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joy of going into battle that we read so much of. It was sunset as we reached the field, we were still under the glamor of Hooker's order, we really believed Fighting Jo had the rebels on the run, and we came in on the double-quick: I am not sure we did not do some singing and shouting. I think we really should have liked to get into action at once and finish the thing up, so much difference it makes whether or no we expect to win. It was the only large battle 'we ever went into while I was in the regiment that we did expect to win.

May 2. Pleasant. Our Reg't was not engaged during the day but at night the 11th Corps broke and our Corps had to take their place. The firing was terrific all night.

This was in some respects a harder experience than our corps had on the left at Gettysburg the second day, because we had

to contend not only with the enemy but with the panic-stricken Germans. What men will do in a panic surpasses belief. They threw away not only their guns and knapsacks but their coats and caps. I have already spoken of Col. McLaughlin's facing those who came near him with a revolver and compelling them to turn about and fight in our ranks, but these were only a few of the entire corps running away, and it was hard to push on through them.

Gen. Sickles reports: "The fugitives swarmed from the woods and swept frantically over the cleared fields in which my artillery was posted. The exulting enemy at their back mingled yells with their volleys, and in the confusion which followed it seemed as if cannon and caissons, dragoons cannoneers, and infantry could never be disentangled from the mass in which they were suddenly thrown." Dr. Sim, surgeon in

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chief, says: "The fleeing Dutchmen actually ran over our field hospital."

What had happened? The maneuvre that routed Howard was Stonewall Jackson's last fighting, for that daring general lost his life there. life there. Reproducing Doubleday's excellent map, where the union troops are shown by black rectangles, the confederate by white, it will be seen that Jackson started on Saturday from a point near the Furnace, just below where Sickles's corps was posted, and by a circuitous route got to the west of Howard. The date should of course be May 2 instead of May 1 as on the map. It was a hazardous undertaking, permissible only because the battle was at the time almost hopeless for the confederates. It cut off Jackson's It cut off Jackson's troops from the rest of the confederate army, and both sections would have been destroyed if Howard had shown ordinary

GEN. OLIVER O HOWARD, 1830-1909

sense and discovered and guarded against the movement. But it won the battle.

Howard sent back a brigade forwarded to help him, telling the commander, "I would send my compliments to the whole rebel army if it lay in front of me, and invite them to attack me." What was the result? A small part of the rebel army did attack him, at a time when his men were getting supper and playing cards without even the usual pickets thrown out, and

May 2, 1863]

Stonewall Jackson's Last Battle

Howard's corps fled in the most disgraceful and disastrous panic of the war.

Carl Schurz says in his "Reminiscences," (ii. 417, 8): “To my utter astonishment I found many years later in a paper on 'The 11th corps at Chancellorsville', written by Gen. Howard for the Century Magazine, the following sentence: 'Gen. Hooker's circular order to "Slocum and Howard" neither reached me, nor, to my knowledge, Col. Mysenburg, my adjutant general.' How could he have forgotten that I had read and delivered to him that identical despatch, especially as it touched so vital a point, and its delivery was followed by another animated discussion between us, in which I most earnestly although ineffectually-endeavored to convince him that in case of such an attack from the west, our right, as then posted, would be hopelessly overwhelmed."

Meade reported after the battle of Gettysburg: "Much feeling exists in this army in regard to the 11th corps. This induces me to submit the propriety of breaking up the organization of the corps by sending Gen. Howard with one division to the 2d corps, another division to the 12th corps, and leaving the 3d division under Schurz to guard my rear."

Having routed Howard the confederates swept down the plank road toward Chancellorsville. Ours and the 2d brigade took position perpendicular to the plank road. The 1st Mass. was detached from the 1st brigade and posted on the left of the 2d brigade, prolonging the line to the plank road, while the rest of the 1st brigade formed a line 150 yards to the rear. Gen. Sickles says: "These dispositions were made without the steadiness of these veteran troops being in the least disturbed by the torrents of fugitives." Our line immediately threw up a strong breastwerk of

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logs and abatis. Sickles says again: "The splendid fire of the artillery and the imposing attitude of the iron wall of infantry co-operated with our flank attack to check the enemy's advance, which was effectually accomplished before dark."

