed my rear, I was ordered to withdraw from the Blue Ridge, pass over to the west of the Shenandoah and follow the movements of the other troops, only to cross the Potomac at Williamsport. I ordered General Stuart, whom I considered under my command, to occupy the gaps with a part of his cavalry and to follow with his main force on my right, to cross the Potomac at Shepherdstown, and move on my right flank. Upon giving him this order, he informed me that he had authority from General Lee to occupy the gaps with a part of his cavalry, and to follow the Federal army with the remainder. At the same time he expressed his purpose of crossing the river east of the Blue Ridge and trying to make way around the right of the Federal army; so I moved my troops independent of the cavalry, and, following my orders, crossed at Williamsport, came up with A. P. Hill in Maryland, and moved on thence to Chambersburg.
CONFEDERATES AT A FORD.
Before we left Fredericksburg for the campaign into Maryland and Pennsylvania, I called up my scout, Harrison, and, giving him all the gold he thought he would need, told him to go to Washington City and remain there until he was in possession of information which he knew would be of value to us, and directed that he should then make his way back to me and report. As he was leaving, he asked where he would find me. That was information I did not care to impart to a man who was going directly to the Federal capital. I answered that my command was large enough to be found without difficulty. We had reached Chambersburg on the 27th of June and were remaining there to give the troops rest, when my scout straggled into the lines on the night of June 28th. He told me he had been to Washington and had spent his gold freely, drinking in the saloons and getting upon confidential terms with army officers. In that way he had formed a pretty good idea of the general movements of the Federal army and the preparation to give us battle. The moment he heard Hooker had started across the Potomac he set out to find me. He fell in with the Federal army before reaching Frederick—his plan being to walk at night and stop during the day in the neighborhood of the troops. He said there were three corps near Frederick when he passed there, one to the right and one to the left, but he did not succeed in getting the position of the other. This information proved more accurate than we could have expected if we had been relying upon our cavalry. I sent the scout to report to General Lee, who was near, and suggested in my note that it might be well for us to begin to look to the east of the Blue Ridge. Meade was then in command of the Federal army, Hooker having been relieved.
The two armies were then near each other, the Confederates being north and west of Gettysburg, and the Federals south and south-east of that memorable field. On the 30th of June we turned our faces toward our enemy and marched upon Gettysburg. The Third Corps, under Hill, moved out first and my command followed. We then found ourselves in a very unusual condition: we were almost in the immediate presence of the enemy with our cavalry gone. Stuart was undertaking another wild ride around the Federal army. We knew nothing of Meade’s movements further than the report my scout had made. We did not know, except by surmise, when or where to expect to find Meade, nor whether he was lying in wait or advancing. The Confederates moved down the Gettysburg road on June 30th, encountered the Federals on July 1st, and a severe engagement followed. The Federals were driven entirely from the field and forced back through the streets of Gettysburg to Cemetery Hill, which had been previously selected as a Federal rallying-point and was occupied by a reserve force of the Eleventh Corps.
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1 General D. H. Hill was the superior of General A. P. Hill in rank, skill, judgment, and distinguished services. He had served with the army in Virginia, on the Peninsula in the battles of Williamsburg, Seven Pines, and the Seven Days’ battles around Richmond. In the Maryland campaign he made the battle of South Mountain alone from morning till late in the afternoon, with five thousand against a large part of McClellan’s army. He also bore the brunt of the battle of Sharpsburg. He came, however, not from Virginia but from North Carolina, and had just been detailed for service in that State.
Next in rank after General D. H. Hill was General Lafayette McLaws, who had served with us continuously from the Peninsular campaign. His attack on Maryland Heights in the campaign of 1862 was the crowning point in the capture of Harper’s Ferry with its garrison and supplies. With Maryland Heights in our hands Harper’s Ferry was untenable. Without Maryland Heights in our possession Jackson’s forces on the south side of the Potomac could not have taken the post. At Fredericksburg McLaws held the ground at Marye’s Hill with 5000 men (his own and Ransom’s division) against 40,000, and put more than double his defending forces hors de combat, thus making, for his numbers, the best battle of the war. General McLaws was not in vigorous health, however, and was left to command his division in the campaign. He called on General Lee to know why his claims had been overlooked, but I do not know that Lee gave him satisfactory reasons.—J.L.
