Hess Earl J. Field Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War: The Eastern Campaigns, 1861-1864

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178 Chancellorsville

Lee was using ﬁeldworks as a pivot for an attack, a classic tactic taught by

Mahan in his prewar courses and in his inﬂuential manual. The works held

by Anderson and McLaws were meant primarily for defensive purposes, to

protect the approach to the rear of the positions at Fredericksburg, but they

also gave Lee the opportunity to mass the majority of his available manpower

for an offensive strike.

Jackson’s ﬂank march was one of the most thoroughly successful maneu-

vers of its kind. The Rebels marched in tight formations along the narrow

roads, choked by the encroaching growth of the Wilderness. It took them

almost all day to reach the starting point of their assault on Howard. Mean-

while, the Federals discovered the movement but thought it signiﬁed a gen-

eral retreat southward. The Third Corps made a heavy reconnaissance in

force that pressured Anderson and McLaws but failed to discover or disrupt

Jackson’s plans.

Ω

The rest of Hooker’s army continued to dig in on May 2, unaware of the

impending disaster. Soldiers in the 118th Pennsylvania of the Fifth Corps

used the largest logs they could ﬁnd to build a breastwork at least three feet

high. ‘‘The men worked with the energy of despair to erect this covering,’’

reported Capt. Francis Adams Donaldson. Two days earlier, when everyone

realized they had gained an advantage over Lee, they were optimistic. Now

that orders clearly indicated a defensive battle rather than a grand sweep to

exploit the opportunity, they had become resigned to failure. ‘‘The backing

and ﬁlling plan of action, substituted for the bold aggressive one, had made

them timid and panicky,’’ Donaldson wrote. The 118th Pennsylvania had

never built ﬁeldworks before, but the men expended a lot of time and energy

on them.

∞≠

Too bad for Howard that his Eleventh Corps did not emulate the moody

Pennsylvanians. New to corps command but with a good record as a brigade

and division leader, Howard failed to protect the right ﬂank adequately.

Hooker’s staff members were aware that the Eleventh Corps was not secure,

and there was talk at army headquarters about pulling it back to connect to

the river. This would have greatly altered the Federal position but ﬁrmly

protected both ﬂanks. Howard, however, assured everyone he could hold,

and the decision was made to bolster the right ‘‘with breastwork and abatis.’’

But Howard’s men failed to fortify sufﬁciently. The works in Howard’s front

were light and intermittent, and he refused his extreme right only in the

most perfunctory way. Two regiments and two companies of a third regiment

continued the line at a right angle to the rear. They only had a bit of abatis in

their front. The terrain along Orange Turnpike is irregular with a lot of

uneven rolls, and it offered no advantage for the Federals. They needed good

Chancellorsville 179

Chancellor

House

Wilderness

Church

Bullock House

Dowdall’s

Tavern

Abatis

Posey’s Retrenched Line

(based on field

visit, 1995)

Bushbeck line

Eleventh

Corps

Fifth

Corps

Jackson’s attack,

May 2

Twelfth

Corps

Second Corps

Jackson’s flank

march, May 2

Third Corps

’

Chancellorsville, May 2, 1863

works to make this ground defensible. The only substantial work they had

was the so-called Bushbeck Line, named after brigade leader Col. Adolphus

Bushbeck. It ran north from the main line at Dowdall’s Tavern, about one

and a half miles from the western end of the line. The Bushbeck position

was quickly dug on the morning of May 2 and was not yet ﬁnished when

Jackson struck late that afternoon. The trench was so shallow that soldiers

had to kneel or lie down to be protected, and there were no artillery em-

placements; yet the line was a good traverse that could have played a large

role in stopping Jackson had it been long and deep enough. After Jackson

attacked, the Bushbeck Line quickly ﬁlled with large numbers of troops,

and a battery took position near it. The men were so crowded, in fact,

that they got in one another’s way, and the potential advantages of the work

evaporated.

∞∞

Despite the complete surprise achieved by Jackson and the relatively poor

180 Chancellorsville

state of readiness and morale in the Eleventh Corps, the Rebel ﬂank attack

could have been stopped earlier than it was if proper earthworks had been

constructed by Howard’s men. One can only assume that Howard’s position

seemed to be out of the main area of danger on May 2, that everyone be-

lieved the Rebels were retreating southward, and that even if they did at-

tack, they would most likely hit the center or the left. That complacency and

the consequent lack of proper fortiﬁcations endangered Hooker’s right wing.

The Eleventh Corps was shattered and pushed back the entire length of its

line. The Confederates even captured the rightmost one-third of the Twelfth

Corps line, which straddled Orange Turnpike north and south, before dark-

ness stalled their attack. Jackson was accidentally wounded by his own men

in the darkened thickets while reconnoitering the battleﬁeld.

