Military Memoirs of a Confederate by General Edward Porter Alexander

Author:General Edward Porter Alexander
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2013-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XV

CHANCELLORSVILLE

Winter Quarters. Rations Reduced. Hays’s Louisiana Brigade. Officers’ Servants. Hooker’s Reorganization. Confederate Organization. Hooker’s Plan of Attack. Lee’s Proposed Aggressive. Hooker Crosses. Hooker’s Fatal Mistake. Lee’s Prompt Action. The Wilderness. Hooker Advances. Lee’s Advance. Hooker Retreats. Hooker Intrenches. Lee Reconnoitres. Lee’s Plan of Attack. Jackson’s March. The Movement Discovered. Sickles Advances. Jackson Deploys. Jackson Attacks. Colquitt’s Blunder. Dowdall’s Tavern. Casualties. At Hooker’s Headquarters. Defensive Measures. Jackson Pauses. A Cannonade. Wounding of Jackson. Stuart in Command. Formation for Attack. Sickles’s Midnight Attack. Hooker’s Interior Line. Hooker abandons Hazel Grove. Stuart Attacks. Assaults Repulsed. Hazel Grove Guns. Federals Withdraw. Lee and Stuart Meet. Sedgwick’s Advance. Wilcox on Taylor’s Hill. Assaults Renewed. Early falls Back. Salem Church. Casualties. Early’s Division. Lee organizes an Attack. Sedgwick driven Across.

SOON after the battle of Fredericksburg, Lee placed his army in winter quarters. Jackson was extended along the river, below the town, as far as Port Royal, his own headquarters being at a hunting lodge on the lawn of a Mr. Corbin, at Moss Neck, 11 miles below Fredericksburg. Longstreet was encamped from a little above Fredericksburg to Massaponax Creek. Lee established his headquarters in a camp a short distance in rear of Hamilton’s Crossing. Most of the artillery was sent back to the North Anna River for convenience of supply. My own battalion occupied a wood at Mt. Carmel church, five miles north of Hanover Junction, the horses being sheltered in an adjoining pine thicket. On the occasion of Burnside’s Mud March, we marched about halfway to Fredericksburg, but were then allowed to return. The infantry generally did not leave their camps, as there was nowhere any fighting.

Although so near to Richmond, the army was inadequately clothed, shod, and fed, in spite of Lee’s earnest efforts. As far back as April 28, 1862, the meat ration had been reduced from 12 to 8 ounces, and a small extra allowance of flour (two ounces) was given. It was claimed that but for this reduction, the supply of meat would not have held out throughout the fall. On Jan. 23, 1863, a further reduction was ordered, by the commissary-general, to four ounces of salt meat with one-fifth of a pound of sugar. Lee wrote of the situation on March 27:—

“The men are cheerful, and I receive but few complaints, still I do not consider it enough to maintain them in health and vigor, and I fear they will be unable to endure the hardships of the approaching campaign. Symptoms of scurvy are appearing among them, and, to supply the place of vegetables, each regiment is directed to send a daily detail to gather sassafras buds, wild onions, garlic, lamb’s quarter, and poke sprouts; but for so large an army the supply obtained is very small.”

Some idea of the situation is given in the following extracts from a letter of a staff-officer of Hays’s La. brigade to his representative in Congress:—

“Among 1500 men reported for duty there are 400 totally without covering of any kind for their feet.

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