CHAPTER 4
THE FIRST DAY AT GETTYSBURG.
Henry J. Hunt, Brevet Major-General, U.S.A.,
CHIEF OF ARTILLERY OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC.
The battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville raised the confidence of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to such a height as to cause its subordinate officers and soldiers to believe that, as opposed to the Army of the Potomac, they were equal to any demand that could be made upon them. Their belief in the superiority of the Southerner to the Northerner as a fighter was no longer, as at the beginning of the war, a mere provincial conceit, for it was now supported by signal successes in the field. On each of these two occasions the Army of the Potomac had been recently reorganized under a new general, presumably abler than his predecessor and possessing the confidence of the War Department, and the results were crowning victories for the Confederates. Yet at Fredericksburg defeat was not owing to any lack of fighting qualities on the part of the Federal soldiers, but rather to defective leadership.
At Chancellorsville both qualities were called in question. In none of the previous battles between these armies had the disparity of numbers been so great. The Federal general had taken the initiative, his plan of operations was
excellent, and his troops were eager for battle. The Confederates could at first oppose but a portion of their inferior force to the attack of greatly superior numbers, and the boast of the Federal commander, that “the Army of Northern Virginia was the legitimate property of the Army of the Potomac,” seemed in a fair way to be justified, when at first contact the advantages already gained were thrown away by the assumption of a timid, defensive attitude. Lee’s bold offensive, which followed immediately on this exhibition of weakness, the consequent rout of a Federal army-corps, and the subsequent retreat of the whole army, a large portion of which had not been engaged, confirmed the exultant Confederates in their conviction—which now became an article of faith—that both in combat and in generalship the superiority of the Southerner was fully established. The Federal soldiers returned from Chancellorsville to their camps on the northern bank of the Rappahannock, mortified and incensed at finding themselves, through no fault of their own, in the condition of having in an offensive campaign lost the battle without fighting, except when the enemy forced it upon them.
BUFORD’S CAVALRY OPPOSING THE CONFEDERATE ADVANCE UPON GETTYSBURG.
Yet in this battle the Northern soldier fought well. Under the circumstances no men could have withstood such a sudden attack as that made by “Stonewall” Jackson on the flank and rear of the Eleventh Corps; but as soon as Jackson encountered troops in condition for action, his pursuit was checked and he was brought to a stand. The panic did not extend beyond the routed corps, nor to all of that, for its artillery and so much of its infantry as could form a proper line did their duty, and the army, far from being “demoralized” by this mishap, simply ridiculed the corps which, from its supposed want of vigilance, had allowed itself to be surprised in a position in which it could not fight. The surprise itself was not the fault of the troops, and in subsequent battles the corps redeemed its reputation. Both armies were composed in the main of Americans, and there was little more difference between their men than might be found between those of either army at different periods, or under varying circumstances; for although high bounties had already brought into the Federal ranks an inferior element which swelled the muster-rolls and the number of stragglers, “bounty jumping”1 had not as yet become a regular business.
