The next morning, May 1st, we marched forward to Chancellorsville, where there was a small opening in the woods, and immediately began to manœuvre. Instead of giving an account of the movements of the troops myself, I shall here insert the official report of the general himself, which covers the whole ground, and is not to be found in any other publication.
Headquarters Third Brigade, Hancock’s Division, Second Corps,
Camp Near Falmouth, Va., May 12, 1863.
To Major John Hancock, A. A. G.
Major: I have the honor to submit the following report of the part taken by this brigade in the recent operations of the army of the Potomac.
On the 28th ult, we broke camp. On the evening of the 30th we crossed the Rappahannock at United States ford and bivouacked that night near Chancellorsville.
At noon on the 1st inst., the brigade marched out over the Fredericksburg and Gordonsville pike to a hill, in the direction of Fredericksburg, about a mile from the Chancellorsville house, where it was formed in two lines to the right of the road and the first brigade.
The Sixty-sixth New York and One Hundred and Fortieth Pennsylvana formed the first line and the Fifty-seventh and Fifty-second New York the second. Skirmishers were thrown out from the first line with instructions to remain under cover of the woods out of the enemy’s view. Subsequently Major Scott, of the division staff, in the name of the general, required of me a regiment to support the skirmish line, which he himself undertook to post. The Fifty-second New York were assigned to the performance of this duty, and by some mistake was deployed in full view of the enemy and within easy range of his batteries. Of course, the enemy opened fire upon the regiment with his artillery and advanced his infantry against it with such effect that twenty-four enlisted men out of one hundred and twenty-four, the total of the regiment, were killed or wounded without accomplishing any possible good.
Some time later I received orders to fall back with the brigade two hundred yards and await orders, which, however, were soon given, to hasten out of the woods, march rapidly towards the Chancellorsville House and re-form line of battle.
The line was formed in the best position the ground afforded, with one battery in front and another in rear. The fire of the latter injured one officer and several men of the One Hundred and Fortieth Pennsylvania by premature shell explosion.
After the repulse of the enemy, the brigade again advanced over the road by which it had just retired, and took position to its left at the foot of the ridge recently abandoned, forming a second line to the First brigade, General Caldwell’s. It remained here until 3 A.M. of the 2d, when it was again withdrawn to the Chancellorsville House. The enemy had shelled the position ineffectually during the early part of the night.
At sunrise the Fifty-seventh New York was detailed to picket near the ground just vacated by our lines. During the day it was frequently and determinedly attacked, but resisted successfully, killing and wounding many of the enemy. In the course of the morning a part of the Fifty-second was sent to its assistance, and, of course, shared the fighting and honor.
The remainder of the brigade at the same time marched towards the place of our first night’s bivouac to occupy a crest looking towards Fredericksburg, which they subsequently strengthened by rifle pits. At 10 A. M. the Sixty-sixth New York was detached to report to General Caldwell, and later in the day what remained of the Fifty-second was sent him also.
A battery enfilading my position threw a few shells about sunset, but fortunately without injury to the command. At 9 P. M. the Sixty-sixth and two companies of the One Hundred and Fortieth relieved the Fifty-seventh and the part of the Fifty-second which was on picket, the latter falling back to the rifle pits vacated by the Sixty-sixth on General Caldwell’s line. These pickets experienced severe fighting and considerable loss next day, especially when ordered to fall back.
On the morning of the 3d, some regiments having been withdrawn from the rifle pits on my right, the One Hundred and Fortieth was moved in that direction to maintain connection with those which remained. In this new position the regiment lost some men, killed and wounded by the enemy’s artillery. Lieutenant John Paden, Fifty-seventh New York, acting aide-de-camp, was wounded in the shoulder by a piece of shell at this place.
Subsequently the One Hundred and Fortieth was moved to the support of a battery on the right of the Chancellorsville House, the Fifth Maine.
Half an hour after taking this position the house caught fire. Being filled with our wounded, a company of the One Hundred and Fortieth was ordered to assist in their removal, which duty was well performed under very severe fire.
Another detail of forty men was made to bring off the guns of the battery above named, which had lost all its officers and nearly all its men and horses. This detail first drove two caissons into the woods out of the enemy’s sight and then returned and removed two guns to the same position. It was then and there they first saw men of any other brigade.
