by Rod Gragg
Library of Congress
His magnificent physique and genial bearing with his magnetic influence over his command soon became apparent. It contradicted the effect of reckless statements of his personal habits and character. From a long service with him and every opportunity to judge and know by personal observation, I denounce these statements as false.... Fearless in the expressions of his opinions and his criticisms, he gave offence often without intending offence, but claiming, when remonstrated with concerning it, that the expression of a truthful opinion was the duty of a patriot and the privilege of a gentleman. We can overlook these expressions from their sincerity and lack of malignity, and the bitter hostility they brought him.
Outspoken and fearless in speech—in conduct vigilant—wonderfully skilled in strategy, his troops soon learned that no soldier’s life would be uselessly imperilled through his orders, and that no personal peril must forbid or endanger the accomplishment of a necessary military purpose, or the winning of a battle....
In the conception of military operations, Hooker was audacious, original, acute; In executing them he was energetic, yet circumspect and prudent. He was severe in discipline, exacting in his demands upon officers and men; lofty in his ideal of the soldier’s intrepidity, fortitude, earnestness and zeal, yet, he was generous in praise, quick to see and recognize ability and merit, as well in the ranks of his adversary as in his own.
A soldier by intuition, instinct and profession. Hooker’s sword was adorned by the best accomplishments known to the art of war. His character thoroughly military. He was fit for command. He was proud of the profession of arms. He brought to it the highest accomplishments of a soldier. His manner and bearing were distinguished, yet urbane and gentle. His temper was quick, yet forgiving. He was gracious to junior officers and prompt to recognize merit.
Diligent and punctilious in the discharge of duty. Toward all under his command he was exacting in discipline, inexorable to the laggard, prodigal in praise to the zealous and diligent. He always bowed to superior power with the same loyalty that he demanded from his own troops. He never sulked in his tent when summoned to battle. He was a patriot.6
“I Am Inclined to Think That We Shall Have to Acknowledge Their Independence”
The Army of the Potomac Yearns for Leadership and Victory
As Lee’s Confederates began easing out of their lines to begin the march northward, approximately 85,500 Federal soldiers in the Army of the Potomac were encamped and entrenched just a few miles away on the north side of the Rappahannock River near Fredericksburg. The army had been whittled down from more than 120,000 troops due to the casualties at Chancellorsville as well as the expiration of troop enlistments. Even so, it remained numerically superior and its ranks were packed with superbly equipped, battle-tested troops—“the finest army on the planet,” Hooker had once stated.
Huddled on pew benches hauled from a Virginia church, off-duty soldiers from the Army of the Potomac take a moment in the Southern sun to mend uniforms, write letters and read newspapers.
Library of Congress
Despite its strengths in June of 1863, the Army of the Potomac was beset by leadership crises. In less than one year, the army had been headed by three different commanders, a situation stemming from the fact that the army had been repeatedly defeated by Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. In response to the Northern defeat at First Bull Run in the summer of 1861, Union forces organized the Army of the Potomac outside Washington and entrusted command to Major General George B. McClellan. After months of building and drilling, McClellan had crafted the newly established army into an operation far superior to the previously vanquished Northern army of amateurs.
Parked hub-to-hub near army lines on the eve of Gettysburg, an abundance of supply wagons waits to serve the well-equipped Army of the Potomac—“the finest army on the planet.”
Library of Congress
With President Lincoln increasingly impatient for action, McClellan moved the army by water to Virginia and launched his Peninsula Campaign, designed to capture Richmond and bring a swift end to the war in the summer of 1862. Instead, after pushing to within sight of Richmond’s church spires, he and the Army of the Potomac were bested by Lee and were forced to fall back to the Washington area. In September of 1862, after Lee defeated another Federal army under General John Pope at the Battle of Second Bull Run, McClellan and the Army of the Potomac fought Lee’s army to a standstill at the Battle of Antietam. Although he had stopped Lee’s advance across Maryland at Antietam, McClellan was removed from army command for failing to pursue and destroy the retreating Confederate army.
McClellan’s replacement, Major General Ambrose E. Burnside, proved to be a calamity as a commander, ineptly ordering a series of futile frontal assaults against Lee’s entrenched lines at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December of 1862—with almost 13,000 casualties. Lincoln removed Burnside and replaced him with Hooker, who capably reorganized and reinvigorated the army after its demoralizing defeat at Fredericksburg—only to lead it the humiliating loss at Chancellorsville.
Now, as the enemy began unfolding an invasion of the North, the soldiers of the Army of the Potomac—the principal Northern army in the East—displayed mixed attitudes concerning the army’s ability to win. Some remained confident. “You can whip them time and again,” a Massachusetts soldier observed, “but the next fight they go into, they are in good spirits, and as full of pluck as ever.... Some day or other we shall have our turn.” Some were embittered. “We have got just enough men now to get licked every time,” a Michigan infantryman groused, “especially if the officers get drunk every time.” Others, such as Private John P. Sheahan, a twenty-one-year-old cavalryman from Maine, had come to believe that a Southern victory was inevitable. In a letter written between the battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, he shared his grim prediction with his father.
