Addressing Gettysburg: NARRATIVE EPISODE 1: "Introduction: Antietam to Chancellorsville"

NARRATIVE EPISODE 1: "Introduction: Antietam to Chancellorsville"

Jun 6, 2019

The Battle of Gettysburg can trace its origins back to September of 1862 when Robert E Lee audaciously lead his Army of Northern Virginia on an invasion of the North.

Since taking command in June of 1862, Lee had beaten back Major General George B McClellan’s Army of the Potomac and secured the Confederate capital of Richmond during the peninsula campaign. He then moved to Northern Virginia where he thrashed Major General John Pope’s Union Army of Virginia in August at the battle of Second Manassas.

After this victory, Lee strategically chose to keep his aggressive momentum going rather than settle into a defensive posture around Richmond. So he turned his attention to Northern Territory; specifically, Pennsylvania, probably, Harrisburg. This, Lee knew, would draw the Union Army out of Virginia.

By September 16, Harpers Ferry had fallen and Jackson’s Corps, save A.P. Hill’s Division, which was en route from Harpers Ferry, had been reunited with Longstreet and Lee on the bluffs along the Antietam Creek outside of Sharpsburg, Maryland. Early that misty morning, Confederate guns opened fire from the high ground northwest of town.

The bloodiest 12 hour period in American history was underway. When it was all over, 23,000 Americans would be killed, wounded or missing.

The battle of Antietam is considered a draw and Lee withdrew his Army back into Virginia.

General George McClellan sat on his laurels and failed to pursue and crush Lee’s army. Lincoln had had enough. By November, Lincoln fired McClellan. Taking his place was Ambrose E Burnside, a General who is best described as “a modest man with much to be modest about”. This description betrays his flamboyant and unique facial hair styling, which may have given birth to the term sideburns. Upon taking command, Burnside planned an aggressive offensive against Richmond, Virginia by way of Fredericksburg. But this boldness was immediately met with troubles crossing the Rappahannock River, mainly because of delayed pontoon bridges. This gave Robert E Lee time to entrench his army on Marye’s Heights behind the town of Fredericksburg.

On December 13, Burnside ordered the battle begin. Orders from Burnside were to “send a division or more” in an effort to seize the high ground west of Fredericksburg. The approach was fraught with difficulties: fences, gardens, a canal, narrow bridges over the canal and scattered homes, barns and, eventually, the fallen, all promised to break up and slow the Federal advance over the open plain.

Longstreet’s men were hidden behind a stone wall that ran along a sunken road at the base of the heights, known at that time as the Telegraph Road. Major General Lafayette McLaws had about 2000 men on the front line and an additional 7000 reserves on the crest of and behind Marye’s Heights. Batteries pointing in every possible direction had very few target-deficient spots on the Union approaches.

As soon as Union troops came out of the city, they came under artillery fire. Next Major General Winfield Scott Hancock’s Division’s emerged to suffer the same fate as French’s. The Irish Brigade, commanded by Brigadier General Thomas Francis Meagher, was first to go up.

Before going into battle, Meagher addressed his men, saying, “This may be my last speech to you, but I will be with you when the battle is the fiercest; and, if I fall, I can say I did my duty, and fell fighting in the most glorious of causes.” His men gave him three cheers. Meagher remained behind, naming a bum knee as the cause.

On the order: “Shoulder arms, right face, forward, double quick, march!” The Irishmen raced toward the enemy.

Immediately they came under artillery fire.

One well-placed Confederate shell exploded among the 88th NY, taking out 18 men.

The Confederate line opened fire with a galling sheet of flame.

MULHOLLAND: "Officers and men fell in rapid succession," wrote Lt. Col. St. Clair Mulholland of the 116th Pennsylvania Volunteers. "Lieutenant Garrett Nowlen fell with a ball through the thigh. Major Bardwell fell badly wounded; and a ball whistled through Lieutenant Bob McGuire's lungs. Lieutenant Christian Foltz fell dead, with a ball through the brain. The orderly sergeant of Company H wheeled around, gazed upon Lieutenant Quinlan, and a great stream of blood poured from a hole in his forehead."

By day’s end, Burnside sent Seven Union divisions against Marye’s Heights, one brigade at a time, making a total of fourteen individual charges, each of which failed, costing the United States Army around 7500 casualties. The total Union casualties is the Battle of Fredericksburg were well over 12,000

Confederate losses at Marye's Heights totaled around 1,200 and their total losses in the battle were just over 5000.

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Major General Joseph Hooker came to command the Army of the Potomac by undermining Ambrose Burnside in any way he could while politicking and forming a band of Hooker-loyalists within the high command of the army. Being fully aware of this and in spite of it, Lincoln gave Hooker the command.