The attacks were repeated during the night by continual charges more regular than any other fighting I ever heard. There would be first the confederate artillery, then their yell, then their muskets, then our muskets, then our artillery, then our shouts, repeated over and over. At last I grew weary, and fell back behind the woods in an open place and went to sleep. When I awoke in the early morning there was not' anywhere a sound. I thought at first I must have grown deaf, so great was the change from the cannonading in the midst of which I went to sleep. I sat up and looked around. There was not a soldier in sight, and I had no way of knowing whether our men had gone on and left me or whether they had retreated. On general principles I concluded they had probably gone back, and I started toward Chancellorsville. For once, however, we had held our own, and when I came upon our sentries I found that I had been sleeping inside our lines.

It was this night that the confederate general Stonewall Jackson was killed. After he had broken through the eleventh corps he supposed he held the plank road undisputed, and about nine o'clock he rode along reconnoitering in front of our regiment, which rested as I have said upon the plank road. Our men saw the group approaching, not recognizing him of course, and as soon as the confederates came in range poured a volley into them. Gen. Jackson was severely wounded and died a week later. For some reason the confederates preferred

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WHERE STONEWALL JACKSON WAS SHOT

to report that he was killed by his own men, but he was certainly killed directly in front of our regiment, as the boulder that marks the place still shows. If he had been fired on by one of his own regiments why did his staff turn and flee?

Col. McLaughlin makes this official statement: "At 9 p. m. a cavalcade of a dozen or more horsemen drove down the Plank road, when my men immediately opened fire upon them; they immediately turned about and rode furiously back up the road. From the official report of the rebel Gen. Lee, I am led to believe that Gen. Stonewall Jackson formed one of the cavalcade, and that he was killed by my men."

GEN. THOMAS J. JACKSON, 1824-63

There are other claimants for the credit of shooting him. Doubleday says: "Whether the rebels killed him or whether some of his wounds came from our own troops, the 1st Mass. or the 73d N. Y., who were firing heavily in that direction, is a matter of some doubt." In The Orange County Press of Dec. 16, 1890, Capt. Wisner of the 124th N. Y. gives circumstantial account of the firing from his regiment upon a group of rebel officers among whom he believes to have been Stonewall Jackson.

Gen. Pleasanton, who in his letter to the committee on the conduct of the war kindly explains that every success of the war was done either directly by him or through his advice, also claims that his cavalry fired the fatal shot.

But personally I am quite willing to have our regiment relieved of responsibility for his death. He was a great loss to the confederacy, more than a whole division of rank and file, Jefferson Davis said. But he was a noble man as well as a great general. On receipt of news of his death Captain Weisner declares, though I do not remember it, our division was assembled, and the adjutant-general said: "In view of the fact that he was wounded by our division and also as mark of respect to a gallant Christian soldier the division will receive the announcement with uncovered heads."

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May 2, 3, 1863]

Why the 1st Mass. Gave Way

The reply of his body servant to the question why he was always ready is well known: "Well, geminen, whenever I sees Massa Stonewall get up in the night and go to kneeling and saying his prayers, I know dere's a fight on hand shua, an' I makes preparations accordin'."

Stonewall Jackson once ordered one of his colonels to make a certain attack. "General," the officer expostulated, "that would be madness: my regiment would be exterminated."

"Colonel," was the reply, "do your duty. I have made every arrangement to care for the wounded and bury the dead."

May 3. Pleasant. The battle commenced again early. The most awful attempts were made to break our line, and we were driven back some, but our boys were not to be driven far, and the attack was repulsed. Baxter and Badger of my Co. were killed.

Glad they weren't taking us alphabetically: I should have been between them. Gen. Berry himself gave our regiment.

GEN. BERRY, 1824-63

the order to take position at the right of the plank road and to hold it at all hazards. Co. I was deployed as skirmishers and our men threw up such breastworks as they

could of small timber and brush, aided by four or five spades the 11th corps men had thrown away in their flight.

The confederates advanced in great force about 5:30 a. m. We held our ground

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for an hour, but had to fall back to the second line. Col. McAllister of the 11th N. J. complains that the left of our regiment gave way first, while the right stood firm. But it must be remembered that the left of our regiment adjoined the 3d Md. of the 12th corps, which was on the left side of the plank road, in direct line of the enemy, and which broke and retreated, thus letting the enemy in down the plank road on our left flank. The wonder was not that our

regiment's left gave way but that the right stood. Gen. Carr reports that the division was finally compelled to fall back about 7:30 by the injudicious retreat of a Maryland regiment (the 3d Md.), but says: "The division held its own for over four

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