WAR REMINISCENCES: CHAPTER 27

 

Captain William Saxton, Co. C, 157th Regiment, New York Volunteers. 

Cortland Evening Standard, Saturday, July 18, 1903.

WAR REMINISCENCES.

By Captain Saxton of the I57th Regiment, N. Y. Vołs.

A CONFEDERATE VIEW OF BATTLE.

Error of the Confederates Which Favored the Union Retreat—General Howard's Vain Attempt to Rally the Troops—At General Hooker's Headquarters—General Sickles' Position—A General Stampede.

CHAPTER 27.

   To the Editor of The Standard:

   Sir—Here is what Confederate Gen. Doles says in regard to the battle where the One Hundred and Fifty-seventh New York participated.

   "My command moved forward at the double quick to assault the enemy who had taken up a strong position on the crest of a hill in the open field. He was soon driven from this position, the command pressing him. He made a stubborn resistance from behind a wattle fence on a hill thickly covered with pine. The whole command moved against this position, the Fourth and Forty-fourth Georgia in front and the Twenty-first and Twelfth on his left flank and rear. Here we captured one gun (a rifled piece).

   "We pursued his retreating force about 300 yards over an open field receiving a very severe fire from musketry and a battery of four pieces on the crest of a hill commanding the field below."

Position of the 157th.

   We had come out into the White House opening, behind the Second Corps and remained in line of battle till we were called to the rear of the Chancellor House, where we formed in close column by companies and lay down. This part of the battle had lasted about two hours.

   When Jackson had swept away the Eleventh Corps he halted in the open fields around Dowdalls, Hawkins and Talleys to reform his troops. Gen. Colston, the commander of his second line says, "The Federal writers have wondered why Jackson's Corps did not complete its work on the evening of May 2. They do not realize the condition of our troops after their successful charge on Howard. We had forced our way through brush so dense that the troops were nearly stripped of their uniforms. Brigades and regiments had become so mixed that they could not be handled; besides which, the darkness of the evening was so intensified by the shade of the woods that nothing could be seen a few yards off. The halt at that time was not a mistake but a necessity. So far from intending to stop, Jackson was hurrying A. P. Hill's division to the front to take the place of Rodes' and mine, to continue the attack when he was wounded."
                                    Confederates Made an Error.

   It was a very fortunate thing for the Eleventh Corps and, for that matter, for the whole Army of the Potomac that three brigades of Jackson's troops made a serious mistake. In the first movement the right brigade of Rodes' line, Colquit's and the right brigade of Colston's line, and Ramseur's, came to the plank road at Burton's farm where Paxton's brigade of infantry and Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry were stationed.

   The Fifty-fifth Ohio had thrown out a strong picket there and as the Confederates advanced they opened out on them. Colquet observed some cavalry on the road to the southwest dressed in Federal uniforms and conceived that he was attacked on his flank by Union troops. He halted his brigade, faced about to the southwest and sent Ramseur some distance up the plank road to meet the attack. Ramseur found the mounted men to be Lee's cavalry and returned; then Colquet faced about and marched on; but he had detained seventeen regiments for an hour and when he arrived at Dowdall's we had fallen back and formed the new line spoken of. One can hardly conjecture what would have been the result had these seventeen regiments continued without a halt right down the plank road.

   Gen. Howard and his whole staff, and the rest of the Eleventh Corps might have been gobbled up almost entire.

At Corps Headąuarters.

   How was it at Corps headquarters? Gen. Howard in his defensive Century articles, twenty-three years after the war, says: "The guns and masses of the right brigade struck the second line of Devan's before McLean's front had given way and quicker than it could be told, with all the fury of the wildest hail storm, everything, every sort of organization that lay in the path of the mad current of panic stricken men had to give way and be broken into fragments." (Where was he for the last thirty minutes while his right division was being pulverized?)

   Continuing, he says: "My own horse seemed to catch the fury. He sprang, he rose high on his hind legs and fell over, throwing me to the ground; my aid-de-camp, Dessaur, was struck by shot and killed, and for a few moments I was as helpless as any of the men who were speeding by without arms to the rear; but faithful orderlies helped me to remount. Schurz was still doing all he could to face his regiments about and send them to Devan's northern flank."

   Gen. Schurz says: "I saw Gen. Devans, wounded, carried by, and he had long been in the rear, when we were overpowered and fell back on Bushbeck's position, where Gen. Howard in the meantime had been trying to rally the routed troops." It is a mile and a half from the angle of Von Gilsa's front to the Dowdall house, Howard's headquarters.

   You remember between 4 and 5 p. m., Howard, Steinwehr and Gen. Hooker's aid Capt. Moore had started south to the furnace and beyond, with Barlow's brigade to help Birney capture some regiments. It is 3 miles at least from where Barlow started to the Catherine furnace. I don't know how much below they went, but you can estimate the time it would take an infantry brigade to march the distance. Gen. Howard says, "we returned rapidly to our post and dismounted." What time do you suppose it was then? Jackson's move began at 5:15 and the attack at 5:30.

   Gen. Howard, in another place in his Century article says Dole says: "After a resistance of about ten minutes we drove him (Devans) from his position on the left and carried his battery of two guns, caissons and horses." This was the fire which Steinwehr and I heard shortly after our return from Barlow. Somebody's guns thundered away for a few short minutes, and then came the fitful rattle of musketry."

Over Forty Warnings.

   I can't imagine what our Corps commander was doing from the time he acknowledges he heard the guns of the first attack, till the first of his retreating division had fallen back a mile and a half and did not reach Howard's headquarters before 6 p. m. Howard had received over forty warnings of this attack which I shall refer to later.