For all his bombast, “Fighting Joe” Hooker played a crucial role in the evolution and condition of the Army of the Potomac. Upon taking command, Hooker implemented changes that made the army easier to manage and that improved the health and morale of its troops.

“I have the finest army on the planet,” Hooker boasted. “I have the finest army the sun ever shone on. ... If the enemy does not run, God help them. May God have mercy on General Lee, for I will have none.”

Joe Hooker was plotting and planning a great campaign that would take his army across the Rappahannock yet again, but this time, not straight at the city of Fredericksburg like his predecessor did.

Instead, Hooker would hold a portion of his army, under Major General John Sedgwick, at Falmouth, across from the city, while marching the remainder north to swing down on Lee’s flank.

Lee, on the other hand, had sent almost half of his army away on a foraging mission under the command of Lieutenant General James Longstreet. This had to be done because the Confederate army was always plagued by shortages in food, clothing and other supplies and equipment. Remaining with Lee were the men of Stonewall Jackson’s corps and two of Longstreet’s divisions.

Hooker had Lee outnumbered two to one. Moreover, Hooker had gotten his army safely across the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers and on Lee’s flank. All that was left to do was crush Lee’s smaller Army of Northern Virginia and march on down to Richmond.

If only it were that easy.

On the night of May 1, Lee and Jackson held a council of war to decide on what to do next. Something needed to be done. They were badly outnumbered. Jackson told Lee that Hooker’s right flank was “in the air”- a term meaning that it wasn’t anchored by a topographical feature like a hill or a river-- and that he knew of a road that could conceal his troops as he moved them on a flanking march of the Army of the Potomac.

When Lee asked which of his troops Jackson would require for the operation, Jackson’s reply was simply: “All of them.”

And so the next day, Jackson lead his men, some 30,000 strong, on a dozen-mile march around the Union right.

Holding the Union right, for now, was the pious Major General Oliver Otis Howard’s XI Corps, made up mostly of German immigrants.

By afternoon, reports filtered in to Howard’s headquarters and to Hooker’s about Confederate troops being spotted to the west of Howard’s position, which was facing south.

Three colonels in Howards corps reported personally to headquarters. All three reported being laughed at and sent away.

Late in the afternoon, as Howard’s men were preparing coffee and food, a massive wave of deer, turkeys, rabbits and the like came charging out of the woods.

At first, the Union troops laughed and jeered, some probably thought of what a nice meal some of the animals might provide. But their amusement wouldn’t last long, for, hot on the heels [BEGIN FADE IN OF REBEL YELL, MUSKETRY, MEN RUNNING] of the wildlife came the wild-eyed troops of Robert Rodes’ Confederate division. Howard’s XI Corps was caught totally off-guard.

Rode’s rebels swept through the Yankee camps as eleventh corps soldiers fled for safety.

Just five Union regiments offered resistance...until they, too, caved to the massive gray wave.

Nightfall brought an end to Jackson’s attack. Jackson, however, wasn’t ready for it to end and took to taking a personal reconnaissance of the enemy positions in hopes of making a rare night attack. Upon returning to his lines, Jackson and his staff were mistaken for enemy cavalry by Confederate pickets and were fired upon. Two of his aides were killed. Jackson was hit twice in the left arm and once in the right hand. While carrying him off on a littler, the litter-bearers tripped and fell, dumping Jackson off the litter on his left side. AP Hill was now in command, but he would soon be wounded through the calves and command of Jackson’s Corps went to Lee’s Cavalry commander, General James Ewell Brown “JEB” Stuart.

Outnumbered over two to one, Robert E. Lee won his “perfect battle”. Casualties for the Army of Northern Virginia were more than it had taken at Antietam. Of the roughly 60,000 men engaged, over 13,000 were casualties.But that was 21 and a half percent.

Arguably the costliest casualty of the battle of Chancellorsville was that of Stonewall Jackson. Upon learning of Jackson’s loss of his arm, Lee famously said that Jackson “has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right.”

Stonewall Jackson’s wounds resulted in the amputation of his left arm. By May 9th, he was in repose at the office of Thomas Chandler’s Fairfield Plantation in Guinea Station, Virginia. His wounds were healing much to the satisfaction of his young surgeon, Doctor Hunter McGuire, but, along his road to recovery, Jackson had developed pneumonia. Doctor McGuire had consulted other doctors and Jackson’s prognosis was grim: he would die within the day.

“Presently a smile of ineffable sweetness spread itself over his pale face, and he cried quietly and with an expression as if of relief, ‘Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees’; and then, without pain or the least struggle, his spirit passed from earth to the God who gave it.”-- Dr. Hunter McGuire

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