Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
into the road. Here Captain Wilbourn, one of his staff-officers,
succeeded in catching the reins; and, as the horse stopped, Jackson
leaned forward and fell into his arms. Captain Hotchkiss, who had just
returned from a reconnaissance, rode off to find Dr. McGuire, while
Captain Wilbourn, with a small penknife, ripped up the sleeve of the
wounded arm. As he was doing so, General Hill, who had himself been
exposed to the fire of the North Carolinians, reached the scene, and,
throwing himself from his horse, pulled off Jackson’s gauntlets, which
were full of blood, and bandaged the shattered arm with a handkerchief.
“General,” he said, “are you much hurt?” “I think I am,” was the reply,
“and all my wounds are from my own men. I believe my right arm is
broken.”
To all questions put to him he answered in a perfectly calm and
self-possessed tone, and, although he spoke no word of complaint, he
was manifestly growing weaker. It seemed impossible to move him, and
yet it was absolutely necessary that he should be carried to the rear.
He was still in front of his own lines, and, even as Hill was speaking,
two of the enemy’s skirmishers, emerging from the thicket, halted
within a few paces of the little group. Hill, turning quietly to his
escort, said, “Take charge of those men,” and two orderlies, springing
forward, seized the rifles of the astonished Federals. Lieutenant
Morrison, Jackson’s aide-de-camp, who had gone down the road to
reconnoitre, now reported that he had seen a section of artillery
unlimbering close at hand. Hill gave orders that the general should be
at once removed, and that no one should tell the men that he was
wounded. Jackson, lying on Hill’s breast, opened his eyes, and said,
“Tell them simply that you have a wounded Confederate officer.”
Lieutenants Smith and Morrison, and Captain Leigh of Hill’s staff, now
lifted him to his feet, and with their aid he walked a few steps
through the trees. But hardly had they gained the road when the Federal
batteries, along their whole front, opened a terrible fire of grape and
canister. The storm of bullets, tearing through the foliage, was
fortunately directed too high, and the three young officers,
laying the general down by the roadside, endeavoured to shield him by
lying between him and the deadly hail. The earth round them was torn up
by the shot, covering them with dust; boughs fell from the trees, and
fire flashed from the flints and gravel of the roadway. Once Jackson
attempted to rise; but Smith threw his arm over him, holding him down,
and saying, “General, you must be still—it will cost you your life to
rise.”
After a few minutes, however, the enemy’s gunners, changing from
canister to shell, mercifully increased their range; and again, as the
Confederate infantry came hurrying to the front, their wounded leader,
supported by strong arms, was lifted to his feet. Anxious that the men
should not recognise him, Jackson turned aside into the wood, and
slowly and painfully dragged himself through the undergrowth. As he
passed along, General Fender, whose brigade was then pushing forward,
asked Smith who it was that was wounded. “A Confederate officer” was
the reply; but as they came nearer Fender, despite the darkness, saw
that it was Jackson. Springing from his horse, he hurriedly expressed
his regret, and added that his lines were so much disorganised by the
enemy’s artillery that he feared it would be necessary to fall back.
“At this moment,” says an eye-witness, “the scene was a fearful one.
The air seemed to be alive with the shriek of shells and the whistling
of bullets; horses riderless and mad with fright dashed in every
direction; hundreds left the ranks and hurried to the rear, and the
groans of the wounded and dying mingled with the wild shouts of others
to be led again to the assault. Almost fainting as he was from loss of
blood, desperately wounded, and in the midst of this awful uproar,
Jackson’s heart was unshaken. The words of Fender seemed to rouse him
to life. Pushing aside those who supported him, he raised himself to
his full height, and answered feebly, but distinctly enough to be heard
above the din, ‘You must hold your ground, General Fender; you must
hold out to the last, sir.’”
His strength was now completely gone, and he asked to be allowed to lie
down. His staff-officers, however,
refused assent. The shells were still crashing through the forest, and
a litter having been brought up by Captain Leigh, he was carried slowly
towards Dowdall’s Tavern. But before they were free of the tangled
wood, one of the stretcher-bearers, struck by a shot in the arm, let go
the handle. Jackson fell violently to the ground on his wounded side.
His agony must have been intense, and for the first time he was heard
to groan.
Smith sprang to his side, and as he raised his head a bright beam of
moonlight made its way through the thick foliage, and rested upon his
white and lacerated face. The aide-de-camp was startled by its great
pallor and stillness, and cried out, “General, are you seriously hurt?”
“No, Mr. Smith, don’t trouble yourself about me,” he replied quietly,
and added some words about winning the battle first, and attending to
the wounded afterwards. He was again placed upon the litter, and
carried a few hundred yards, still followed by the Federal shells, to
where his medical director was waiting with an ambulance.