The Federals worked hard to protect their shattered right ﬂank that night.

Twelfth Corps troops hastily constructed a new line of works along a slight

ravine facing west, directly in the path of the Confederates, and south of

Orange Turnpike. This new line was continued north of the pike by Maj. Gen.

Hiram G. Berry’s division of the Third Corps. The Yankees worked until 3:00

a.m., cutting abatis for at least ﬁfty feet in front of their works and using the

largest trunks to build the parapet. Division commander Williams later re-

ported that his men were ‘‘well sheltered behind logs and a slight depression

of the ground behind the woods. This artiﬁcial and natural protection saved

me hundreds of lives.’’

∞≤

Efforts apparently were made that night to connect the Twelfth Corps line

with the reserve troops to the north. Hooker had kept the First and Fifth

Corps idle that evening. The latter remained along Mineral Springs Road,

while the former was just coming onto the battleﬁeld after its march from

Fredericksburg. The First Corps reached its position along Hunting Creek

late that night and hastily dug in. The Fifth Corps spent the night construct-

ing a line of works southward from Ely’s Ford Road toward the right end of

the Twelfth Corps line. In the darkness, however, the diggers could not

determine where the right of the Twelfth Corps line ended. They extended

their works about halfway between Ely’s Ford Road and the point where the

Twelfth Corps line had existed before Jackson’s attack. The Confederates,

however, had already captured that line on the evening of May 2. As soon as

this became apparent in the confusing darkness, probably when they dis-

covered Confederate skirmishers, the Fifth Corps men stopped extending

southward.

The remnants of this putative connecting line south of Ely’s Ford Road are

well preserved. The line has a good ditch, a rare ﬁnd on the Chancellorsville

battleﬁeld. A long retrenchment was dug just before the line reached a

Chancellorsville 181

Edge of Ravine

Detached

traverse

Confederate line,

built evening of May 4

Remains of Union

retrenchment

Ditch in front

of Main Line

Fifth Corps Line, South of Ely’s Ford Road, Built Night of May 2, 1863, in Attempt to

Connect to Twelfth Corps Line, Chancellorsville (based on ﬁeld visit, 1995)

ravine. Curiously, the Federals left six feet of natural earth between the main

line and the beginning of the retrenchment, presumably to allow for the

movement of guns and troops, but they failed to dig a ditch in front of the

retrenchment. The main line continues across the shallow ravine but ends

abruptly halfway to the next ravine. On the south side of this second ravine is

the position already occupied by Jackson’s men. There is evidence of a re-

trenchment, facing south toward the Rebel position, but this connecting line

did not extend any farther south.

∞≥

Fortifying continued on other parts of the ﬁeld. The 1st Delaware of the

Second Corps was ordered up to support other troops and made ‘‘a tempo-

rary breastwork formed of knapsacks, fence rails, and bags of earth.’’ An-

182 Chancellorsville

other Second Corps regiment, the 145th Pennsylvania, took great comfort in

the protection afforded by its earthwork and abatis. The men felt they could

hold their position ‘‘by remaining calm and determined.’’ These units, ironi-

cally, were not tested by battle that morning, but they demonstrated the

growing tendency to dig in when threatened and to value the emotional

support offered by earthworks when battle was imminent.

∞∂

Maj. Gen. J. E. B. Stuart took temporary command of Jackson’s corps and

sent it into a series of poorly coordinated attacks against the Third and

Twelfth Corps on May 3. The rest of Lee’s little army also attacked that

morning in an effort to regain contact with Stuart’s men. The result was one

of the most vicious battles of the war; in the worst day of ﬁghting at Chancel-

lorsville, several of Lee’s best units were shredded. The attacks began about

6:00 a.m. and lasted all morning. The thick vegetation disrupted formations

and prevented the massing of large numbers of units, so the ﬁghting on May

3 devolved into a series of violent charges by unsupported Rebel brigades

with little artillery support. An ofﬁcer serving on the staff of Brig. Gen. John

R. Jones’s Virginia brigade called this the worst battle he had ever seen due

to the woods and the stout Union fortiﬁcations. The ‘‘enemy, with their usual

industry, had erected four lines [sic] of fortiﬁcations, in strong and well

selected positions, constructed of large logs and earth,’’ he reported to his

wife. Jones’s men were stopped by these defenses, and they refused to re-

sume the attack.

∞∑

The famous Stonewall Brigade now came up to try. Its advance also was

disrupted by the terrain, especially the abatis laid down by the Yankees. In

hard ﬁghting the Virginians managed to capture a section of the Twelfth

Corps works south of Orange Turnpike, but their brigade was ‘‘chopped to

pieces,’’ in the words of a modern historian. Stonewall’s old command lost

more this day than on any other day of its history; 493 men fell while captur-

ing one line of Union works, and the ‘‘survivors did not aggregate a full-sized

regiment.’’