A fresh-faced soldier from the Second Corps of the Army of the Potomac. In June of 1863, the army was burdened by multiple commanders and repeated defeats, but it would soon fight on Northern soil for the first time.
Library of Congress
Camp Near Bell Plain
March 2nd 1863
My Dear father
As I have got a few moments to spare I will improve them by writing you a few lines. We are having easier times now than we have had since the battle. We have not been on picket since a fortnight ago or more. Most of our company is down to Bell Plain Landing to work. I was down but had to come up. I was chafed so badly I can hardly walk now.... Well what do you think of the Conscription? Does is look as tho’ the war was going to end by next fall? I think not. The south are determined to have their Independence and they will have it. And no soldier in the Army of the Potomac doubts but what they will get it.
Some argue that they have not got the means to carry on the war. But how did we carry on a war with England the most powerful of European nations for seven long years? We were fighting for our independence and we were bound to have it cost what it may and we got it and so in my opinion will they.
I should be exceedingly sorry to see our country divided and I do not think there is many more willing to do more for their country than I am, but I am almost inclined to think that we shall have to acknowledge their independence.
I must write Mary a letter so I will close this. Give Mary her letter as soon as you can and don’t open it. Now mind what I tell you.
[John]7
CHAPTER TWO
“Look at Pharaoh’s Army Going to the Red Sea”
By June 4, 1863, two of Lee’s three corps were on the road. General A. P. Hill’s Third Corps was ordered to remain in line below Fredericksburg for more than a week afterward in order to keep Federal forces unaware of Lee’s actions. Lee planned to concentrate most of his forces west of Fredericksburg at Culpeper Courthouse, then move his army into the Shenandoah and march northward toward Maryland and Pennsylvania. Lee positioned Major General J. E. B. Stuart a
nd the army’s 10,000-man cavalry division near Culpeper Courthouse to screen Lee’s army as the invasion unfolded.1
With weapons shouldered, marching Confederate infantry take up the “route step.”
Battles and Leaders
of the Civil War
“Clouds of Dust Mingled with the Smoke of Discharging Firearms”
Federal and Confederate Cavalry Clash at Brandy Station
While waiting for orders to proceed northward, General Stuart staged two impressive grand cavalry reviews, which included a viewing audience of invited guests brought by train from Richmond. The second review attracted the attention of the Federal cavalry as well as General Hooker, who believed the event was the beginning of a major Confederate cavalry raid. To stop it, he dispatched the Army of the Potomac’s cavalry corps—more than 8,000 strong—backed by artillery and infantry. It was led by the army’s new cavalry commander, Brigadier General Alfred Pleasonton, a seasoned cavalry officer. On June 9, 1863, the day after Stuart’s second cavalry review, Pleasonton launched a pre-dawn surprise attack on Stuart’s cavalry division.
As Lee assembled his army for the march northward, Federal cavalry launched a surprise attack on his cavalry at the battle of Brandy Station.
Library of Congress
The Battle of Brandy Station, as the engagement would come to be known, was the largest cavalry battle of the Civil War and involved more than 20,000 troops. It was a classic cavalry contest, fought with sabers as well as carbines, and lasted almost the entire day. At one point, as Pleasonton’s Federal cavalry fought to capture a critical section of high ground called Fleetwood Hill, they appeared on the verge of victory—only to be repulsed by Stuart’s horse artillery. The battle ended in a tactical draw, and Northern casualties outnumbered Southern losses 936 to 523. Nevertheless, the Federal horse soldiers had shown themselves to be the equals of the lauded Confederate cavalry—and General Stuart had been surprised and humiliated. A vivid account of the Battle of Brandy Station was preserved in a journal kept by one of Stuart’s artillerymen, Private George Neese, a gunner in Chew’s Artillery Battery.
When the first inauspicious boom of cannon rolled over the fields from our rear ... it was like an electric shock which first stuns, then reanimates, and in less time than it takes to relate it our cavalry was rushing toward the enemy in our rear, with nerves and courage strung to the highest pitch—every man determined to do or die. We followed close after them with the battery at a double-quick gallop. The dust in the road was about three inches deep, and in our hurried movement my mule fell down and rolled over me, and I over him, both of us wallowing in three inches of dust, and for once I and my mule favored and looked alike so far as color was concerned. By the time I got my mule up and I was mounted again the battery had disappeared in a thick cloud of flying dust.
The body of Yankee cavalry—General Gregg’s division—that appeared in our rear crossed the Rappahannock at Kelly’s Ford about seven miles below Beverly Ford, and moved up on this side of the river, striking the Orange and Alexandria Railroad at Brandy Station, then advanced in our rear. Nearly a mile from Brandy Station and in the direction of Beverly Ford is Fleetwood Heights, a prominent hill jutting boldly out from the highland on the west to an almost level plain on the east and south. The enemy in our rear had already gained the heights and were strongly posted on the crest, with a line of cavalry and a battery of artillery not far away ready to open fire, when our cavalry arrived in sight of the formidable hill that was crowned with threatening danger and almost ready to burst into battle.
