Ozaukee County's
War History
by Daniel E. McGinley

as extracted from THE PORT WASHINGTON STAR
July 3, 1897



26th Wisconsin
Chapter 3

To properly understand the situation, let us see what was happening, meanwhile, within the rebel lines. Late in the evening of May 1st, Gen. Lee met his trusty lieutenant, "Stonewall" Jackson, at a point about one mile south of Chancellorsville, and had a short conference with him. The reports of their engineers all agreed that Hooker's position could not be successfully attacked from the east, and it was decided that Jackson should take a force of seventy regiments of infantry, and a large force of artillery, 30,000 men in all, and attempt to march around and "turn" Hooker's right, which they had good reason to believe was resting "in air" in the wilderness west of Chancellorsville, as was really the case.

The movement began before daybreak next morning, and under the direction of the restless Jackson, the rebel troops were hurried forward on all of the roads and paths leading toward the west. When daylight came, Birney's men, on the hills at Hazel Grove, discovered one of Jackson's columns moving toward their right, on a road something over a mile away. This fact was promptly reported to Hooker. The latter thought at first that Lee's army must be retreating; but later concluded that Jackson was either retreating to Gordonsville, or making a circuit to attack the Eleventh Corps. To provide against the latter contingency, Hooker at 9:30 A.M. sent an order to Gen. Howard, directing him to prepare for an attack on his right flank, by readjusting his lines and having heavy reserves well in hand for such an emergency.

Hooker had ridden along Howard's lines that morning, and in the order above mentioned he called the latter's attention to the facts that his right was not strong enough, and that no artificial defenses worth mentioning had been erected by his (Howard's) corps. Howard was also notified that the enemy was moving to his right in heavy force, and was directed to advance his pickets, in order to obtain timely warning of an attack upon his right.

Gen. Schurz was at Howard's headquarters when Hooker's order was received there, and tried to convince Howard that there was danger of an attack from the right; and suggested a readjustment of the lines of the corps that would put it into a position to resist an attack from either front or flank. But Howard who seemed to believe the report which was just then running like wild fire through the Union army, that Lee was retreating, scoffed at the idea of the latter separating a large force from his army to march around and attack the Union right. Such a move was against all military rules or tactics, and Lee would never order or consent to it. But the indomitable Jackson, who suggested the movement, and who so successfully carried it out, was not afraid to violate the rules laid down at West Point, and believed in making any move that seemed practicable, whether it could be found in the tactics or not.

Later in the war, Gen. Hardee made just such a move with a part of Hood's army, when on the afternoon and night of July 21, 1864, he marched around Sherman's left, in full view of the Union troops on Bald Hill, (the extreme left of Shermanís line that day), and fell with great fury upon the flank and rear of the army of the Tennessee the next day. The lamented Gen. McPherson, who was caught napping on that occasion, paid for his carelessness with his life; and only the marvelous still, bravery and endurance of his splendid army of veterans, directed by the peerless volunteer general, John A. Logan, saved Sherman from a crushing defeat that day. The fact that the rebels were marching toward the Union left in large numbers, was known to the brigade and division generals, and must have reached McPherson's ears; but, like Howard, he was a graduate of West Point, and did not believe that Hood would dare to outrage, in such a flagrant manner, the tactics taught at their Alma Mater.

And still later, Gen. Sherman adopted similar tactics, when he left the Twentieth Corps to hold the Chattahoochie line, and marched the balance of his army around Hood's flank and forced him out of Atlanta. It was a violation of the engineering rules taught at West Point that saved the Union fleet on the Red River; and it was a violation of the tactics taught there that won more than one victory during the Civil war. But the belief that they would not, should not, or could not be violated with success, was one of the chief causes of Howard's blindness and Hooker's humiliating defeat at Chancellorsville.

Howard made no move to protect his flank or read, rather than to send two companies of the Thirty-third Massachusetts a mile to his rear, to picket the path to Ely Ford; although it is said that at 11 A.M. he notified Hooker that he had taken all necessary precautions. Gen. Schurz took upon himself the responsibility to arrange his Second brigade in the field of Hawkin's farm facing west and at right angles with the main line, but did not form it in a connected line, and did not have it to intrench itself; errors which proved to be very costly ones before the storm of battle had passed that point.

Shortly after Birney's men had discovered Jackson's marching column, one of his batteries opened on the rebels, and forced the column to abandon that route and seek on further south and out of sight of the Union lines. Sickles then obtained Hooker's permission to take Birney's division and make a reconnaissance with it; and marching down to the vicinity of the Welford Furnace, where the rebel column had been seen, his advance, Berdan's Sharpshooters, captured the Twenty-third Georgia regiment, which was acting as a part of Jackson's rear guard.

Thus far the historians of that period agree, but they greatly disagree in regard to Sickle's subsequent movements and designs that day. Hamlin, the historian of the Eleventh Corps, in his fine work "Chancellorsville," says that Sickles now firmly believed that Lee's whole army was retreating, and called for reinforcements with which to pursue and harass the flying foe. It is a fact that Sickles called for reinforcements more than once that day, but after studying the different authorities at hand I can find no good reason for disagreeing with Gen. Doubleday, who states that from information collected from prisoners and other sources, Sickles became convinced that Jackson was not retreating, but was marching to strike a blow somewhere least expected; and that a part of the rebel army still remained with Lee in the entrenched line between the Rappahannock and Massaponax, which were really the facts in this case. But either way Sickles' subsequent movements were gross blunders. If he believed that Lee was retreating, he was greatly in error; and if he believed that Jackson's object was to strike an unexpected blow, he erred greatly to not suspect, from the direction Jackson was marching; what his intentions were, and to hurry back at once to the support of the threatened Eleventh Corps.