∞∏

Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Ramseur’s North Carolina brigade now came up to

exploit the limited penetration achieved by the Virginians. Lt. Weldon Davis

of the 30th North Carolina wrote, ‘‘We had to charge that breastwork over

the tops and logs of those trees,’’ and they lost heavily in the process. Davis

saw infantry ﬁghting at point-blank range across the works for the ﬁrst time.

The Rebels lodged themselves just outside the parapet, but the Yankees

refused to budge; ‘‘each man would stoop down to load his gun and then

poke it over the top to shoot, then dodge back to load again, nothing be-

tween them but the thickness of the works,’’ Davis reported. Whichever side

displayed more tenacity would win a contest like this, and the Federals gave

Chancellorsville 183

way ﬁrst. Ramseur’s brigade lost more than 700 of its 1,500 men, but it

cracked open the Twelfth Corps line. The newly constructed work that ran

north and south, connecting with Berry’s line north of Orange Turnpike, was

captured.

∞π

On other parts of the Twelfth Corps line the abatis also tore apart Rebel

formations. When the attackers managed to gain a section of works near the

27th Indiana, the Hoosier regiment counterattacked and pushed the Confed-

erates back into the abatis. They ‘‘were soon thrown into the utmost con-

fusion,’’ noted regimental commander Silas Colgrove. ‘‘While endeavoring to

retreat through the brush and tree-tops, they became mixed up in a perfect

jam, our men all the time pouring in the most deadly ﬁre.’’ On another part of

the Twelfth Corps line, Posey’s brigade captured a section of Federal works,

and at least one Mississippian admired their construction. The line was ‘‘well

made of logs and earth with an abatis of from ﬁfty to one hundred ﬁfty yards

in front.’’

∞∫

The Confederate artillery had a difﬁcult time ﬁnding suitable terrain on

which to deploy. There were relatively few open spaces in the Wilderness,

and the tangle of short, thick trees obscured the view. Edward Porter Alex-

ander found only four small places where his guns could be deployed on the

night of May 2. One was only 100 feet by 200 yards in size, another was the

Plank Road itself, another was described as ‘‘only a thin place in the woods’’

(a farm lane large enough for four guns), and the last was ‘‘an isolated little

clearing’’ only 100 feet in diameter. From the latter location, Alexander could

ﬁre indirectly at Hazel Grove, a larger clearing occupied by the Federals, only

because he knew the direction and distance.

Hazel Grove was a glittering prize for Alexander. He could see it on the

morning of May 3 and called it ‘‘a beautiful position for artillery, an open

grassy ridge, some 400 yards long, extending N.E. and S.W.’’ The Twelfth

Corps line went through it. Directly in line with Hazel Grove, looking north-

eastward, one could see a similar open space called Fairview. Located south-

west of the Chancellor House, it was the concentration point for thirty-seven

Union guns that had helped to stop Jackson’s attack on the evening of May 2.

Later that night the Federals dug emplacements for the guns. The work was

begun by the artillerymen themselves, ‘‘when not engaged in ﬁring.’’ Capt.

Charles W. Squier, chief engineer of Berry’s division of the Third Corps,

brought up a pioneer company to take over the job near dawn. The works

were a series of one-gun emplacements in a line across the clearing, follow-

ing the crest of a slight rise in the ground. The parapets are semicircular,

and the gun platforms show evidence of having been dug slightly into the

ground. The main line of emplacements is long, and each position immedi-

Federal artillery emplacements at Fairview, Chancellorsville. This photograph, taken

in the 1930s, shows unrestored remnants of the Union gun emplacements. It was one of

hundreds of photographs on display at the Virginia Room Exhibit of the 1939 World’s

Fair in New York. (Courtesy of The Library of Virginia)

Chancellorsville 185

ately adjoins the other. A forward line some seventy-ﬁve yards ahead has

fewer emplacements that are about a gun’s width from each other. No ditches

are apparent at any of the emplacements. All of this indicates hasty work in

the dark and under pressure.

∞Ω

Hazel Grove was the key to the ﬁghting on May 3. It gave the Federals the

opportunity to split Stuart from the rest of Lee’s army and to exploit the

disadvantages suffered by the two isolated wings. The Confederates had to

occupy Hazel Grove in order to reunite the Army of Northern Virginia (or at

least these two portions of the army), and they had to occupy it in order to

have a good artillery platform. Today, one need only drive south from Hazel

Grove toward Catharine Furnace to see how the grove dominates the area to

the west and south.