There was not a moment to lose if our cavalry expected to gain the heights from the enemy’s grasp and possession, and hold them, and it had to be done instantly and by a hand-to-hand and hill-to-hill conflict. The decision for a saber charge was consummated in a moment, and our cavalry gallantly dashed up the slope of Fleetwood, with gleaming sabers, and charged the formidable line of cavalry that had opened a terrific fire from the crest of the hill. Then commenced the hand-to-hand conflict which raged desperately for awhile, the men on both sides fighting and grappling like demons, and at first it was doubtful as to who would succumb and first cry enough; but eventually the enemy began to falter and give way....
They rallied twice after their line was broken the first time, and heroically renewed the struggle for the mastery of the heights, but in their last desperate effort to regain and hold their position our cavalry met the onset with such cool bravery and rigid determination that the enemy’s overthrow and discomfiture was so complete that they were driven from the hill, leaving three pieces of their artillery in position near the crest of the heights and their dead and wounded in our hands. When we arrived with our battery on top of Fleetwood the Yanks had already been driven from the hill and were retreating across the plain toward the southeast. Squadrons and regiments of horsemen were charging and fighting on various parts of the plain, and the whole surrounding country was full of fighting cavalrymen ...
Brigadier General Alfred Pleasonton, mounted here on a handsome, well-groomed horse, took command of the Army of the Potomac’s cavalry corps on the eve of Brandy Station. Library of Congress
Clouds of dust mingled with the smoke of discharging firearms rose from various parts of the field, and the discordant and fearful music of battle floated on the thickened air ... The charmed dignity of danger that evinces and proclaims its awe-inspiring presence by zipping bullets, whizzing shell, and gleaming sabers lifted the contemplation of the tragical display from the common domain of grandeur to the eloquent heights of sublimity. Stirring incidents and exciting events followed one another in quick succession, and no sooner was the enemy dislodged in our rear, than a heavy force that had been fighting us all morning advanced on our front, with cavalry and artillery. Their batteries at once opened a severe fire on our position, to which we immediately replied. Then the hardest and liveliest part of the artillery fighting commenced in earnest, and the thunder of the guns roared fiercely and incessantly for several hours....
* * *
“The Men on Both Sides Fighting and Grappling like Demons”
* * *
One shell exploded fearfully close to me and seriously wounded two of my cannoneers and raked the sod all around me. For about three long hours whizzing shot, howling shell, exploding shrapnel, and screaming fragments filled the air that hung over Fleetwood Heights with the music of war. After a severe cannonading for several hours the fire of the Yankee battery slackened, and soon after ceased altogether, and the battery abandoned their position and withdrew their guns beyond the range of our fire.
Just before the Yankee battery ceased firing a large body of Yankee cavalry moved in solid column out in the open field about a mile and a half from our position. They remained there about two hours in a solid square, for the purpose, we supposed, of making a desperate charge on the hill and our battery, if their battery would have succeeded in partially silencing our guns. After the enemy’s battery ceased firing Captain Chew ordered me to get ready to fire canister, and if the Yankee cavalry attempted to charge us I must reserve my fire until they charged to within three hundred yards of my gun, then open fire with canister, carefully aim at the horses’ knees and fire as rapidly as possible. But after threateningly menacing our position for about two hours, the immense host of Yankee horsemen in our immediate front withdrew from the field, disappeared in a woods, and I saw them no more, for soon afterwards the battle ended, and the enemy retreated and recrossed the river. Several times during the day I saw General Stuart, when the battle raged the fiercest, dash with his staff across the field, passing from point to point along his line, perfectly heedless of the surrounding danger.
The Yanks cruelly rushed us out of camp this morning before breakfast, consequently we had nothing to eat during the whole day until after dark this evening, and strange to say I did not experience any hunger until after the battle was over ... We were on the field twelve hours, and during that time I fired my faithful gun one hun
dred and sixty times. This evening just before the battle closed, with the last few shots we fired I saw the fire flash from the cascabel of my gun, and I found that it was disabled forever—burnt entirely out at the breach ... The enemy’s forces we fought to-day were under the command of General Pleasanton. He had three divisions of cavalry, with a complement of artillery—six batteries, I think—the whole backed by two brigades of infantry. His forces recrossed the river this evening and General Stuart held the battle-field.2
“The Roadsides Were Soon Lined with Stragglers”
Lee’s Army Struggles with Heat and Rain on the March
On Wednesday, June 10, 1863, Lee’s army left Culpeper Courthouse, heading north toward Maryland and Pennsylvania. The troops of General Richard Ewell’s Second Corps were in the lead, screened in front by Jenkins’s cavalry brigade. General James Longstreet’s First Corps troops followed, and five days later, on June 15, the soldiers of the Third Corps under General A. P. Hill set up camp near Fredericksburg and joined the march. The army entered Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley on selected roads through the mountain passes and marched northward—“down the Valley,” as locals called it—advancing toward the Potomac River and the Maryland border. To protect the army’s rear as it advanced, Lee dispatched forces to defeat or drive away Federal garrisons at Winchester and Martinsburg, which they did efficiently, capturing large numbers of prisoners, supplies, and ordnance. Meanwhile, General J. E. B. Stuart’s cavalry corps guarded the army’s rear and right flank.