Some men of the Second brigade assisted part of the detail to bring off their guns, whilst the remainder went back for the other three, which they found some men of the Second and Fourth brigades endeavoring to remove. Lieutenant Linton, of the One Hundred and Fortieth, in charge of the detail, ordered some of his men to assist with each gun until they reached a place of safety, which was done.
The gun detail and that for the removal of the wounded necessarily left their arms with the regiment, which moved away in obedience to orders during their absence. In this way some rifles were lost, although many of the men and some of the officers carried off quite an arm load of pieces; conspicuous amongst the latter was Lieutenant Stokes, who abandoned his rations, blankets, etc., for the purpose.
On arriving upon the field near the White house, in rear of Chancellorsville, I found the other regiments of the brigade, the Fifty-second and Fifty-seventh, which had been operating under General Caldwell, as he informed me, with great credit, and the Sixty-sixth returned from picket.
These with the One Hundred and Fortieth were formed in line, in rear of General Caldwell’s brigade, in the new position of the left of the Third corps, where we remained until our withdrawal to the north bank of the river.
I am happy to express entire satisfaction with the conduct of my command and to return my thanks to Captain Rose and Lieutenants Favill, Broom, and Paden of my staff for their efficient assistance.
I am, Major,
Very respectfully, Your obedient servant,
S. K. Zook, Brigadier-General.
General Zook’s report was not forwarded to the War Department, as is usual, on account of the reference to Major Scott, which General Hancock deemed a reflection upon that officer, and as Zook stubbornly refused to change it, General Hancock sent it back again, and I have it now in my possession.
I was ordered to superintendent the dispositions of the Sixty-sixth and Fifty-second New York and rode with them to the edge of the woods, which was skirted by a little stream; on the other side of it the ground rose abruptly, forming a very steep hill, evidently commanding the ground occupied by our troops, the Chancellor house included. There was nothing in sight when we posted the skirmish line on the edge of the little stream; but as soon as this was done, Major Scott came along and ordered the line to advance to the crest of the hill over the open ground. They had hardly gone fifty yards when a heavy line of the enemy’s skirmishers came sweeping over the crest, directly in front, and upon seeing us immediately opened fire, to which we replied with so much spirit that they were compelled to halt, but in a few minutes a line of battle advanced to their support and obliged us to hastily fall back under cover of the woods, losing several men. As soon as the men crossed the stream, they were ordered to fall back slowly, contesting the woods as stubbornly as possible, while I rode back to the general to advise him of the situation. By this time the enemy had planted guns on the high ground we had just seen, and the woods I rode through were alive with bursting shells. Branches were torn off, and sometimes entire tops of trees came tumbling down. I managed to keep a fairly straight course in the thick wood, and soon ran into the general and his command, formed in two lines of battle, and it was only a short time before the rebel line came in sight and immediately opened fire. It is impossible to describe the tremendous noise made by the firing of so many thousands of men in heavy woods; the sound cannot get away easily, and so makes a continuous roar, while the smoke quickly obscures the ground between the contending forces, always leading to more or less uncertainty and requiring infinite skill and judgment on the part of commanding officers to conduct matters successfully.
In the course of the day, the rebel general Jackson moved swiftly across our front and swooped down upon our extreme right, held by General Howard, with the Eleventh corps of Dutchmen. Howard’s men had stacked arms and were playing cards and loitering about without any thought of danger, when the enemy sailed right into them, driving them like flocks of sheep. Our lines were so close together that the flying Dutchmen came in streams right up to our lines, and deaf to all entreaties many of them actually ran right across into the arms of the very men they were trying to avoid. It was really ludicrous. At last we faced about and drove them towards the ford. The line abandoned by the Eleventh corps was speedily re-established by fresh troops and Jackson’s advance repelled, in the doing of which the enemy sustained the loss of their renowned general, and thus their actual loss greatly exceeded ours. Stonewall Jackson has made the greatest reputation of any officer in either army thus far in the war, and we ourselves could not help feeling sorry for the loss of so brilliant a genius.