The morale of the Confederate army was, however, much higher at this time than that of its adversary. It was composed of men not less patriotic, many of whom had gone into the war with reluctance, but who now felt that they were defending their homes. They were by this time nearly all veterans, led by officers having the confidence of their Government, which took pains to inspire its soldiers with the same feeling. Their successes were extolled and magnified, their reverses palliated or ignored. Exaggerations as to the relative numbers of the troops had been common enough on both sides, but those indulged in at the South had been echoed, sometimes suggested, in the North by a portion of the press and people, so that friends and enemies united in inspiring in the Confederate soldier a belief in himself and a contempt for his enemy. In the Army of the Potomac it was different; the proportion of veterans was much smaller; a cessation of recruiting at the very beginning of active operations, when men were easily obtainable to supply losses in existing regiments, had been followed, as emergencies arose, by new levies, for short periods of service, and in new organizations which could not readily be assimilated by older troops. Moreover, there were special difficulties. The Army of the Potomac was not in favor at the War Department. Rarely, if ever, had it heard a word of official commendation after a success, or of sympathy or encouragement after a defeat. From the very beginning its camps had been filled with imputations and charges against its leaders, who were accused on the streets, by the press, in Congress, and even in the War Department itself, and after victories as well as after defeats, not only of incapacity or misconduct, but sometimes of “disloyalty” to their superiors, civil and military, and even to the cause for which they fought. These accusations were followed or accompanied by frequent changes of commanders of the army, of army-corps, and even of divisions. Under such circumstances, but little confidence could be felt by the troops, either in the wisdom of a war office which seemed to change its favorites with the caprice of a coquette, or in the capacity of new generals who followed each other in such rapid succession. But it is due to that patient and sorely tried army, to say that the spirit of both officers and men was of the best, and their devotion to duty unconquerable. The army itself had originally been so admirably disciplined and tempered, that there always remained to it a firm self-reliance and a stern sense of duty and of honor that was proof against its many discouragements. In battle it always acquitted itself well and displayed the highest soldierly qualities, no matter who commanded it or whence he came. Chancellorsville furnishes no exception to this assertion, nor evidence of inferiority of the Northern to the Southern soldier, but it does furnish striking illustrations of Napoleon’s well-known saying, “In war men are nothing, a man is everything.”
GENERAL MEADE IN THE FIELD. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
General Lee, who felt great confidence in his own troops, and overrated the effects of successive reverses on the Federal soldiers, now resolved to assume the offensive, for he knew that to remain on the defensive would in the end force him back on Richmond. He determined, therefore, in case the Army of the Potomac could not be brought to action under favorable circumstances in Virginia, to transfer, if permitted, the field of operations to Northern soil, where a victory promptly followed up might give him possession of Baltimore or Washington, and perhaps lead to the recognition of the Confederacy by foreign powers. The valley of the Shenandoah offered a safe line of operations; the Federal troops occupying it were rather a bait than an obstacle, and to capture or destroy them seemed quite practicable to one who controlled absolutely all Confederate troops within the sphere of his operations. The sharp lesson he had administered the previous year had not been heeded by the Federal War Office; an opportunity now offered to repeat it, and he took his measures accordingly. In case his Government would not consent to a bolder offensive, he could at least clear the valley of Virginia of the enemy,—a distinct operation, yet a necessary preliminary to an invasion of the North. This work was assigned to Lieutenant-General Ewell, an able officer, in every way qualified for such an enterprise.
In anticipation of the new campaign, Lee’s army was strengthened and reorganized into three army-corps of three divisions each. Each division consisted of four brigades, except Rodes’s and Anderson’s, which had five each, and Pickett’s, which had three at Gettysburg,—in all, thirty-seven infantry brigades. The cavalry were the select troops of the Confederacy. Officers and men had been accustomed all their lives to the use of horses and arms, “and to the very end the best blood in the land rode after Stuart, Hampton, and the Lees.” They were now organized as a division, under Major-General J.E.B. Stuart, consisting of the six brigades of Hampton, Robertson, Fitzhugh Lee, Jenkins, W. E. Jones, and W.H.F. Lee, and six batteries of horse-artillery under Major R. F. Beckham. To these should be added Imboden’s command, a strong brigade of over 2000 effective horsemen and a battery of horse-artillery, which had been operating in the mountain country and was now near Staunton, awaiting orders. The artillery had recently received an excellent organization under its commandant-in-chief, General Pendleton. It consisted, besides the horse-artillery, of fifteen so-called “battalions,” each of four batteries, with one lieutenant-colonel and a major. To each army-corps were attached five battalions, one for each division and two as a reserve, the whole under a colonel as chief of artillery. The total number of batteries was 69, of guns 287, of which 30 were with the cavalry. With few exceptions the batteries were of four guns each. The army was commanded by a full general, each army-corps, except the artillery, by a lieutenant-general, each division by a major-general, each brigade, except two, by brigadier-generals. Nearly all these officers were veterans of proved ability and many had served in the Mexican war.
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