Author: William Henry Locke

Publisher: Theclassics.Us

Published: 2013-09

Total Pages: 88

ISBN-13: 9781230389523

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1868 edition. Excerpt: ...Compelled to retire from his first line at Chancellorville by the breaking of the Eleventh Corps, there was an equally disastrous failure on the part of General Sedgwick to carry out the operations assigned to him. Instead of uniting his forces with those on the right, the advantage of the capture of Fredericksburg hights was all lost; and to save his command from destruction or capture, Sedgwick was compelled to retire by way of Bank's Ford to the north side of the Rappahannock. Hooker now determined to withdraw from Chancellorville. The movement was to commence on Monday night. But a heavy rainstorm, swelling the river to flood-hight, and making it necessary to take up one of the pontoon bridges to lengthen the remaining two, delayed the crossing until Tuesday. The retrograde march was from left of the line to right. Early Wednesday morning Colonel Coulter was ordered to call in the Eleventh, still on picket, as quietly as possible. An hour later, the regiment was concentrated in the intrenchments, now abandoned by all but the One-hundred-and-seventh Pennsylvania. We were the rear-guard of the army. Moving quickly back toward the river, with flanks and rear protected by a strong line of skirmishers, of all the thousands of men who had marched over that ground, and the hundreds of wagons and artillery that were going and coming night and day for a week past, nothing was to be seen. The fire that blazed so furiously in the midnight of Saturday, had burned far into the woods, leaving the road-side lined with charred and smouldering tree trunks, while here and there a noble oak, growing among its meaner kind, and more tenacious of life than they, presented in that early morning a heart still glowing with fire. Not a foe followed our...