≤≠

One of the major Union mistakes of the campaign was to give up Hazel

Grove about two hours after the ﬁghting started on May 3. Stuart told Alex-

ander to put thirty guns there. Alexander surveyed the open corridor to the

northeast and saw the Federal artillery dug in at Fairview, and beyond them

the Chancellor House about 2,000 yards from his cannon. Now began an

artillery duel that the Confederates won, partly because their infantry ad-

vanced on both ﬂanks of the Fairview position and forced the Union guns to

retire. Alexander then moved his artillery forward and used Fairview as a

platform to bombard the area around the Chancellor House. The occupation

of both open areas and Alexander’s quickness in exploiting them broke the

back of Union resistance. The Federals were driven from the crossroads by

midmorning, and the two wings of Lee’s army reunited.

≤∞

After this signal and bloody success, Lee wanted to pursue the retreating

Federals northward. But he was diverted by news that Sedgwick had sprung

into action that morning. The Sixth Corps had moved out of Fredericksburg

and captured the bluffs held by Early. Hooker’s withdrawal gave Lee an

opportunity to shift much of his army eastward to contain the Union drive.

This gave Hooker’s large force much-needed time to reform north of the

crossroads in order to protect access to United States Ford, the army’s lifeline

with the North.

≤≤

The collapse of the Fredericksburg line must have come as a surprise to

Lee, despite how thinly Early’s men were spread along the bluffs. Ironically,

the rupture occurred precisely where the easiest Confederate victory had

taken place on December 13: the stone wall at the foot of Marye’s Hill. The

Federals had learned how few Rebels crouched behind the wall and were

determined to break through. Only one regiment, the 18th Mississippi, and

three companies of the 21st Mississippi held the wall previously defended by

more than two brigades. With the rest of the 21st stationed on top of the

186 Chancellorsville

View from Hazel Grove to Fairview, Chancellorsville. The Confederates positioned

thirty guns at Hazel Grove to bombard a line of Federal guns behind hastily con-

structed ﬁeldworks at Fairview. When the Yankees withdrew, the Rebel gunners re-

placed them so as to bombard the area about the Chancellor House in a key move that

helped to win the battle. (Earl J. Hess)

height, there were no more than 1,200 men and eight guns defending the

hill. Early thought the main threat would be on his right, at Hamilton’s

Crossing, and he stationed half of his 12,700 men there. Three regiments

were on Lee’s Hill, and Wilcox’s brigade guarded Taylor’s Hill and Stans-

bury’s Hill to the north.

Sedgwick used his Sixth Corps and one division of the Second Corps, as

the First Corps had already been ordered to join Hooker. He arrayed his

27,100 men and sixty-six guns along the same line held by Burnside’s army

on December 13. The small Rebel force was divided into two lines. Even

though covered by the stone wall, the forward line was heavily outnum-

bered. The second line farther up the slope to the rear would have little

ability to hold if the ﬁrst line gave way.

Sedgwick organized three columns of attack. The northernmost would

start ﬁrst, a signal for the other two to begin. It consisted of four regi-

ments, one behind the other, headed by the 61st Pennsylvania and the 43rd

New York. Advancing from town along Orange Plank Road, this column was

pounded by eight cannon of the Washington Artillery. The Rebel gunners lay

Chancellorsville 187

Federal artillery emplacements opposite Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville campaign.

Capt. Andrew J. Russell exposed this view of three guns of Capt. Franklin M. Pratt’s

Battery M, 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery, behind emplacements on Stafford Heights.

(Library of Congress)

down such an effective ﬁre that the ﬁrst two Federal regiments were stopped

in their tracks and the following two could not get by the tangle.

The second column started a few minutes later and consisted of only two

regiments: the 7th Massachusetts and the 36th New York. They aimed at the

left end of the stone wall, held by three companies of the 21st Mississippi.

The ﬁre of these men, plus that of the 18th Mississippi to their right, stopped

this column before it came close to the wall.

The third column, however, broke through. It consisted of four regiments

arrayed in a combination of column and line. The 5th Wisconsin, 31st New

York, 23rd Pennsylvania, and 6th Maine hit the 18th Mississippi and over-

whelmed it. By hand-to-hand ﬁghting at the stone wall, the Federals secured

Telegraph Road. With retreating Confederates streaming up the slope, the

21st Mississippi also retired, and the hill was cleared.

≤≥

At least one occupying Yankee thought little of the works that had pro-

tected Marye’s Hill for ﬁve months. Capt. Henry Livermore Abbott of the 20th

Massachusetts examined the Confederate fortiﬁcations after the bluffs were

captured and thought them ‘‘of the meanest description. Nothing whatever

but riﬂe pits for the infantry, . . . which are in fact better suited for an infantry