But, according to Doubleday, it was Sickles' wish to interpose a large force between Jackson and Lee, and then attack the latter in flank and rear, while Hooker attacked him from the front, but Hooker, still adhering to his plan to remain on the defensive until he had heard from Sedgewick, would not consent to Sickles' plan. But he sent Sickles' reinforcements consisting of Whipples' division of the Third, Williams' of the Twelfth, and Barlow's brigade of Steinwehr's division of the Eleventh corps; and later Pleasanton's cavalry. It was late in the afternoon when Barlow's brigade of nearly 3,000 men, which had been lying in reserve in the rear of its division on the Dowall farm, was sent to Sickles, and this was one of the greatest blunders of that day of blunders. Instead of sending reinforcements to the threatened Eleventh corps, this brigade, consisting of over half of the reserve force of that corps, was ordered away at the most critical time, leaving a vacancy that could not be filled when the attack came. Had this strong brigade been on hand when Devens' broken division came pouring back to the Dowall farm that evening, it could have rendered valuable assistance in checking the onward sweep of Jackson's legions, and might possibly have turned the tide of battle in that quarter.

All this time Jackson's grand army of 30,000 veterans was marching onward at a rapid rate, its famous leader, in dingy uniform, and mounted on "Old Sorrel," riding at its head and urging it on. About noon Jackson reached a point on the Plank Road less than a mile and a half south of the Talley farm, where from a hill on the Burton farm, he looked down into the lines of the Eleventh Corps in the Talley and Dowall clearings. He could also see a part of Schurz's reserve brigade on the Hawkins farm, but the right of that brigade and the right of Deven's division, were concealed from his view by the intervening timber. The story that the men of Von Gilsa's brigade, the right of Devens' line, could be seen by Jackson, playing cards and carousing, is not true, as the entire brigade was hidden by timber.

Leaving his old "Stonewall Brigade" and a brigade of cavalry, under Gen. Paxton, on the Plank Road, Jackson pressed on until he reached the Luckett farm, on the old turnpike upon which Devensí division was deployed, and less than a mile and a half from Devensí right. The day was hot, but the rebel troops responded nobly to the requests of their leader to hurry forward, and at 3 P.M. Jackson wrote to Lee, six miles away, that the leading division had reached Luckett's farm, and the others were close at hand. At 5 P.M. nearly all of Jackson's troops were in line and ready for action. His forces were formed in three lines of battle: Bodes' division forming the first, Colston's the second, and Hill's the third line, his lines presenting a front of two miles and extending at right angles with the Union line. The rebel lines thus formed extended about a mile and a quarter to the rear of Howard's position.

It was a few minutes past 5 P.M. when Jackson gave the order to advance, and preceded by a heavy skirmish line, his superb force of 30,000 veterans bore down on the flank and rear of the Eleventh Corps, which then had less than 9,000 men in position. Owing to the dense forest that covered nearly the entire space in which Jackson formed his lines, and through which he had to march before he struck Howard's flank, the rebels were unable to use much of their artillery; but two batteries of four guns each followed the old turnpike, and having an open sweep at the flank of the Union line posted along that road, did fearful execution at times.

It seems almost incredible that an army of 30,000 men could march around his flank and leisurely form in line of battle, in broad daylight, within two miles of his line without causing Howard any apprehensions; but all the evidence goes to show that if he was not aware of his danger, it was not because he had not been told of it more than once that day, but because he would not believe the information brought him from different sources; and it is stated on very good authority, that he actually insulted some of the officers who brought him the information that a heavy force of the enemy was forming on his right. Howard can apparently blame no one but himself for the disaster of that day; and is justly censured by every historian who investigates the case. Why he was not only retained in the command of the Eleventh Corps thereafter, but was also promoted to a higher command, is a question often asked, and which can be answered in but one way, i.e., that the facts in regard to his part in the preliminaries of that battle were not known until long after the war ended.

While Jackson was moving toward his great host to the flank and rear of the Eleventh Corps, Sickles with his force of some 20,000 men, was groping around in the wilderness between two and three miles south of Chancellorsville, leaving a wide gap in the Union lines to the left of the Eleventh Corps, and doing no earthly good, except to demonstrate how completely large bodies of troops can conceal themselves in a wooded country. Sickles complains that Hooker would not let him attack and annihilate the small force which remained with Lee; but the pertinent question can be asked: why did he not return to his position at Hazel Grove, to watch and prepare for the blow which he supposed Jackson had planned? Jackson moved with more celerity than the Yankee general counted on.

Some may think that too much space is being given here to the preliminaries of this battle; but in justice to our boys in the Twenty-sixth Wisconsin, and to their much abused comrades of the Eleventh Corps, it is necessary to go into details to show who was to blame for the disaster to the Union arms on Chancellorsville's historic field.