Dr. McGuire knelt down beside him and said, “I hope you are not badly
hurt, General?” He replied very calmly but feebly, “I am badly injured,
doctor, I fear I am dying.” After a pause he went on, “I am glad you
have come. I think the wound in my shoulder is still bleeding.” The
bandages were readjusted and he was lifted into the ambulance, where
Colonel Crutchfield, who had also been seriously wounded, was already
lying. Whisky and morphia were administered, and by the light of pine
torches, carried by a few soldiers, he was slowly driven through the
fields where Hooker’s right had so lately fled before his impetuous
onset. All was done that could ease his sufferings, but some jolting of
the ambulance over the rough road was unavoidable; “and yet,” writes
Dr. McGuire, “his uniform politeness did not forsake him even in these
most trying circumstances. His complete control, too, over his mind,
enfeebled as it was by loss of blood and pain, was wonderful. His
suffering was intense; his hands were cold, his skin clammy. But not a
groan escaped him—not a sign of suffering, except the
light corrugation of the brow, the fixed, rigid face, the thin lips, so
tightly compressed that the impression of the teeth could be seen
through them. Except these, he controlled by his iron will all evidence
of emotion, and, more difficult than this even, he controlled that
disposition to restlessness which many of us have observed upon the
battle-field as attending great loss of blood. Nor was he forgetful of
others. He expressed very feelingly his sympathy for Crutchfield, and
once, when the latter groaned aloud, he directed the ambulance to stop,
and requested me to see if something could not be done for his relief.
“After reaching the hospital, he was carried to a tent, and placed in
bed, covered with blankets, and another drink of whisky and water given
him. Two hours and a half elapsed before sufficient reaction took place
to warrant an examination, and at two o’clock on Sunday morning I
informed him that chloroform would be given him; I told him also that
amputation would probably be required, and asked, if it was found
necessary, whether it should be done at once. He replied promptly,
‘Yes, certainly, Dr. McGuire, do for me whatever you think best.’
“Chloroform was then administered, and the left arm amputated about two
inches below the shoulder. Throughout the whole of the operation, and
until all the dressings were applied, he continued insensible. About
half-past three, Colonel (then Major) Pendleton arrived at the
hospital. He stated that General Hill had been wounded, and that the
troops were in great disorder. General Stuart was in command, and had
sent him to see the general. At first I declined to permit an
interview, but Pendleton urged that the safety of the army and success
of the cause depended upon his seeing him. When he entered the tent the
general said, ‘Well, Major, I am glad to see you; I thought you were
killed.’ Pendleton briefly explained the position of affairs, gave
Stuart’s message, and asked what should be done. Jackson was at once
interested, and asked in his quick way several questions. When they
were answered, he remained silent, evidently trying to think; he
contracted his brow, set his mouth,
and for some moments lay obviously endeavouring to concentrate his
thoughts. For a moment we believed he had succeeded, for his nostrils
dilated, and his eye flashed with its old fire, but it was only for a
moment: his face relaxed again, and presently he answered, very feebly
and sadly: ‘I don’t know—I can’t tell; say to General Stuart he must do
what he thinks best.’ Soon after this he slept.”
So, leaving behind him, struggling vainly against the oppression of his
mortal hurt, the one man who could have completed the Confederate
victory, Pendleton rode wearily through the night. Jackson’s fall, at
so critical a moment, just as the final blow was to be delivered, had
proved a terrible disaster. Hill, who alone knew his intention of
moving to the White House, had been wounded by a fragment of shell as
he rode back to lead his troops. Boswell, who had been ordered to point
out the road, had been killed by the same volley which struck down his
chief, and the subordinate generals, without instructions and without
guides, with their men in disorder, and the enemy’s artillery playing
fiercely on the forest, had hesitated to advance. Hill, remaining in a
litter near the line of battle, had sent for Stuart. The cavalry
commander, however, was at some distance from the field. Late in the
evening, finding it impossible to employ his command at the front, he
had been detached by Jackson, a regiment of infantry supporting him, to
take and hold Ely’s Ford. He had already arrived within view of a
Federal camp established at that point, and was preparing to charge the
enemy, under cover of the night, when Hill’s messenger recalled him.
When Stuart reached the front he found the troops still halted, Rodes
and Colston reforming on the open fields near Dowdall’s Tavern, the
Light Division deployed within the forest, and the generals anxious for
their own security.
So far the attack had been completely successful, but Lee’s lack of
strength prevented the full accomplishment of his design. Had
Longstreet been present, with Pickett and Hood to lead his splendid
infantry, the
Third Corps and the Twelfth would have been so hardly pressed that
Chancellorsville, Hazel Grove, and the White House would have fallen an
easy prize to Jackson’s bayonets. Anderson, with four small brigades,
was powerless to hold the force confronting him, and marching rapidly
northwards, Sickles had reached Hazel Grove before Jackson fell. Here
Pleasonton, with his batteries, was still in position, and Hooker had
not yet lost his head. As soon as Birney’s and Whipple’s divisions had
come up, forming in columns of brigades behind the guns, Sickles was
ordered to assail the enemy’s right flank and check his advance. Just
before midnight the attack was made, in two lines of battle, supported
by strong columns. The night was very clear and still; the moon, nearly
full, threw enough light into the woods to facilitate the advance, and
the tracks leading north-west served as lines of direction.
The attack, however, although gallantly made, gained no material
advantage. The preliminary movements were plainly audible to the