   Gen. Howard did exhibit amount of personal bravery in striving to his utmost to rally his broken divisions and appealing to them "not to disgrace him by their flight." It was too late. He should have heeded the request of his subordinate officers of more military experience than he, to change front and contract his lines and entrench.

   It is possible we have here an example of wireless telegraphy, in that Gen. Howard's words to Gen. Graham the day before (I would send my compliments to the whole rebel army, and invite them to attack me in my present position) had been transmitted to Stonewall Jackson, and he had accepted the invitation with thanks.

At General Hooker's Quarters.

   As Gen. Hooker sat on the porch of the Chancellor house Saturday evening at 6:30 p.m., conversing with his aids, Col. Chandler and Capt. Russel, the sounds of distant cannonading came to their ears. Capt. Russel stepped out in front and looked down the road toward Dowdall's. ''My God, here they come," he shouted to Hooker. Hooker with his aides immediately mounted their horses and rode rapidly a little way down the pike and met the fugitives of Devan's division, from whom be first learned of Jackson's attack on his right Corps, which had been going on for nearly an hour.

In Order and Good Spirits.

   When Bushbeck's line fell back, our part of Schurz's division (the Twenty-sixth Wis., the Fifty-eighth New York, the Eighty-second Ohio, the Eighty-second Illinois, and the One Hundred and Fifty-seventh New York,) withdrew in order and good spirits, as I have before described, and halted and reformed in line of battle on the Bullock road northwest of the Chancellor house. The rest of Bushbeck's line, together with such fragments of other regiments as remained with him, marched up the pike to Fairview, west of the Chancellor house, turned south and formed a line facing west in front of some batteries that Capt. Best had arranged. Capt. Dilger slowly retired up the pike and with one gun, supported by two companies of the Sixty-first, Ohio's Irish boys, kept the road clear of the enemy. He joined Best on the left with the rest of his battery. Hooker ordered Berry, in reserve north of the Chancellor house, to face about and march west and form a line facing west on the west of Fairview. Slocum ordered Williams' division, which had been away with Sickles to move up, form a line in front of Bushbeck and the artillery, and connect with Berry. Williams' line extended south from the pike and Berry north. Back of Williams was Bushbeck, and back of him were forty-three pieces of artillery. Brig-Gen. Hayes of Couch's Second Corps was moved back of Berry, and we of Schurz's division were on Berry's right on the Bullock road, our right deflecting to the northwest. We remained here till about 9 or 10 p. m., when we were moved to the Chancellor house.

With General Sickles.

   Let us return to Gen. Sickles. Somewhere about 5 p. m. he sent to Gen. Pleasanton at Hazel Grove for some cavalry and Pleasanton himself rode south to see how it could be used. While down there Col. Huey of the Eighth Pennsylvania cavalry reported to him and Pleasanton ordered him to report to General Howard. Huey rode back to Hazel Grove where his cavalry was bivouacked and started north on the Vista (a cleared space 20 feet wide on each side of the road for an eighth of a mile) for Dowdalls to report to Howard, not knowing that the Eleventh Corps had been disastrously driven from there. The pack mule reserve ammunition train of Sickles' Corps with 70,000 rounds of ammunition under Col. Hall that had been parked at Hazel Grove followed the cavalry, thinking to resume their former position with Berry's division. On the Vista they passed some caissons, ambulances, wagons, etc., with accompanying soldiers and camp followers parked there belonging to the Third Corps, which had gone south, not knowing that the Eleventh Corps had retreated along the pike half a mile north of them. Dilger had passed down the pike, having ceased firing as he came into the woods, and was probably forming on Best's left at this time.

Charged in the Woods.

   When Col. Huey came to the forks of the road, one leading to Dowdalls and one straight north to the pike, he noticed some Confederates passing in his front toward Chancellorsville, and some approaching his left on the Dowdalls' road. He did the only thing he could in that narrow lane surrounded on each side with thick woods. He drew sabre, ordered a charge, and ran right into a body of rebel troops on the pike who opened a withering fire on him. Maj. Keenan was killed by his side, Capt. Arrowsmith and Capt. Haddock and about thirty men were shot down.

   Col. Huey obliqued to the left and rode around the enemies' left and the Union right and came in behind Best's artillery. The rear of the cavalry, hearing the attack in front, turned into the woods over by Williams' log works and joined the rest of the regiment.

   They had seen none of the fugitives of the Eleventh Corps who had passed down the pike before this.

   The Confederates also fired into the mule ammunition train. Col. Hall attempted to retreat, but the mules became hopelessly tangled up with the caissons, wagons and ambulances that were camped by the roadside and a regular stampede across Hazel grove occurred.

A Stampede.

   Not a man of the Eleventh Corps was in this stampede, with the possible exception of a few stragglers who had fallen in behind Williams' log works. There is a possibility of a very few being carried down through half a mile of dense woods when the Confederates reached these log works, but not a probability, as the natural  line of retreat would be back east toward the Chancellor house and not south across the enemies' front to Hazel grove. This stampede continued on across the north part of Hazel grove then into Fairview a little north of the Twelfth Corps to the Chancellor house. This has always been unjustly confounded with and assigned to the Eleventh Corps retreat and from this the Eleventh Corps has received no end of abuse by generals and historians. At the first sound of this stampede Maj. Huntington, chief of artillery of Whipple's division of Sickles' Corps, aligned his eighteen pieces of cannon and Pleasanton's four pieces of horse artillery to meet the attack supposed to be coming from the Confederates.

   Intelligence had come to Sickles of the Eleventh Corps disaster and he immediately recalled the forces under him and it was of William's division of the Twelfth Corps that came in behind the batteries at this time. In the cannonading that soon ensued, the One Hundred and Tenth Pa. got excited and sent a volley into the backs of these cannoneers. W. S.