One of the sad scenes on the field when the Eleventh corps were in disorder was that of a man being led out of the fight with both his eyes laying out on his cheeks suspended by ligaments. A musket ball had traversed the rear of both eyes, forcing them out of their sockets; he passed close to me and I noticed he was able to talk. I thought it the most pitiable case I had ever seen. While standing amongst a group of officers a Whitworth solid shot came along, almost spent apparently; it was ricochetting over the ground, turning end on end, and seemed to be going so slowly that without thinking I put out my foot to stop it, when some one suddenly jerked me backwards; the ball struck an ambulance wheel a little behind us and smashed it all to pieces, the moral of which is never try to stop a cannon ball.
The scene about the Chancellor house at ten o’clock of the 3d beggars description. The open ground was covered with batteries; many of them had lost all their horses. A converging fire of the enemy’s guns from front, right, and left swept the ground; round shot and shell filled the air about us, and confusion reigned supreme. When the general and I rode up, after we had withdrawn the troops in rear of the road and house, we found the porch of the house full of officers; amongst them General Hooker himself, leaning against one of the pillars, apparently bewildered. A few moments after our arrival, the house took fire from a bursting shell. It was filled with wounded men who were safely removed by willing volunteers. In the midst of the tremendous noises of exploding shells and cracklin fire a couple of women rushed out of the building and fled to the rear, watched by thousands of men, not one of whom was not ready to sacrifice his own life to aid them in their flight for safety. As the general describes in his report, the final effort to remove the guns by hand and reform the line in rear of the house, I shall leave the matter here, only giving my opinion that the whole battle was mismanaged from beginning to end. If we had advanced in the direction of Fredericksburg and taken position on the open commanding ground, where all the troops could have been fought to advantage and our artillery used effectively, the result would have been very different.
While establishing the line in rear of the Chancellor House General Hancock, followed by his staff and General Zook and his staff, rode over the ground at the angle on the left down quite a declevity, where a rebel battery had the exact range. Shells flew all around and about us. One of them struck General Zook’s horse in the neck and carried away a piece weighing several pounds. The general was obliged to take an orderly’s horse, but very singularly his own horse lived for some time afterwards. It was interesting to see General Hancock ride along amidst this rain of shells utterly indifferent, not even ducking his head when one came close to him, which is a difficult thing to do, for one seems to do it involuntarily. General Hancock is in his element and at his best in the midst of a fight, which cannot be said of some of the general officers.
During the time we were on the south side of the river, our staff was without supplies and depended upon the orderlies and men for whatever we had to eat. At night we sat against a tree on our saddles, without fires and vainly endeavored to go to sleep or get into a comfortable position. It rained a good deal of the time, making matters much worse, but the three days passed and none of us was much the worse for our experience. The fact is, we are so tough and inured to exposure that we can stand anything. In the last position the men not employed dug holes in the sandy soil to escape the enemy’s shells, forming a gigantic rabbit warren. They protected themselves so well we had but few casualties.
Remained in this last position made impregnable by the industry of the troops until the night of the 5th, when we were ordered to recross the river and return to our winter quarters. Owing to the continued rainfall of the last two days all hands were liberally covered with mud and mighty glad to get out of the rain-soaked woods. The enemy had suffered too much in their frequent attempts to carry our lines to interfere with our movements in recrossing the river.
While we were engaged at Chancellorsville, Stoneman with the cavalry corps, made a diversion in the enemy’s rear by riding entirely around Lee’s army, to Richmond. He destroyed the Virginia Central Railroad from Gordonsville eastward, all the railroad equipment, cars, depots, telegraph, etc., for twenty miles or more; destroyed the Aquia and Richmond Railroad; all public and private stores they fell in with, and captured and took away mules, horses, and slaves in vast numbers. They went close to Richmond, causing the greatest consternation. The failure of so brilliant an opening on the part of the army of the Potomac is a great disappointment to us. General Hooker’s plans were excellent. Sedgwick, who crossed at Fredericksburg, was successful, and had we been properly handled and advanced towards that point on open ground, we might have gained a great victory, but we lacked the leader and are again looking for some one worthy of the army whose energies no defeat can tame.
